Blood, Sweat & Fear Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gujarat earthquake

In the morning of January 26th, 2001, an earthquake struck the Kutch district of the state of Gujarat in India. The epicenter was closest to the village of Chobari (about 9km away), but the much larger city of Bhuj (approx. 20km from the epicenter) was devastated, and had the highest number of casualties. For this reason, this quake was also dubbed the Bhuj earthquake.

The numbers are quite varied, with estimates between 13,805 to 20,023 dead, plus another 167,000 people injured. The earthquake was also devastating to infrastructure, as nearly 340,000 buildings were destroyed from over one million damaged. In Bhuj, about 40% of the city's structures were severely damaged or fully collapsed, including eight schools and two hospitals.

Answer: European heatwave

For a full month, extending from July 20th to August 20th in 2003, Southern Europe experienced a heatwave the likes of which hadn't been seen since the 16th century! And in a region of the world that rarely sees extended stretches of high heat, many people were woefully unprepared.

Multiple countries were affected, but the hardest hit were Italy (around 20,000 heat-related deaths), France (between 15,000 and 19,000), and Spain (about 13,000). And while these were not the only countries to record heat-related deaths, the remaining countries that reported heat-related deaths were significantly lower (2,000 or less). These included the Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K.

In addition to the devastating loss of life, the heatwave had a huge impact on agriculture, fish stocks and general commerce, with droughts and even glaciers melting in the Alps.

Answer: Hurricane Jeanne

Hurricane Jeanne was a Category 3 hurricane that formed in the Atlantic basin as a tropical storm on September 13th, 2004. As the 'J' name indicates, it was the tenth named storm (and seventh hurricane) of the season, and was considered the deadliest hurricane since 1998's Hurricane Mitch.

After passing over Puerto Rico, Tropical Storm Jeanne was upgraded to hurricane status on September 16th as it reached the island of Hispaniola. Just a day later, the storm was downgraded back to a tropical storm and moved towards the US coast. On September 20th it was upgraded again to hurricane status, and five days later achieved major hurricane status (Cat 3), as it rolled over the Bahamas. On the 26th, Jeanne hit Hutchinson Island near Stuart, Florida, after which it moved inland and reached Tampa Bay before once again being downgraded to the status of tropical storm.

While Jeanne did affect many different areas, it hit Haiti particularly hard. There were eight deaths reported in Puerto Rico, 18 deaths in the Dominican Republic, and five in the United States. Haiti lost more than 3,000.

Outside of the tragic loss of life, the estimated cost of physical damage due to Hurricane Jeanne was $7.4 billion.

Answer: Indian Ocean earthquake & tsunami

The early morning of December 26th, 2004, an undersea megathrust earthquake struck off of the west coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. With a magnitude of 9.1, the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake created a tidal wave that would affect more than a dozen countries with waves reaching 30 m (100 ft) high.

The "Boxing Day Tsunami" was one of the most devastating natural disasters in history. As far as the countries affected, Indonesia suffered the most deaths (167,540), followed by Sri Lanka (35,322), India (16,269), Thailand (8,212), Somalia (289), Maldives (108), Malaysia (75), Myanmar (61) and Tanzania (13). Two each died in Bangladesh, Seychelles, South Africa and Yemen, and one died in Kenya. And of those numbers, there were nearly 40 other countries affected as their citizens were killed while traveling over the Christmas holidays.

Answer: Hurricane Katrina

On August 23rd, 2005, a tropical depression formed over the Bahamas, upgrading the next day to Tropical Storm Katrina. It tracked west and made landfall in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane on August 25th. After crossing Florida and entering the Gulf of Mexico, it rapidly upgraded to a Level 5 hurricane as it approached the northern Gulf Coast.

Fortunately, the storm lessened in intensity before striking southeastern Louisiana, but even so it had devastating effects, hitting the coast as a Level 3 hurricane on August 29th, with wind speeds of over 225 km/h (140 mph), while winds gusted to over 160 km/h (100 mph) in New Orleans, just west of the eye. By August 31st, 80% of New Orleans was flooded.

In the aftermath of the storm, Katrina was responsible for 1,833 fatalities and roughly $108 billion USD in damage.

Answer: Kashmir Earthquake

On October 8th, 2005, just before 9 a.m., an 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the Azad Kashmir region, centred near the city of Muzaffarabad.

The devastation caused by the strong earthquake was widespread, with a horrid cost in human life. According to the Pakistani government, the official death toll was 87,350, with approximately an additional 138,000 injured and over 3.5 million made homeless.

While less severely affected, Indian casualties also amounted to 1,350 people were killed and 6,266 injured (in Indian administered Kashmir). In Afghanistan, there were four deaths attributed to the earthquake.

Answer: Yogyakarta Earthquake

Also known as the Bantul Earthquake, the Yogyakarta Earthquake struck in the wee hours of the morning (5:54 a.m.) on May 27th, 2006 with a magnitude of 6.4. The epicenter was 20 south-southeast of Yogyakarta on the Indonesian island of Java.

Although not as strong as some earthquakes, this one was particularly devastating for the region, with 5,749 people killed, 38,568 injured, and as many as 600,000 people displaced. The financial estimate of loss was estimated at approximately $3.1 billion USD.

Answer: Cyclone Sidr

"Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm" Sidr was the fourth-named storm of the season for the North Indian Ocean in 2007, and this one was most devastating to Bangladesh. It formed in the Bay of Bengal on November 11th, and had reached Category 5 status. The cyclone made landfall on November 15th.

Despite preparations that involved evacuating 2 million people from vulnerable coastal areas, there was still a heavy toll in loss of life, with the death toll estimated at around 15,000. In addition, there was a high amount of structural damage, estimated at $2.3 billion USD.

Answer: Cyclone Nargis

"Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm" Nargis, recorded as the worst national disaster to strike Myanmar, first formed on April 27th as the first-named storm of the 2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season. The Category 4 cyclone struck Myanmar on May 2nd, pushing a storm surge as far as 40 km (25 mi) up the Irrawady delta.

As a highly-populated area, the casualties were very high, with an estimated 138,373 fatalities (although there were allegations that the government under reported those numbers to minimize political fallout), with damage estimated to be above $12 billion USD.

Answer: Great Sichuan earthquake

Measuring a magnitude of 8.0, the Great Sichuan earthquake rocked the Sichuan province of China in the afternoon of May 12th, 2008. The epicenter was located 80 km (50 mi) west-northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu, but was felt as far away as Beijing (1,500 km / 930 mi away) and Shanghai (1,700 km / 1,060 mi away).

This deadly earthquake took the lives of a reported 87,587 people, with an additional 374,643 injured and 18,392 missing. The many accompanying geohazards (landslides and quake lakes) accounted for approximately one third of all the reported deaths, and contributed to more than 5 million homeless in the aftermath. The estimated cost of the cataclysm was $150 billion USD.