The most terrible disasters in human history. The bloodiest maniacs

Humanity will never forget the accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. An explosion and fire occurred on April 20, 2010, 80 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana, at the Macondo oilfield. The oil spill was the largest in US history and virtually destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. We remembered the largest man-made and ecological disasters the world, some of which are almost worse than the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.

Could the accident have been avoided? Man-made disasters often occur as a consequence of natural disasters, but also because of worn-out equipment, greed, negligence, inattention... The memory of them serves as an important lesson for humanity, because natural disasters can harm people, but not the planet, but man-made ones pose a threat to absolutely the entire surrounding world.

15. Explosion at a fertilizer plant in the city of West - 15 victims

On April 17, 2013, an explosion occurred at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas. The explosion occurred at 19:50 local time and completely destroyed the plant, which belonged to the local company Adair Grain Inc. The explosion destroyed a school and a nursing home located near the plant. About 75 buildings in the city of West were seriously damaged. The explosion killed 15 people and injured about 200 people. Initially, there was a fire at the plant, and the explosion occurred while firefighters were trying to control the fire. At least 11 firefighters were killed.

Witnesses said the explosion was so strong that it was heard about 70 km from the plant, and the US Geological Survey recorded ground vibrations of magnitude 2.1. "It was like an explosion atomic bomb", said eyewitnesses. Residents of a number of areas near West were evacuated due to a leak of ammonia used in the production of fertilizers; authorities warned everyone about the leak of toxic substances. A no-fly zone was introduced over West at an altitude of up to 1 km. The city resembled a war zone. ..

In May 2013, a criminal case was opened into the explosion. The investigation found that the company stored the chemicals that caused the explosion in violation of safety requirements. The US Chemical Safety Board found that the company failed to take adequate measures to prevent the fire and explosion. In addition, at that time there were no rules that would prohibit the storage of ammonium nitrate near populated areas.

14. Flooding of Boston with molasses - 21 victims

The molasses flood in Boston occurred on January 15, 1919, after a giant molasses tank exploded in Boston's North End, sending a wave of sugar-containing liquid sweeping through the city's streets at high speed. 21 people died, about 150 were hospitalized. The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company during Prohibition (fermented molasses was widely used to produce ethanol at the time). On the eve of the introduction of a complete ban, the owners tried to make as much rum as possible...

Apparently, due to metal fatigue in an overflowing tank with 8700 m³ of molasses, the sheets of metal connected by rivets came apart. The ground shook and a wave of molasses up to 2 meters high poured into the streets. The pressure of the wave was so great that it moved the freight train off the tracks. Nearby buildings were flooded to a height of one meter and some collapsed. People, horses, and dogs got stuck in the sticky wave and died from suffocation.

A Red Cross mobile hospital was deployed in the disaster zone, a US Navy unit entered the city - the rescue operation lasted a week. The molasses was removed using sand, which absorbed the viscous mass. Although the factory owners blamed the anarchists for the explosion, the townspeople extracted payments from them totaling $600,000 (approximately $8.5 million today). According to Bostonians, even now on hot days a cloying smell of caramel emanates from old houses...

13. Explosion at the Phillips chemical plant in 1989 - 23 victims

The explosion at the Phillips Petroleum Company chemical plant occurred on October 23, 1989, in Pasadena, Texas. Due to an oversight by employees, a large leak of flammable gas occurred, and a powerful explosion occurred, equivalent to two and a half tons of dynamite. A tank containing 20,000 gallons of isobutane gas exploded and the chain reaction caused 4 more explosions.
During scheduled maintenance, the air ducts on the valves were accidentally closed. Thus, the control room displayed that the valve was open, while it appeared to be closed. This led to the formation of a cloud of steam, which exploded at the slightest spark. The initial explosion registered a magnitude of 3.5 on the Richter scale and debris from the explosion was found within a 6 mile radius of the explosion.

Many of the fire hydrants failed, and the water pressure in the remaining hydrants dropped significantly. It took firefighters more than ten hours to bring the situation under control and completely extinguish the flames. 23 people were killed and another 314 were injured.

12. Fire at a pyrotechnics factory in Enschede in 2000 - 23 victims

On May 13, 2000, as a result of a fire at the S.F. pyrotechnics factory. Fireworks in the Dutch city of Enshede, an explosion occurred, killing 23 people, including four firefighters. The fire started in the central building and spread to two full containers of fireworks illegally stored outside the building. Several subsequent explosions occurred with the largest explosion felt as far away as 19 miles.

During the fire, a significant part of the Rombek district was burned and destroyed - 15 streets were burned, 1,500 houses were damaged, and 400 houses were destroyed. In addition to the deaths of 23 people, 947 people were injured and 1,250 people were left homeless. Fire crews arrived from Germany to help fight the fire.

When S.F. Fireworks built a pyrotechnics factory in 1977, it was located far from the city. As the city grew, new low-cost housing surrounded the warehouses, causing terrible destruction, injury and death. Most local residents had no idea that they lived in such close proximity to a pyrotechnics warehouse.

11. Explosion at a chemical plant in Flixborough - 64 victims

An explosion occurred in Flixborough, England on June 1, 1974, killing 28 people. The accident happened at the Nipro plant, which produced ammonium. The disaster caused a whopping £36 million in property damage. British industry had never known such a catastrophe. The chemical plant at Flixborough virtually ceased to exist.
A chemical plant near the village of Flixborough specialized in the production of caprolactam, the starting product for obtaining synthetic fiber.

The accident happened like this: the bypass pipeline connecting reactors 4 and 6 ruptured, and steam began to escape from the taps. A cloud of cyclohexane vapor containing several tens of tons of substance was formed. The source of the cloud's ignition was probably a torch from a hydrogen installation. Due to the accident at the plant, an explosive mass of heated vapors was released into the air, the slightest spark was enough to ignite them. 45 minutes after the accident, when the mushroom cloud reached the hydrogen plant, a powerful explosion occurred. The explosion in its destructive force was equivalent to the explosion of 45 tons of TNT, detonated at a height of 45 m.

About 2,000 buildings outside the plant were damaged. In the village of Amcotts, located on the other side of the River Trent, 73 of the 77 houses were badly damaged. In Flixborough, located 1200 m from the center of the explosion, 72 out of 79 houses were destroyed. The explosion and subsequent fire killed 64 people, 75 people inside and outside the enterprise were injured varying degrees gravity.

Plant engineers, under pressure from the owners of the Nipro company, often deviated from the established technological regulations and ignored safety requirements. The sad experience of this disaster showed that in chemical plants it is necessary to have a fast-acting automatic fire extinguishing system that allows fires of solid chemicals to be eliminated within 3 seconds.

10. Hot steel spill - 35 victims

On April 18, 2007, 32 people were killed and 6 injured when a ladle containing molten steel fell at the Qinghe Special Steel Corporation plant in China. Thirty tons of liquid steel, heated to 1500 degrees Celsius, fell from an overhead conveyor. Liquid steel burst through the doors and windows into the adjacent room where the workers on duty shift were located.

Perhaps the most horrific fact discovered during the study of this disaster is that it could have been prevented. The immediate cause of the accident was the unlawful use of substandard equipment. The investigation concluded that there were a number of deficiencies and safety violations that contributed to the accident.

When emergency services reached the scene of the disaster, they were stopped by the heat of molten steel and were unable to reach the victims for a long time. After the steel began to cool, they discovered 32 victims. Surprisingly, 6 people miraculously survived the accident and were taken to the hospital with severe burns.

9. Oil train crash in Lac-Mégantic - 47 victims

An explosion of an oil train occurred on the evening of July 6, 2013 in the town of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec, Canada. The train, owned by The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and carrying 74 tanks of crude oil, derailed. As a result, several tanks caught fire and exploded. 42 people are known to have died, and another 5 people are listed as missing. As a result of the fire that engulfed the city, approximately half of the buildings in the city center were destroyed.

