Disasters

major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the Earth, which may cause loss of life or property

thumb|right|Ruins from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, one of the worst disasters in the history of the United States|300x300pxA disaster is an event that causes such serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment that the affected community cannot manage without external assistance or relief. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines a disaster as "a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the fol

thumb|The discoveries of different layers of fossils, such as those containing Palaeotherium and [[Anoplotherium (pictured), by Georges Cuvier led him to believe that series of catastrophic events wiped out worlds before the modern one.]] In geology, catastrophism is the theory that the Earth has largely been shaped by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope. This contrasts with uniformitarianism (sometimes called gradualism), according to which slow incremental changes, such as erosion, brought about all the Earth's geological features. The proponents of uniformitari

2007 essay by Naomi Klein

adverse geologic conditions capable of causing damage or loss of property and life

an envelope that has been recovered from an air crash, train wreck, shipwreck or other accident

area where a disaster has occurred

thumb|right|200px|Gamma-ray bursts might have regulated the advent of intelligent life Neocatastrophism is the hypothesis that life-exterminating events such as gamma-ray bursts have acted as a galactic regulation mechanism in the Milky Way upon the emergence of complex life in its habitable zone. It is one of several proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox since it provides a mechanism which would have delayed the advent of intelligent beings in local galaxies near Earth.

event of great loss, usually of human life