6 Freak Natural Disasters That Were The Stuff Of Nightmares

Nobody knows what triggered it, but on August 21st, 1986, the lake exploded -- actually exploded. A column of water over 300 feet high erupted into the air, and with it, enough gas to cause a small genocide. Hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide shat out at 60 miles an hour, while a mini-tsunami of water cascaded down at the same time. When the air cleared, 1,746 people were dead. The nearby town of Nyos had 800 residents, and only six survived the lakesplosion.

In 2001, French scientists finally figured out a way to make sure Lake Nyos would never kill again. The bottom of the lake now hosts pipes that carry a constant stream of gas far away. Plus, an alarm system has also been installed to warn the lakeside villages in case the silent killer returns, giving them some time to sprint 15 miles to avoid being lake-farted to death.

Not even the most seasoned sailors were ready for a pounding from a hurricane that also shit out blizzards. Over the span of a long weekend, a dozen major shipwrecks occurred, the greatest U.S. inland maritime disaster to date. Cleveland and other major cities nearby were annihilated by the event, buried in feet of snow. When the White Hurricane ended its four-day spree, the death toll was over 250.

Cleveland Memory Project/Wiki Commons

But there is a silver lining. Because everyone had been caught so pants-around-the-ankles off-guard by the disaster, it led to rapid improvements in shipping communication, storm preparedness, and weather prediction. This proved particularly effective a hundred years later, when Hurricane Sandy merged into its own superstorm. However, thanks to the lessons learned from the 1913 "White Hurricane" and simulations of it which forecasters ran years later, Sandy was stopped from being way worse. Like, Walking Dead-level worse.

Back in the ancient days, Earth's landmasses were a big tight family. Such is the case with Britain, which until 8,000 years ago was at best a peninsula. Back then, what are now the English Channel, Irish Sea, and North Sea were dry land, serving as umbilical cords to Mother Europe. However, when the last Ice Age waned and the ice caps melted, the region started developing the much milder, moister climate they love to complain about today.

BBC

Slowly but deliberately, the lowlands of Britain started flooding. That wasn't a massive issue for the roughly 5,000 hunter-gatherers inhabiting the region, as moving around was kind of their thing anyway. But then, around 6100 BCE, some kind of gargantuan landslide is thought to have occurred somewhere in Norway, causing a big-ass tsunami to hit Britain. Which was bad news for anything with limbs, because, as one geologist put it, "Anyone standing out on the mud flats at that time would have been dismembered."

The northeast part of the county took the biggest hit, with 33-foot-high waves destroying everything and everyone in its path. In Scotland, scientists recently found a remnant of the moment this incredible event took place: a layer of ancient sand that crashed in what should have been a continuous bank of clay. Water traveled 25 miles inland, instantly creating the three large bodies of water we mentioned earlier. The surviving people who had migrated far enough inland were at once cut off from the continent. If they were anything like their descendants, that suited them fine.

A few years ago, Floridian Jeffrey Bush was sleeping in his home when a sinkhole opened directly under him. The hole was 20 feet deep and 15 feet wide, swallowing Bush, and the entire room, whole. His body was never recovered, but after several attempts by both Jeffrey's brother and first responders, they had to conclude he was either dead or living out a great Jules Vernian adventure in the bowels of the earth. Devoid of hope and with such extensive damage to the grounds, the remains of the house were demolished and the giant gap was unceremoniously filled in with gravel.

And then it opened up again.

Dirk Shadd/Tampa Bay Times

In 2016, a sinkhole appeared at the very same spot that took Bush's life only two years prior. Authorities confirmed it was the same sinkhole, which clearly had unfinished business in this world. It goes to show that filling a hole that can swallow dirt with more dirt might not be the best solution. Basically, you're feeding the hole.

Unfortunately, sinkholes are an all-too-common occurrence in Florida. Most of the state has great reserves of flimsy limestone under its surface. When water hits limestone, it pretty much dissolves, which is definitely a hazard for a region that's mostly swamps and coastline. Floridians better hope that the U.S. gets serious about climate change soon, because if those sea levels keep rising, the entire state is going to dissolve like an Alka-Seltzer.

Nowhere was safe. Cars were thrown in the paths of oncoming trucks because of the gale winds. Two trains collided when signals on the tracks couldn't be seen. The whole economy of the region turned into a wreck itself. Iowa was one of the leading producers of apples in those days, but when the storm barreled through the state, apple trees were uprooted and frozen by the hundreds. With the worldwide instability of 1940 (looking at you there, Germany), the state had neither the money nor the extra labor to plant new orchards. So the Iowa you know nowadays, with its fast-growing, efficient corn and soybean crops, came about because of one motherfucker of a storm deciding that apples weren't its thing.

Often, these explosions resulted in a few casualties, some damaged property, and a new wanted ad for a priest. But sometimes the results were calamitous. In 1769, the town of Brescia, Italy found out that storing all of its firepower in one place is a good way to lose your town. The council had vaults which stored 100 tons of gunpowder, so when lightning struck the tower of the church where it was held, it set off an explosion that even made God wince. One-sixth of the city was flattened, and 3,000 people were killed.

A hundred years later, the apparently stupid practice of storing explosives in vaults hadn't yet died. On November 9th, 1856, on the Greek island of Rhodes, lightning hit the steeple of the Cathedral of Saint Jean, coursed its way down to the vaults, and set fire to a gigantic cache of boom-boom. In mere seconds, the cathedral was turned into rubble and the city into a crater. 4,000 people perished, and most of the town was completely blown away.

For how religious people were back then, it's weird that no one figured that if your churches keep exploding because of lightning strikes, it might mean that God doesn't like you keeping your explosives in his house.

Justin kills people unexpectedly with chuckles on his site here. Talk baseball stats with him on Twitter.

Also check out The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You) and 7 Horrible Ways The Universe Can Destroy Us Without Warning.

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