In October 2012, epoxy materials were used during engine repairs on the GE C30-7 #5017 diesel locomotive to quickly complete the repairs. During subsequent operation, these materials deteriorated, and the locomotive began to smoke heavily. Leaking fuel and lubricants accumulated in the turbocharger housing, which led to a fire on the night of the crash.

The train was driven by driver Tom Harding. At 23:00 the train stopped at Nantes station, on the main track. Tom contacted the dispatcher and reported problems with the diesel engine, strong black exhaust; the solution to the problem with the diesel locomotive was postponed until the morning, and the driver went to spend the night at a hotel. A train with a running diesel locomotive and dangerous cargo was left overnight at an unmanned station. At 11:50 p.m., 911 received a report of a fire on the lead locomotive. The compressor did not work in it, and the pressure in the brake line decreased. At 00:56 the pressure dropped to such a level that the hand brakes could not hold the cars and the out of control train went downhill towards Lac-Mégantic. At 00:14, the train derailed at a speed of 105 km/h and ended up in the city center. The cars derailed, explosions followed and burning oil spilled along the railway.
People in a nearby cafe, feeling the tremors of the earth, decided that an earthquake had started and hid under tables, as a result they did not have time to escape from the fire... This train accident has become one of the deadliest in Canada.

8. Accident on Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP- at least 75 victims

The accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is an industrial man-made disaster that occurred on August 17, 2009 - a “black day” for the Russian hydropower industry. As a result of the accident, 75 people died, the equipment and premises of the station were seriously damaged, and electricity production was suspended. The consequences of the accident affected the ecological situation of the water area adjacent to the hydroelectric power station, as well as the social and economic spheres of the region.

At the time of the accident, the hydroelectric power station carried a load of 4100 MW, out of 10 hydraulic units, 9 were in operation. At 8:13 local time on August 17, hydraulic unit No. 2 was destroyed, with significant volumes of water flowing through the hydraulic unit shaft under high pressure. Power plant personnel who were in the turbine room heard a loud bang and saw the release of a powerful column of water.
Streams of water quickly flooded the machine room and the rooms below it. All hydraulic units of the hydroelectric power station were flooded, while short circuits occurred on the operating hydraulic units (their flashes are clearly visible on the amateur video of the disaster), which put them out of action.

The lack of obviousness of the causes of the accident (according to Russian Energy Minister Shmatko, “this is the largest and most incomprehensible hydropower accident that has ever happened in the world”) gave rise to a number of versions that were not confirmed (from terrorism to water hammer). The most likely cause of the accident is fatigue failure of the studs that occurred during the operation of hydraulic unit No. 2 with a temporary impeller and an unacceptable level of vibration in 1981-83.

7. Piper Alpha explosion - 167 victims

On July 6, 1988, an oil production platform in the North Sea called Piper Alpha was destroyed by an explosion. The Piper Alpha platform, installed in 1976, was the largest structure on the Piper site, owned by the Scottish company Occidental Petroleum. The platform was located 200 km north-east of Aberdeen and served as the control center for oil production at the site. The platform contained a helipad and a residential module for 200 oil workers working in shifts. On July 6, an unexpected explosion occurred on the Piper Alpha. The fire that engulfed the platform did not even give the staff the opportunity to send an SOS signal.

As a result of a gas leak and subsequent explosion, 167 people out of 226 on the platform at that moment were killed, only 59 survived. It took 3 weeks to extinguish the fire, with high winds (80 mph) and 70-foot waves. The final cause of the explosion could not be established. According to the most popular version, there was a gas leak on the platform, as a result of which a small spark was enough to start the fire. The Piper Alpha accident led to significant criticism and subsequent review of safety standards for oil production in the North Sea.

6. Fire in Tianjin Binhai - 170 victims

On the night of August 12, 2015, two explosions broke out at a container storage area in the port of Tianjin. At 22:50 local time, reports began to arrive about a fire at the warehouses of the Ruihai company located in the port of Tianjin, which transports hazardous chemicals. As investigators later found out, it was caused by spontaneous combustion of nitrocellulose that had dried and heated in the summer sun. Within 30 seconds of the first explosion, a second explosion occurred - a container containing ammonium nitrate. The local seismological service estimated the power of the first explosion at 3 tons of TNT equivalent, the second at 21 tons. Firefighters who arrived at the scene were unable to stop the spread of the fire for a long time. The fires raged for several days and 8 more explosions occurred. The explosions created a huge crater.

The explosions killed 173 people, injured 797, and left 8 people missing. . Thousands of Toyota, Renault, Volkswagen, Kia and Hyundai vehicles were damaged. 7,533 containers, 12,428 vehicles and 304 buildings were destroyed or damaged. In addition to death and destruction, the damage amounted to $9 billion. It turned out that three apartment buildings were built within a one-kilometer radius of a chemical warehouse, which is prohibited by Chinese law. Authorities have charged 11 officials from the city of Tianjin in connection with the explosion. They are accused of negligence and abuse of power.

5. Val di Stave, dam failure - 268 victims

In northern Italy, above the village of Stave, the Val di Stave dam collapsed on July 19, 1985. The accident destroyed 8 bridges, 63 buildings, and killed 268 people. After the disaster, during the investigation it was determined that there had been bad Maintenance and a small margin of operational safety.

In the upper of the two dams, rainfall had caused the drainage pipe to become less effective and become clogged. Water continued to flow into the reservoir and the pressure in the damaged pipe increased, also causing pressure on the shore rock. The water began to penetrate the soil, liquefy into the mud and weaken the banks until finally erosion occurred. In just 30 seconds, water and mud flows from the upper dam broke through and poured into the lower dam.

4. The collapse of a waste heap in Namibia - 300 victims

By 1990, Nambia, a mining community in southeastern Ecuador, had a reputation for being an "environmentally hostile environment." The local mountains were pitted by miners, riddled with holes from mining, the air humid and filled with chemicals, toxic gases from the mine and a huge waste heap.

On May 9, 1993, most of the coal slag mountain at the end of the valley collapsed, killing about 300 people in a landslide. 10,000 people lived in the village in an area of ​​about 1 square mile. Most of the town's houses were built right at the entrance to the mine tunnel. Experts have long warned that the mountain has become almost hollow. They said that further coal mining would lead to landslides, and after several days of heavy rains the soil softened and the worst predictions came true.

3. Texas explosion - 581 victims

A man-made disaster occurred on April 16, 1947 in the port of Texas City, USA. A fire on board the French ship Grandcamp led to the detonation of about 2,100 tons of ammonium nitrate (ammonium nitrate), which led to a chain reaction in the form of fires and explosions on nearby ships and oil storage facilities.

The tragedy killed at least 581 people (including all but one of the Texas City Fire Department), injured more than 5,000, and sent 1,784 to hospitals. The port and a large part of the city were completely destroyed, many businesses were razed to the ground or burned down. More than 1,100 vehicles were damaged and 362 freight cars were mangled, with property damage estimated at $100 million. These events sparked the first class action lawsuit against the US government.

The Court found the Federal Government guilty of criminal negligence committed by government agencies and their representatives involved in the production, packaging and labeling of ammonium nitrate, aggravated by gross errors in its transportation, storage, loading and fire prevention measures. 1,394 compensations totaling approximately $17 million were paid.

