Naturally Disastrous Trivia Quiz

Answer: Flea-carrying rodents

The Oriental Rat-Flea has been identified as the main disease vector. The 'Yersinia pestis' bacterium is transferred during a flea bite. The plague reached its peak in Europe during the period 1348 to 1350. Worldwide, 75 million to 100 million people are believed to have died from the plague in the 14th century, perhaps as much as 50% of the population in Europe. This pandemic carried on for several centuries.

Catapulting plague-infected bodies into a city during the Siege of Caffa in 1346 is amongst the earliest known examples of germ warfare. Those who escaped this Crimean city to Genoa in Italy are probably responsible for bringing the plague into Europe.

Answer: Tsunami waves

The eruption created a number of tsunami waves which inundated the coasts of Java and Sumatra, reaching many kilometres inland. The villages in the western tip of Sumatra were wiped out and a 30 centimetre layer of ash deposited. This now forms part of Ujung Kulon National Park, taking in the western tip of Sumatra as well as various islands including Krakatoa. It is now the last refuge of the Javan Rhinocerous.

During the eruption two-thirds of the island disappeared although a significant chunk of it has now regrown.

Some people suggest that the colours of the sky in Edvard Munch's "The Scream", painted in 1893, reflect the atmospheric conditions over Norway as a result of the eruptions.

Answer: Plague of locusts

The 2004 plague of locusts was the first to reach Egypt for 50 years, brought on by an unusual amount of rain during late 2003 in North West Africa which allowed several breeding cycles. One swarm in Morocco was 230 km long by 150 metres wide and contained an estimated 69 billion locusts.

The locust involved is the Desert Locust. Normally leading a solitary life, with sufficient rain the female locusts start laying eggs in the sand. If there is a sufficient density of them, the hoppers (juvenile locusts) cause several metabolic and behavioural changes in each other such as colour changes and they issue an attractant pheromone which leads to swarming. They are voracious eaters, eating their own body weight in a day and threatening food security in those countries they choose to visit. Over $400 million was spent on fighting the 2004 plague and crop losses were assessed at $2.5 billion.

Answer: Fire

The plague affected London most years in the first half of the 17th century with peak years of 1603, 1625 and 1636 recording deaths of 35,000, 30,000 and 10,000 respectively. The 1665 episode of plague was the last and worst in Britain during this phase of the pandemic. A warm winter meant rat population had boomed and the plague-carrying flea was able to move around the densely-populated city freely. The Great Fire of London in September 1666 gutted the city within most of the walled area and the areas worst affected by the plague, namely the slums.

Of those infected, the majority would typically die. People still catch the plague in modern times. Some antibiotics are effective and can reduce mortality to less than 15%.

Answer: Science of seismology

A lot of soul searching occurred after this earthquake. It happened on a major religious holiday and so people wondered if this was divine retribution for something. Most people rejected this when they noted the red light district in Lisbon was relatively unscathed. Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, attempted to develop a theory for the causes of earthquakes following the Lisbon earthquake.

However, it was the Prime Minister Sebastiăo de Melo who is credited with beginning the science when he had a questionnaire about the earthquake and its effects completed by all the regions of the country.

The information gleaned has enabled a modern scientific analysis of the event.

Answer: James Polk

James Polk stepped down after his first term. Work had taken its toll on his health and he is believed to have picked up cholera in New Orleans during a farewell tour. He lived for 101 days beyond his presidency. In the same period there were cholera outbreaks in England, Wales, France, Ireland and Mexico, claiming hundreds of thousand of lives between them. Immigrant ships are thought to have brought this outbreak into St Louis and New Orleans.

King Charles X of France was another famous cholera victim, dying in 1836.

Answer: Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a low-lying country bordering India on the east and which at the time of the cyclone in November 1970 was East Pakistan, a provincial state of Pakistan. With an estimated death toll of between 300,000 and 500,000, most of the deaths were caused by storm surges swamping islands in the Ganges delta.

The poor response of predominantly West Pakistani government to the disaster helped to inflame Bengali nationalism and contributed to the Bangladesh Liberation War which started in March 1971, followed by the Indo-Pakistani War of December 1971. The surrender of Pakistani forces in the same month led to the formation on Bangladesh.

Bangladesh was hit again by a cyclone in 1991 with a loss of life of 138,866 and leaving 10 million homeless. Hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones continue to reek havoc around the planet each year.

Answer: Press freedom in Spain

Wartime censors suppressed the bad news in countries like Germany, France, Britain and the United States to minimise the effect on morale. Lack of censorship in neutral Spain gave the impression that Spain was particularly badly hit by the influenza.

It is not clear where the outbreak originated.

Answer: Edward Jenner

The original meaning of the word 'vaccination' is derived from 'vacca', Latin for cow. What is the connection you may ask? The connection is that in 1796 Edward Jenner used cowpox to provide the innoculant. It was recognised by some, particularly in farming circles, that those who had already had cowpox were immune to smallpox. Milk maids were noted for having better skin as they did not suffer the scarring that smallpox survivors had. Jenner tested this on an eight-year-old boy (who proved immune to smallpox after vaccination) and published the results.

A form of inoculation called variolation (where powdered smallpox scabs were inhaled by people) had been used in China for centuries and something similar in India possibly for thousands of years. Up to two and half percent of people died from the innoculation, compared to none for the vaccination. The death rate from smallpox was typically 20 to 30%. The vaccination can cause complications in some people and death in around 0.0002 percent of people.

Louis Pasteur created the first vaccines for anthrax and rabies. He is reportedly responsible for the term 'vaccination' being used for innoculation against other diseases. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin and Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for polio.

Answer: Alaska

The tsunami was caused by an earthquake-triggered landslide. The tsunami snapped off all trees up to the 520 metre contour opposite and stripped soil to bedrock around the Bay. Many of these trees had diameters of 1.8 metres (six feet). The tsunami is estimated to have been travelling at up to 600 mph. Of the three fishing boats anchored in the Bay, two rode out the waves and their crew survived. Two died.

It is believed that the asteroid which formed the Chicxulub crater in Yucatán is likely to have generated three kilometer high tsunamis!