Powerful Ten

It is cold today; cold enough to reconfigure the anatomy of a brass monkey, as I believe the saying goes. I love it. Winter is my favourite season (with my other favourites being Spring, Summer and Autumn...). Everything’s sparkly and snowy and sometimes festive, and there’s a plethora of knitwear about. Who doesn’t love a mitten? (Or two…as I discovered at the bus stop in town today, one glove doesn’t do much.) Winter is the best season, and the weather is brilliant.

Or sometimes, it isn’t. You know how sometimes, a load of things happen at once for no reason - a series of coincidences that surprise you? 25 November is a very coincidental day, as today in History there have been no fewer than ten natural or weather related disasters. It is not, therefore, a very cheerful day...

The events started in 1343, when an earthquake in the Tyrrhenian Sea (the bit of water off Italy’s west coast, between the country and Sardinia) caused a tsunami, which devastated the cities of Naples and Amalfi. Another earthquake, in 1667 hit Shemakha, an Azerbaijani city, killing around 80,000 people.

A few years later, in 1703, Britain was hit by what was possibly the worst weather related event in the country’s history. A massive storm struck, the peak period of which lasted until 27 November, with winds of up to 120mph almost constantly. It was very imaginatively named the Great Storm of 1703 (complete with Very Important Capitalisation) and must have been pretty horrible, really. Though the worst was over by 27 November, the winds did not fully die down until 2 December. Between 8,000 and 15,000 people are estimated to have been killed by it, including around 2,000 seamen (the worst affected areas were the South and West of the country, where most of the main navy bases were). 13 naval ships were completely destroyed and the New Forest lost 4,000 oak trees. Queen Anne herself had to shelter in a cellar to avoid the lead that was falling off the roof of Westminster Abbey. I know the British like to moan about the weather, but I think that this time we might just have been justified.

Fifty odd years later, in 1759, another earthquake rocked the Mediterranean which killed between 30,000 and 40,000 people in Beirut, and another massive earthquake struck in 1833, this under the sea near Sumatra. It is estimated to have measured between 8.7 and 9.2 on the Richter scale, and caused a huge tsunami all along the Indonesian coast.

Six years later, in 1839, around 300,000 Indians were killed when a cyclone caused a massive storm surge that destroyed 20,000 ships and the port of Coringa, which has never fully been rebuilt since the event.

Almost 100 years of ‘safe’ 25 Novembers passed, until, in 1926, there was the deadliest November tornado outbreak in American history. 51 people were killed in Arkansas alone, where an F4 tornado hit Heber Springs. Around the rest of the Midwest, another 25 people were killed and around 400 injured as a result of 27 further twisters. It was Thanksgiving Day then, too. Another Thanksgiving Day tragedy occurred in 1982 when an entire city block was destroyed by fire in Minneapolis, though fortunately this time there were no deaths. This was not the case in 1987 when a category 5 storm, Typhoon Nina, hit the Philippines, killing 1,036 people, nor in 1996 when an ice storm hit the central US and killed 26 people.

So this year, for Thanksgiving (even though I am not an American) I would like to give thanks for the fact that there have been (so far) today no horrendous events, and wish you a safe, happy and free from any giant storms 25 November.