2. Bhopal disaster - up to 160,000 victims

This is one of the worst man-made disasters that occurred in the Indian city of Bhopal. As a result of an accident at a chemical plant owned by the American chemical company Union Carbide, which produces pesticides, a toxic substance, methyl isocyanate, was released. It was stored at the factory in three partially buried tanks, each of which could hold about 60,000 liters of liquid.
The cause of the tragedy was the emergency release of methyl isocyanate vapor, which in the factory tank heated above the boiling point, which led to an increase in pressure and rupture of the emergency valve. As a result, on December 3, 1984, about 42 tons of toxic fumes were released into the atmosphere. A cloud of methyl isocyanate covered nearby slums and the railway station, located 2 km away.

The Bhopal disaster is the largest in terms of casualties in modern history, causing the immediate death of at least 18 thousand people, of which 3 thousand died directly on the day of the accident, and 15 thousand in subsequent years. According to other sources, the total number of victims is estimated at 150-600 thousand people. The large number of victims is explained by the high population density, late informing residents about the accident, lack of medical personnel, as well as unfavorable weather conditions - a cloud of heavy vapors was carried by the wind.

Union Carbide, which was responsible for the tragedy, paid victims $470 million in an out-of-court settlement in 1987 in exchange for a waiver of claims. In 2010, an Indian court found seven former Indian executives of Union Carbide guilty of negligence causing death. Those convicted were sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 100 thousand rupees (approximately $2,100).

1. Banqiao Dam tragedy - 171,000 dead

The designers of the dam cannot even be blamed for this disaster; it was designed for severe floods, but this was completely unprecedented. In August 1975, the Banqiao Dam burst during a typhoon in western China, killing about 171,000 people. The dam was built in the 1950s to generate electricity and prevent flooding. Engineers designed it with a safety margin of a thousand years.

But on those fateful days in early August 1975, Typhoon Nina immediately produced more than 40 inches of rain, exceeding the area's annual rainfall total in just one day. After several days of even more heavy rain, the dam gave way and was washed away on August 8th.

The dam failure caused a wave 33 feet high, 7 miles wide, traveling at 30 mph. In total, more than 60 dams and additional reservoirs were destroyed due to the failure of the Banqiao Dam. The flood destroyed 5,960,000 buildings, killed 26,000 people immediately and another 145,000 died later as a result of famine and epidemics due to the natural disaster.

Unfortunately, these things happen. There are probably no right words to describe them, and God forbid you find yourself in such situations.

We present to your attention the most terrible disasters in the world.

The worst plane crash

The rating of “The worst plane crashes” is headed by Tenerife. The fatal collision of 2 Boeing-747 aircraft belonging to different companies (Boeing-747-206B - the brainchild of KLM airline, operated the next flight KL4805 and Boeing-747 - property of Pan American, operated flight 1736), happened on 03/27/1977 on the island of the Canary group , Tenerife, on the runway of Los Rodeo airport. Many people died - 583 people on these two planes. What exactly caused such a devastating accident? The paradox is that the superposition of unfavorable circumstances on top of each other played a cruel joke.

On that ill-fated Sunday spring day, Los Rodeos airport was very congested. Both aircraft performed maneuvers on the narrow runway, including complex turns of 135-180 degrees. Interference in radio communications with the controller and between the pilots, poor weather conditions and visibility, misinterpretation of commands by the air traffic controller, the strong Spanish accent of the controller - all this inevitably led to trouble. The Boeing KLM commander did not understand the dispatcher's command to abort takeoff, while the commander of the second Boeing reported that their huge plane was still moving along the runway. Fourteen seconds later, the inevitable collision occurred, the fuselage of the Pan American Boeing was very damaged, gaps formed in some places, and some passengers escaped through them. A Boeing KLM without a tail and with damaged wings fell onto the runway 150 meters from the point of collision and drove along the runway for another 300 meters. Both affected aircraft burst into flames.

All 248 people on the Boeing KLM plane were killed. The second plane killed 326 passengers and nine crew members. The American star of Playboy magazine, actress and model Eve Meyer, also died in this worst plane crash.

The worst man-made disaster

The worst disaster in the history of oil production was the explosion on the Piper Alpha oil platform, built in 1976. This happened on 07/06/1988. According to experts, this terrible accident cost 3.4 billion US dollars and claimed the lives of 167 people. Piper Alpha is the only burned-out oil production platform on Earth that belonged to the American oil company Occidental Petroleum. There was a huge gas leak and, as a result, a colossal explosion. This happened as a result of ill-considered actions of the maintenance personnel - pipelines from the platform fed the general oil pipeline network, the supply of petroleum products was not stopped immediately after the disaster, awaiting the command of higher authorities. Therefore, the fire continued due to the burning of gas and oil in the pipes; the fire even engulfed residential complexes. And those who were able to survive the first explosion found themselves surrounded by flames. Those who jumped into the water were saved.

The worst disaster on the water

If you remember the biggest disasters on the water, you immediately remember the pictures from the film “Titanic”, which is based on real events of 1912. But the sinking of the Titanic is not the biggest disaster. The greatest maritime disaster was the sinking of the German motor ship Wilhelm Gustlow by a Soviet military submarine on January 30, 1945. There were almost 9 thousand people on board the ship: 3,700 of them were people who had completed elite training as military submariners, 3-4 thousand representatives of the military elite who were evacuated from Danzig. The tourist excursion ship was built in 1938. It was, as it seemed, an unsinkable 9-deck ocean liner, designed using the latest technologies of that time.

Dance floors, 2 theaters, swimming pools, church, Gym, restaurants, cafes with a winter garden and climate control, comfortable cabins and personal apartments of Hitler himself. 208 meters long, it could travel halfway around the world without refueling. It couldn't sink a priori. But fate decreed otherwise. Under the command of A.I. Marinesko, the crew of the Soviet submarine S-13 conducted a military operation to destroy the enemy ship. Three fired torpedoes penetrated the Wilhelm Gustlow. It immediately sank in the Baltic Sea. Until now, no one, the whole world, can forget the most terrible disaster.

The biggest environmental disaster

The death of the Aral Sea, which before the drying out began, scientists called the fourth lake by world standards, is considered the most terrible disaster from an environmental point of view. Although the sea is located on the territory of the former USSR, the disaster affected the whole world. Water was taken from it in uncontrolled quantities to water fields and gardens to ensure the fulfillment of the political ambitions and unreasonable plans of Soviet leaders.
With time coastline moved so deep into the lake that many species of fish and animals died, more than 60,000 people lost their jobs, shipping stopped, the climate changed - droughts became more frequent.

The worst nuclear disaster

Huge numbers of people are exposed to nuclear disasters. So in April 1986, one of the power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. Radioactive substances released into the atmosphere settled on nearby villages and towns. This accident is one of the most destructive of its kind. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the liquidation of the accident. Several hundred people were killed or injured. A thirty-kilometer exclusion zone has been formed around the nuclear power plant. The scale of the disaster is still unclear.

Sources:

There are hundreds of tragedies of the 20th century... Mountains of corpses, blood, pain and suffering - this is what revolutions, world wars, political upheavals and monstrous incidents brought with them. And all of them, as a rule, are carefully photographed and recorded...

And this terrible list opens with photographs from aboard the infamous Titanic...

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TRAGEDY OF THE TITANIC. More than eighty years have passed since the moment when, on the frosty night of April 14-15, 1912, south of the island of Newfoundland, the giant Titanic, the largest and most luxurious ship of the beginning of the century, sank after colliding with a drifting iceberg. 1,500 passengers and crew died. And although there were enough terrible tragedies in the 20th century, interest in the fate of this ship does not wane even today. Here is a rather rare photograph of the ship three days before departure...


Unfortunately, we will have to come to terms with the fact that the complete truth about the sinking of the Titanic will never be known. Despite two investigations carried out immediately after the floating palace was swallowed up by the waves, many details remained unclear. The ship sets off on its fateful voyage...


As soon as Captain Smith was informed that the last ladder had been removed and secured, the pilot got down to business. At the pier, the mooring lines were released, securing the bow and stern to the powerful shore bollards. Then the tugs got to work. The long hull of the Titanic, centimeter by centimeter, began to move away from the pier... A retouched photograph of the Titanic's departure...


The complex sailing maneuvers were watched by hundreds of passengers on the Titanic's promenade decks and thousands of people on shore. Farewell...


And then something happened that could have ended very sadly. The New York steamship was in the harbor. At that moment, when the Titanic passed by, the bows of both ships were on the same line, the six steel cables with which the New York was moored were stretched and a strong crack was heard, similar to shots from a revolver, and the ends of the cables whistled in the air and fell onto the embankment into a frightened, fleeing crowd...


Of course, there are no photographs of the sinking Titanic. But. There are quite a lot of photographs taken from the rescue ship Carpathia. They managed to lift more than 100 people on board - all those who survived on five boats... "Carpathia"...


Killer iceberg...


Boat No. 12 is one of those that managed to reach the side of the Carpathia...


Saved. On board the Carpathia...


Newsboys. Terrible news...


HOLODOMOR. This terrible word is used to describe the mass death of the population of the Ukrainian SSR from famine in 1932-1933... In the USSR, the scale of the tragedy that occurred and its real causes were simply hidden... But witnesses recall that the streets of cities and villages were littered with the corpses of the dead, swollen from hunger of people...


Currently, there is a point of view in the scientific community according to which the mass death of the population of Ukraine was caused by the conscious and purposeful actions of the Soviet leadership...


During these terrible years, at least 4,500,000 people died in Ukraine...


There were corpses everywhere...


Hospitals and morgues could not cope with their responsibilities...


Improvised cemeteries stretched for tens of kilometers on the outskirts of the city...


Foreign journalists took photographs out of Ukraine at the risk of their own lives. And yet, something leaked to the press...

THE LAST AIRSHIP DISASTER. On May 6, 1937, the German aircraft Hidenburg exploded and burned - at that time the world's largest airship, its length was about 248 m, its diameter was more than 40 m. It was built in the 30s as a symbol of Hitler's new Germany... A photograph of that time from the archives of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper..


It could fly 15 thousand km at a maximum speed of 135 km/h. On two floors of the passenger compartment there were 26 double cabins, bars, a reading room, a restaurant, galleries, and kitchens. The ticket cost over $800. "Hidenburg" was destroyed by fire while approaching the mooring mast in Lakehurst (New Jersey, USA), completing a flight from Frankfurt (Germany)...


32 seconds after the explosion, the airship, more than 2 times the length of a football field, resembled a fantastic charred skeleton of curved metal. This disaster claimed 36 human lives...


The explosion was heard fifteen miles away. Thanks to the courage and self-control of the captain, the crew and 62 passengers were saved. The fire is directly related to the use of hydrogen, the only carrier gas Germany had available since the United States refused to supply helium in commercial quantities. There was also a version of the terrorist attack - in the early 1970s, information appeared that Nazi enemy Erich Spehl, one of the team members, had planted a time mine...


PEARL HARBOR. The most famous US naval base in the Hawaiian Islands. On December 7, 1941, during World War II, Japanese carrier aircraft launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and disabled the main forces of the American Pacific Fleet. On December 8, the United States and Great Britain declared war on Japan...


The sun rose over Pearl Harbor that day in all its usual tropical glory. It was Sunday and the fleet was "home". The officers and sailors thought about the upcoming day of rest. As always on Sundays, the wake-up call was given late. At that moment, when the sounds of the bugle died down, unknown planes appeared in the sky. Without any delay, they began dropping bombs and torpedoes...


50 bombers, 40 torpedo bombers and 81 dive bombers attacked the ships of the Pacific Fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor...


When the last Japanese planes left, Navy and Marine Corps casualties stood at 2,835, with 2,086 officers and men killed or mortally wounded. The army's losses amounted to 600 people, of whom 194 were killed and 364 wounded. In addition to damage to ships and hangars, 92 navy aircraft were destroyed and 31 aircraft were damaged, and the army lost 96 aircraft...

HIROSHIMA - REVENGE FOR PEARL HARBOR? The Great Patriotic War ended on May 9, 1945. But the war did not end there. It lasted until September 2, 1945. And there were fights. And there were victories. And there were victims. And there were tragedies. And the most terrible of them is atomic bombing Japanese cities...

The area of ​​the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 was about 26 square meters. miles, of which only 7 were completely built up. There were no clearly designated commercial, industrial and residential areas. 75% of the population lived in a densely built area in the city center...

The regiment commander, Colonel Tibets, named his aircraft “Enola Gay” in honor of his mother. The body of the atomic bomb, located in the bomb bay of the Enola Gay, was covered with a variety of both humorous and serious slogans. Among them was the inscription “from the guys from Indianapolis”...

On August 6, at about 8 o'clock in the morning, two B-29 bombers appeared over Hiroshima. People continued to work without entering the shelter and looked at enemy planes. When the bombers reached the city center, one of them dropped a small parachute, after which the planes flew away. At 8:15 a.m. there was a deafening explosion that seemed to tear apart heaven and earth in an instant...

A blinding flash and a terrible roar of explosion - after which the entire city was covered with huge clouds of smoke. Among the smoke, dust and debris, one after another flashed wooden houses, until the end of the day the city was engulfed in smoke and flames. And when the flames finally subsided, the whole city was nothing but ruins. Charred and burned corpses were piled up everywhere, many of them frozen in the position in which the explosion had caught them. The tram, of which only one skeleton remained, was filled with corpses holding on to the belts...


A single bomb with a capacity of 20 thousand tons of TNT, which exploded at an altitude of 600 meters above the city, instantly destroyed 60 percent of the city to the ground. Of the 306,545 residents of Hiroshima, 176,987 people were affected by the explosion. 92,133 people were killed or missing, 9,428 people were seriously injured and 27,997 people were slightly injured. In an effort to reduce their responsibility, the Americans underestimated the number of casualties as much as possible - the number of killed and wounded military personnel was not taken into account when calculating losses. Many died from radiation sickness. There was nothing left of those who were near the epicenter - the explosion literally evaporated people...


AUSCHWITZ - 40 HECTARES OF DEATH. The largest extermination camp, it was called a death factory, a death conveyor, a death machine. In fact, in Polish Silesia, on several thousand hectares, the most monstrous state in the world was built with a population of several million people, of whom less than three thousand survived, with its own value system, economy, government, hierarchy, rulers, executioners, victims and heroes. The inscription above the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp read: “Work makes you free.” Entrance to Hell...


"You were brought here not to a sanatorium, but to German concentration camp. Remember, there is only one way out of here - through the crematorium pipe." So the voice of Deputy Commandant Frach spoke through the loudspeakers...


The engineers were given a task: a crematorium was needed, because otherwise there would be too many problems with the bodies of the dead. The engineers calculated: three furnaces, coal, loading 24 hours a day. They gave the answer: 340 people can be burned. The engineering management thanked them, but set a new task - to increase production capacity...

Two tons of human hair is what they didn’t have time to use. The camp supplied them at 50 pfennigs per kilogram. Industrialists took it willingly - they got inexpensive, durable fabric and ropes...


The gold hordes from the glasses were neatly stacked in a special room...


The main entrance... People were brought in carriages...

Up to six people slept on the bunks. In winter, many people had incontinence. And all this flowed from the upper bunks to the lower ones. And going to the toilet at night was a nightmare. The guards beat people because they had instructions: the latrine must be clean...


At the same time, the Germans were experimenting with gas. It was served through holes in the ceiling. People didn't know where they were going. They were told that it was for sanitation. The SS men checked whether the prisoners were alive or not. They took a nail and poked it into the body... The road to the gas chamber...


"Cyclone-B"...


They took their anger out on the Russians. There were twelve thousand of them, maybe sixty people remained. For example, they had this punishment: in the barracks they opened the doors on one side and the other, but it was winter, and the prisoners had to stand naked. The guards also sprayed them with cold water from a hose...


They prepared soup for the prisoners, of course, without fat and meat. When they carried a full cauldron, the stew spilled. People licked the ground if a drop fell. The SS men also beat me for this...

Kids show hands with numbers...


Soviet soldiers liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Less than seven thousand people remained there. The Germans destroyed all five crematoria and gas chambers, and took away most of the prisoners. Those who remained said themselves: we are no longer people after what we experienced here...


DEATH OF GOEBBELS. During the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the main ideologist of fascism, Joseph Goebbels, took poison, having first poisoned his family - his wife and six children. The corpses, according to his dying order, were burned. Here is a photograph showing the corpse of a criminal. The photo was taken in the Imperial Chancellery building on May 2, 1945 by Major Vasily Krupennikov. On the back of the photo, Vasily wrote: “We covered Goebbels’s sensitive spot with a handkerchief, it was very unpleasant to look at it”...


TSAR BOMB, "IVAN", "KUZKA'S MOTHER". A thermonuclear device developed at CCCP in the mid-50s by a group of physicists led by Academician I.V. Kurchatov


The development team included Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Trunov and Yuri Smirnov.


The original version of the bomb, weighing 40 tons, was rejected by the designers as too heavy. Then nuclear scientists promised to reduce its weight to 20 tons, and aircraft manufacturers proposed a program for corresponding modification of Tu-16 and Tu-95 bombers. The new nuclear device, according to the tradition adopted in the USSR, received the code designation “Vanya” or “Ivan”, and the Tu-95 chosen as the carrier was named Tu-95V.


The results of the explosion of the charge, which received the name Tsar Bomba in the West, were impressive - the nuclear “mushroom” of the explosion rose to a height of 64 kilometers, the shock wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times, and ionization of the atmosphere caused radio communications interference for hundreds of kilometers from the landfill within one hour...


The test of the world's most powerful thermonuclear device took place on October 30, 1961, during the XXII Congress of the CPSU. The bomb exploded within the nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya at an altitude of 4,500 meters. The power of the explosion was about 50 megatons of TNT. No casualties or damage were officially reported...


ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY. The tragedy happened on November 22, 1963, Friday...

The number of proposed clues to this incident is confidently moving towards infinity. What is known for certain?..

On November 22, the president, along with his wife and Texas Governor John Connally, were driving from the Dallas airport to the city center. As the motorcade moved through the business district of the city, the president was greeted by more than 200 thousand people. At some point, the car slowed down, and that’s when shots rang out.


The bullets hit JFK in the head and throat. The President fell into the arms of his wife, and the next shot seriously wounded the Governor of Texas in the back.


This 40-second recording, made on a simple video camera by someone from Dallas, has become the most famous recording in the world. Immediately after the shots were fired, the car rushed to the clinic, where 14 surgeons fought for Kennedy’s life...

...but despite all their efforts, he died 35 minutes later...
45 minutes after the assassination attempt, the suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was detained. But he, too, was mysteriously killed - 2 days later he was put to death by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Well, US Vice President Lyndon Johnson became the new president of the country. By the way, he was traveling in another car of the same motorcade...


The VIETNAM WAR began in August 1964 with an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, during which coast guard ships of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam fired on American destroyers providing fire support to government forces of South Vietnam in their fight against guerrillas...

To defend South Vietnam, the United States deployed an army of half a million across the ocean, equipped with all types of modern weapons, except nuclear...


American soldiers fought fiercely in the impenetrable jungle against pro-communist guerrillas (Viet Cong)...

In huge areas, they destroyed thick foliage that hid the elusive enemy with pesticides, mercilessly bombed partisan areas and the territory of North Vietnam - everything was in vain...


Subsequently, hostilities covered the territory not only of Vietnam itself, but also of neighboring Laos and Cambodia...


50 thousand Americans died; Many times more Vietnamese were killed. By the beginning of 1968, the war had reached a dead end; peace negotiations began in May 1968, which lasted more than four years... On January 27, 1973, the US administration agreed to sign an agreement on the conditions for the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. The war, which the United States thought would be a cakewalk, turned out to be America's nightmare. The post-war crisis continued in the United States for more than 10 years. It’s hard to say how it would have ended if the Afghan crisis had not turned up…
In the second half of the 20th century, humanity learned two terrible phrases - “world terrorism” and “man-made disaster”... Since the 60s of the last century, cosmodromes and factories, trains and planes, houses and nuclear reactors have been blowing up one after another in this world ...

.
BAIKONUR, OCTOBER 24, 1960. "Nedelin's catastrophe." Explosion of the R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile during testing at the cosmodrome...


The explosion and resulting fire killed more than 90 people, including the commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Forces... According to unofficial data, there were 165...


The designer, academician M.K. Yangel, who was absent for a short time before the start, miraculously survived...


The disaster was kept secret until the end of the 90s...


However, much less tragic events were also classified then. Interestingly, there are still rumors circulating at Baikonur to this day that Soviet Union even before Gagarin he sent people into space. But since these attempts ended in the death of the astronauts, they were kept secret...


And the monument to the dead turned out to be very modest...


BLOODY TUESDAY IN MUNICH. On September 5, 1972, at the XX Olympics, the most terrible tragedy throughout the history of sports competitions. At 3:30 in the morning, 8 heavily armed terrorists belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization militant group Black September burst into one of the houses of the Olympic Village. They managed to take 11 members of the Israeli sports delegation hostage. The security of the Olympic Village simply did not notice the terrorists...

Having got over metal mesh, enclosing the athletes' dormitory, the terrorists unpack their weapons and enter entrance No. 1 of building 31. A few seconds later, they persistently knock on the door of the room in which the Israeli classical wrestling judge Yosef Gutfreund is located. Gutfreund is famous for his heroic physique and Herculean strength. Seeing suspicious people, he leans his whole body on the door and detains the criminals for a few seconds...


One of the terrorists orders one of the hostages to show the rooms in which the rest of the Israelis live. He refuses, and the terrorist fires a burst of Kalashnikov at him. Thus, he saves the lives of shooters, fencers, a race walker and a swimmer...

Still, 12 Israelis were captured by the terrorists. Demands were put forward - the immediate release of 234 terrorists from Israeli prisons and 16 from prisons Western Europe...Negotiations were conducted until late in the evening...


The bodies of all eleven dead athletes were sent to Israel. During the unsuccessful operation, two German citizens also died: a policeman and the pilot of one of the helicopters. In the homeland of the victims, in addition to relatives, the funeral ceremony was attended by the head of government Golda Meir, all ministers, members of the Knesset, members of the sports delegation who left the Olympics, thousands of Israeli citizens...


CHERNOBYL DISASTER. On April 26, 1986, 187 control and protection system rods entered the core to shut down the reactor. The chain reaction had to be broken. However, after 3 seconds, alarm signals were registered for exceeding the reactor power and increasing pressure. And after another 4 seconds - a dull explosion that shook the entire building. The emergency protection rods stopped before they were even halfway...


Sparkling clumps began to fly out from the roof of the fourth power unit, as if from the mouth of a volcano. They rose high up. It looked like fireworks. The clumps scattered into multi-colored sparks and fell in different places...

A black fireball soared up, forming a cloud that stretched horizontally into a black cloud and went to the side, spreading death, disease and misfortune in the form of small, small drops..


And at this time people were still working inside. There is no roof, part of the wall is destroyed... The lights went out, the phone went off. Floors are collapsing. The floor is shaking. The premises are filled with either steam, fog, or dust. Short circuit sparks flash. Radiation monitoring devices are off the charts. Hot radioactive water is flowing everywhere...

After the largest man-made disaster in world history, pine trees like these were born in the Zone...

...such animals...

...and these are the children...

These photographs were taken for one of the secret reports to the Central Committee of the USSR Politburo...


Now almost all houses in the Zone look like this...


THE 1988 EARTHQUAKE THAT DESTROYED THE CITY OF SPITAK. Also in Armenia, the cities of Leninakan, Stepanavan, Kirovakan were destroyed. 58 villages in the north-west of the republic were reduced to ruins, almost 400 villages were partially destroyed.


450 mine rescuers arrived from the fraternal union republics in Armenia. 6.5 thousand military personnel, 25 teams of military doctors, and 400 units of army equipment are participating in rescue operations in the disaster zone.


Tens of thousands of people died, 514 thousand people were left homeless. The loss of national wealth amounted to 8.8 billion rubles.


Over the past 80 years, this is the most powerful earthquake in the Caucasus...


On March 1, 1995, FAMOUS TV JOURNALIST VLAD LISTYEV was KILLED at the entrance of his house.


The murder of the general director of ORT and simply a popular person came as a shock to millions of people. He was so loved and popular that even the then head of state Boris Yeltsin, abandoning everything, rushed to Ostankino to apologize to the television crew. The investigation began almost immediately, sketches of the alleged killers were made and published, but the hot pursuit did not produce results.


Over the past 11 years, the wording of the Prosecutor General's Office messages has remained almost unchanged. Only the volume of investigation materials has changed: this year there are already more than 200 volumes.


CAPTURE OF BUDENNOVSK. On June 14, 1995, detachments of Chechen militants under the command of Shamil Basayev entered Budennovsk and took about 1,500 hostages. The terrorists, having made the cessation of hostilities and the start of negotiations in Chechnya a condition for the release of the hostages, gained a foothold in the city hospital.

On June 17, special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB made several attempts to storm the hospital. During these operations, both the terrorists and the attackers were killed and wounded, but the hostages suffered the most (from the attackers’ fire) - up to 30 people died and many were wounded. During the assault, the terrorists forced the hostages, including women, to stand at the windows and shout to the Russian servicemen: “Don’t shoot!”

After the failure of the assault on June 18, through the mediation of S.A. Kovalev, negotiations began between Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and Basayev, during which it was possible to reach an agreement on the release of the hostages. The conditions for their release were: the cessation of hostilities on the territory of Chechnya and the resolution of controversial issues through negotiations. A detachment of militants traveled on buses provided by the federal side to the mountainous Chechen village of Zandak. At the same time, 120 hostages who volunteered to accompany the terrorists were used as “human shields”. In total, as a result of this terrorist action in Budennovsk, 105 civilians were killed, including 18 women, 17 men over 55 years old, a boy and a girl under 16 years old. 11 police officers and at least 14 military personnel were also killed.


THE MURDER OF YITZHAK RABIN. Every Israeli knows the name of the killer of the Israeli prime minister. Yigal Yigal Amir is a member of the underground ultra-ultra-right nationalist organization "Eyal" (Lions of Judah).

The murder took place on November 4, 1995 in Tel Aviv, the evening after thousands of people demonstrated in support of the peace process. Yitzhak Rabin, wounded in the back by two bullets, was taken to the nearby Ihillov hospital in the back seat of a government limousine.

By 11 p.m., Rabin's personal secretary reported that the prime minister had been fatally shot.


The aging leader of the Workers' Party, Yitzhak Rabin, whose policies were subject to severe criticism, was instantly canonized. It is now customary in Israel to name squares, streets and educational institutions after him...


HOUSE EXPLOSIONS IN MOSCOW AND VOLGODONSK IN 1999. A series of terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 claimed the lives of more than 300 people. The explosions occurred in a situation where fighting was taking place in Dagestan between federal troops and invading armed separatist detachments from Chechnya, led by Shamil Basayev...


Explosion on Guryanov Street. On September 8, 1999, at 11:58 p.m., an explosion occurred in the basement of a 9-story residential building 19 on Guryanova Street (Pechatniki district) in the southeast of Moscow. The building was partially destroyed, one section of the residential building collapsed. Rescuers worked on the ruins of a residential building for several days...


According to official data, the explosion killed 109 people and injured 160 people. As explosives experts established, an explosive device with a capacity of 300-400 kg of TNT went off in the basement of the house. The blast wave deformed the structures of neighboring house 19. A few days later, houses 17 and 19 were destroyed by explosives experts, the residents were relocated to other houses...


In means mass media it has been suggested that this terrorist attack. A day of mourning for those killed in the explosion was set for September 13. On the same day, a sketch of a man who allegedly rented a basement in a residential building was shown on television...


Explosion on Kashirskoye Highway. On September 13 at 5 o'clock in the morning there was new explosion on Kashirskoye Highway in an 8-story residential building number 6/3. As a result of the explosion, the house was completely destroyed, almost all the residents in the residential building - 124 people - were killed, 9 people were injured and rescuers pulled them out of the rubble, and 119 families were affected. Due to the fact that the house was made of brick, almost all the inhabitants who were in it during the explosion died...


On the same day, September 13, in the Maryino area, supplies of explosives were found in sugar bags, sufficient to destroy several more residential buildings. State of emergency was not introduced, but unprecedented security measures were taken in Moscow and other cities, all attics and basements were checked. Residents of residential buildings spontaneously organized round-the-clock watches for several months...


On September 16, a few days after the explosions in Moscow, at 5.40 am the city of Volgodonsk Rostov region shocked by a terrible explosion. Near the police department building and next to the 9-story residential building A GAZ-53 van filled with explosives exploded on Gagarin Street, 35. A crater with a diameter of 15 m and a depth of 3 m formed in the courtyard of the house. In 144 apartments panel house 437 people lived - 18 people died.


TRAGEDY IN THE TRANSITION ON PUSHKIN SQUARE. Another powerful explosion occurred in Moscow. The explosive device was planted by two young Caucasians...


They allegedly approached commercial booth number 40 and asked to sell them goods for US dollars. The seller refused, then the young people asked the seller to look after the bag while they went to exchange dollars for rubles. Literally a few minutes after they left, a homemade explosive device lying in the bag with a capacity of 400 grams to 1.5 kg of TNT went off...

According to witnesses who were in the passage at that moment, there was first a strong bang and a bright flash, then a blast wave rolled through the tunnel and heavy smoke poured out. People began to run out. Those who were closer to the epicenter had numerous burns and wounds, and blood was pouring out. The explosion was so strong that it literally tore the clothes off the victims...


The explosion killed 7 people, 93 sought medical help. Of these, 59 people were taken to city hospitals, 34 refused hospitalization. Among the victims were three children...


THE DEATH OF "KURSK". On August 12, 2000, a tragedy broke out in the Barants Sea, riveting hundreds of millions of people to their television screens

For several days, Russian and British naval forces tried to rescue 118 crew members of the nuclear submarine from underwater captivity.


However, all efforts were in vain...


As the investigation later established, the tragedy was caused by the explosion of the so-called “thick torpedo” in the torpedo compartment. All submariners on board died.


TRAGEDY AT DUBROVKA. On October 23, 2002, at 21:15, armed people in camouflage burst into the building of the Theater Center on Dubrovka, on Melnikov Street (formerly the Palace of Culture of the State Bearing Plant). At that time, the musical “Nord-Ost” was playing at the cultural center; there were more than 700 people in the hall. The terrorists declared all people - spectators and theater workers - hostages and began to mine the building...


At 10 o'clock in the evening it became known that the theater building was captured by a detachment of Chechen militants led by Movsar Barayev, among the terrorists there were women, all of them were hung with explosives...


On October 24, at a quarter past midnight, the first attempt was made to establish contact with the terrorists: State Duma deputy from Chechnya Aslambek Aslakhanov entered the center building. At half past midnight, several shots were heard in the building. The hostages who managed to contact the television companies by mobile phones asked not to begin the assault: “These people say that for every one of their own killed or wounded, they will kill 10 hostages”...


On October 26, at five hours and 30 minutes, three explosions and several machine gun bursts were heard near the Palace of Culture building. At about six o'clock the special forces began the assault, during which nerve gas was used. At half past seven in the morning, an official representative of the FSB reported that the Theater Center was under the control of the special services, Movsar Barayev and most of the terrorists had been destroyed...


At 7:25 a.m., Russian Presidential Assistant Sergei Yastrzhembsky officially announced that the operation to free the hostages was completed. The number of neutralized terrorists in the building of the Theater Center on Dubrovka alone amounted to 50 people - 18 women and 32 men. Three terrorists detained...


On November 7, 2002, the Moscow prosecutor's office published a list of citizens who died as a result of the actions of terrorists who seized the theater center on Dubrovka. It included 128 people: 120 Russians and 8 citizens from near and far abroad countries. Five hostages received gunshot wounds as a result of the militants' actions. The four dead hostages could not be identified for a long time, and their names were not included in the lists of health authorities...


SEPTEMBER 11 – WAR WITHOUT RULES. America has never known such a tragedy... The worst nightmares have come true... Manhattan, 8 hours 44 minutes in the morning on September 11, 2001, a minute before the tragedy.


At 8.45 the first kamikaze plane crashed into one of the World War II towers. shopping center. The footage shows how the second one flies up...


One of the towers, 110 floors high, was rammed right through...


An explosion and immediately a strong fire. The last person to answer the phone from the upper floors shouted "We are dying!"


A series of powerful explosions took place along the perimeter of the Twin Towers...


The fire burst out. The top of the building “falls” into the base...


The two most tall buildings The World Trade Center collapsed after less than an hour...


The streets of Manhattan south of Colon Street are shrouded in such dense smoke that rescuers cannot get there...


BESLAN - A BITTER LESSON. At approximately 8 a.m. on September 1, 2004, near the village of Khurikau, on the border of the Mozdok and Pravoberezhny regions of North Ossetia, approximately 60 km from Beslan, armed people stopped a local district police officer, a police major, and put him in their car. According to preliminary data, it was with the help of the ID of an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that the militants drove a GAZ-66 and two passenger cars smoothly passed several checkpoints on the way to Beslan...


During the ceremonial assembly on the occasion of September 1, they broke into the territory of school No. 1. In total, according to the education committee of the Beslan administration, 895 students and 59 teachers and technical staff of the school were present at the line. The number of parents who came to see their children off to school is unknown...


Having opened indiscriminate fire in the air, the militants ordered everyone present to enter the school building, but the majority - mostly high school students and adults - were able to simply run away. Those who could not do this - primary school students and their parents and some teachers - were driven into the gym by the bandits...

Then everything happened as in nightmare... An explosion was recorded inside the school. Data on the number of hostages is still scattered. Based on lists compiled by relatives and parents of students, it was established that there could be 132 children in the school. In total, according to unconfirmed data, the militants managed to capture from 300 to 400 people...


Information appears that the gym is mined... Bodies are burning in the gym, they are being poured from fire hoses. Strong explosions inside the school occur with some persistent frequency. Meanwhile, the crowd slowly but surely begins to approach the building. Soldiers of the internal troops are trying to get in their way. “Better let me in,” one of the men says calmly. And they retreat. People want to go to the gym and see with their own eyes how many people were killed there...


The hostages are shot, they die from dehydration and suffocation...


This is what the gym looked like after the assault...


Sad results: in Beslan they say that about six hundred people were saved. No one denies that there were at least a thousand hostages - so the total number of victims is about 400 people. There is still no exact data - many are missing...


At the end of December 2004, the strongest earthquake and tsunami in the last 40 years occurred in six countries in Southeast Asia.


The first and most powerful earthquake occurred on December 26 at about 03:00 in the Indian Ocean. Literally a few minutes later, a destructive tsunami wave reached land - first of all, the island of Sumatra (Indonesia), and then Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives /


Eyewitnesses described how, in absolutely sunny, windless weather, the water suddenly began to recede from the beach, and then a six-meter wave formed. Those who were able to escape in these few minutes were saved. Tons of water swept away everything in its path: people, cars and even entire hotels

The number of victims reached 400 thousand people. About 100 thousand more have not yet been found or identified.


The largest number of victims - more than 10 thousand - was registered in Indonesia, off the coast of which there was an epicenter measuring 9 points on the Richter scale.


Then hundreds of settlements were flooded and wiped off the face of the earth.


Seismologists call the December events exceptional. According to them, no more than five such earthquakes have been recorded over the past century.

This region of South-East Asia still cannot recover from the terrible destruction.

TASS DOSSIER. On November 17, the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, said that the A321 crash over the Sinai, where more than 220 people died, was a terrorist attack. According to him, traces of foreign-made explosives were found on the wreckage of the plane and things.

Less than two weeks after the events in Egypt, terrorists carried out a series of attacks in Paris. 129 people were killed and over 350 were injured. It is the second deadliest terrorist attack in Europe after Madrid, when 190 people were killed in train station bombings in 2004.

Listed below are the 10 largest terrorist attacks in the world by death toll, excluding attacks that occurred in countries where there was military conflict at the time. In eight cases, the attacks were carried out by radical Islamist groups.

The September 11 terrorist attacks in the USA. 2996 dead

On September 11, 2001, in the United States, suicide bombers from the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda hijacked passenger planes and crashed them into two towers of the World Trade Center (New York) and into the Pentagon building - the headquarters of the US Department of Defense (Arlington County). , Virginia). The fourth hijacked airliner crashed near Shanksville (Pennsylvania). As a result of this world's largest series of terrorist attacks, 2 thousand 996 people were killed and over 6 thousand people were injured. The organizer of the terrorist attack was the al-Qaeda group and its leader Osama bin Laden.

Beslan. Russia. 335 dead

On September 1, 2004, in Beslan (North Ossetia-Alania), militants led by Ruslan Khuchbarov (“Rasul”) captured more than 1 thousand 100 students from school number 1, their relatives and teachers. On September 2, after negotiations with the ex-president of the Republic of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, the bandits released 25 women and children. On September 3, shooting and explosions began at the school, which forced an assault. Most of the hostages were released, 335 people died. Among the dead were 186 children, 17 teachers and school staff, 10 employees of the Russian FSB, two employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The militants were destroyed, only one survived - Nurpashi Kulaev (in 2006 he was sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment due to a moratorium on the execution of death sentences). International terrorist Shamil Basayev (liquidated in 2006) took responsibility for the terrorist attack.

Boeing 747 Air India. 329 dead

On June 23, 1985, an Air India Boeing 747 passenger plane, flying flight AI182 on the route Montreal (Canada) - London - Delhi, crashed in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland. The cause of the disaster was the explosion of a bomb planted in luggage by Indian Sikh extremists. All 329 people on board (307 passengers and 22 crew members) were killed in the disaster. Canadian citizen Inderjit Singh Reyat was sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of participating in the preparation of a terrorist attack in 2003. Prior to this, he served a 10-year prison sentence for preparing an explosion at Narita Airport (Japan), which occurred on the same day as the VT-EFO disaster. Reyat was later charged with perjury and sentenced to 9 years in prison in 2011.

Boko Haram attack in Nigeria. More than 300 dead

On May 5-6, 2014, gunmen killed over 300 residents in a night attack on the town of Gamboru, Borno State. Survivors fled to neighboring Cameroon. Most of the city was destroyed.

Lockerbie attack. 270 dead

On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am (USA) Boeing 747 passenger plane, operating scheduled flight 103 on the route Frankfurt am Main - London - New York - Detroit, crashed in the air over Lockerbie (Scotland). A bomb placed in luggage exploded on board. All 243 passengers and 16 crew members on board, as well as 11 people on the ground, were killed. In 1991, two Libyan citizens were accused of organizing an explosion. In 1999, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi agreed to hand over both suspects to a Dutch court. One of them, Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, was found guilty on January 31, 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment (released in 2009 due to a fatal illness diagnosed in him, died in 2012). In 2003, the Libyan authorities admitted responsibility for the terrorist attack and paid compensation in the total amount of 2.7 billion US dollars - 10 million dollars for each person killed.

Bombay attacks. India. 257 dead

On March 12, 1993, 13 car bombs were simultaneously detonated in crowded areas of Bombay (now Mumbai). The terrorist attack killed 257 people and injured over 700. The investigation established that the organizers of the explosions were Islamic terrorists. The attack was a response to earlier clashes between Muslims and Hindus in the city. One of the organizers, Yakub Memon, was sentenced to death, which was carried out on July 30, 2015. Two of his accomplices are wanted.

Airplane A321 "Kogalymavia". 224 dead

October 31, 2015 passenger aircraft Airbus A321-231 (registration number EI-ETJ) Russian airline Metrojet ("Kogalymavia"), flying flight 9268 from Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) to St. Petersburg, crashed 100 km from the city of El-Arish in the north of the Sinai Peninsula. There were 224 people on board - 217 passengers and seven crew members, all of whom died.

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that those responsible and those involved in the terrorist attack on the plane would be found and punished. “We must do this without a statute of limitations, know them all by name. We will look for them wherever they are hiding. We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them,” Putin assured.

Bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 224 dead

On August 7, 1998, two simultaneous terrorist attacks occurred in Nairobi (the capital of Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (the former capital of Tanzania), targeting the US embassies in these countries. Parked trucks filled with explosives exploded near the embassies. A total of 224 people died, of which 12 were US citizens, the rest were local residents. The organizer of the explosions was the al-Qaeda group.

Terrorist attacks in Mumbai. India. 209 dead

On July 11, 2006, Islamic terrorists detonated explosive devices hidden in pressure cookers in the carriages of seven local trains in the suburbs of Mumbai (Khar Road, Bandra, Jogeshwari, Mahim, Borivli, Matunga stations " and "Mira Road"). The attack occurred during the evening rush hour. 209 people were killed and more than 700 were injured. At the end of the investigation into the crime, the court sentenced 12 people to various prison terms, 5 of them were sentenced to death.

Terrorist attack in Bali. Indonesia. 202 dead

On October 12, 2002, a suicide attack and car bomb explosion near nightclubs in the resort town of Kuta (Bali) killed 202 people, 164 of them foreign tourists. 209 people were injured. About 30 people were arrested in connection with the terrorist attack. In 2003, an Indonesian court recognized a number of members of the Jamaah Islamiyah organization as the organizers of the terrorist attack. In 2008, three of them - Abdul Aziz, also known as Imam Samudra, Amrozi bin Nurhasim and Ali (Muklas) Gurfon - were executed by court. Muklas' brother Ali Imron was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Al-Qaeda mentioned in the material is included in the Unified Federal List of Organizations recognized as terrorist in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. Their activities on the territory of the Russian Federation are prohibited.

number of victims 13–14

Richard Ramirez, also known as the "Night Stalker", is a convicted American serial killer sentenced to death in gas chamber. At one time, he opened a real campaign of terror against the population of California. At night he broke into houses, robbed, raped and killed. He often left images of a pentagram at crime scenes and also forced his victims to say “I love Satan.” Died of liver failure at the age of 53 on June 7, 2013 in a hospital in California, USA.

victims 17

American serial killer, known by the nicknames "Milwaukee Monster", "Milwaukee Cannibal". It killed at least 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991. All but one of the crimes took place in the city of Milwaukee. His murders were extremely brutal. The “Milwaukee Monster” raped and ate the corpses of its victims. After his arrest on July 22, 1991, the court found Dahmer sane and sentenced him to 957 years in prison. In 1994, a serial killer was beaten to death by his cellmate.

victims 33

In eighth place in the ranking of the most famous serial killers in the world is John Wayne Gacy, also known as the “Clown Killer,” an American serial killer who raped and killed 33 young people, including several teenagers. He was arrested in 1978 and sentenced to death. While on death row, Gacy wrote a book in which he claimed that God had restored his heterosexual orientation, and also painted paintings and sold them to collectors. He was executed on May 10, 1994 by lethal injection.

victims 36

Gennady Mikhasevich, known by the nicknames "Vitebsk Strangler" and "Patriot of Vitebsk", is a Soviet serial killer who killed 36 women in the city of Vitebsk, Belarus, between 1971–1985. Almost all of his crimes involved rape. He did not attack his victims, but, on the contrary, voluntarily lured them into a car (a red Zaporozhets), where he tempted them, or forcibly drove them to a deserted place and strangled them at the moment of experiencing orgasm. He did not carry the murder weapon with him; he preferred to use improvised objects for strangulation. The “Vitebsk Strangler” was arrested on December 9, 1985 and sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out on September 25, 1987.

the number of victims ranges from 5 to 37

Serial killer active in Northern California and San Francisco in the late 1960s. The identity of the perpetrator has not yet been established. He called himself the Zodiac in a series of caustic letters he sent to the editors of regional newspapers. The letters also contained cryptograms in which the killer allegedly encrypted information about himself. Three out of four cryptograms are still undeciphered.

victims 53–65

Andrei Chikatilo is also known by the nicknames “Mad Beast”, “Rostov Ripper”, “Red Ripper”, “Forest Belt Killer”, “Citizen X”, “Satan”, “Soviet Jack the Ripper” - one of the most famous Soviet serial killers, who from 1978 to 1990 committed 53 proven murders (according to operational information, the maniac committed more than 65 murders). He was arrested on November 20, 1990 and sentenced to death on October 15 of the same year.
While on death row, Chikatilo wrote numerous complaints and requests for pardon, took care of his own health - did exercises, ate with appetite. On January 4, 1994, the last request for pardon addressed to Russian President Boris Yeltsin was rejected, and on February 14, Chikatilo was shot in Novocherkassk prison. It is interesting that the murderer Alexander Kravchenko was mistakenly executed for the crimes committed by Andrei Chikatilo.

number of victims 19–82

Alexander Spesivtsev is a Russian serial killer, maniac and cannibal who, from February to September 1996 in Novokuznetsk, together with his mother (she brought girls to her son and then buried their remains), killed and ate 19 women and children. Suspected of committing more than 82 murders. Spesivtsev was sentenced to compulsory treatment and, as of 2015, continues to undergo rehabilitation at the Volgograd Special Psychiatric Hospital with intensive observation.

victims 30–100

In third place on the list of the most brutal serial killers in the world is Theodore Robert Bundy, known as the “Nylon Killer,” one of the worst serial killers in US history, operating in seven states in the 70s of the last century (mostly between 1974– 1978). He was found guilty of the murders of 30 young women and executed electric chair January 24, 1989. However, the exact number of his victims is unknown. Estimates range from 30 to over 100.

victims 49–90

Gary Leon Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, is one of America's most notorious serial killers, having committed at least 49 murders of women in Washington state between 1982 and 2001. Most of his victims were prostitutes or minor runaways. Ridgway began to be suspected in 1983, but his guilt was proven only in 1997 thanks to DNA testing. On December 18, 2003, the Green River Killer was sentenced to 48 terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole. At the trial, Ridgway cried and asked for forgiveness from the relatives of his victims. Currently serving a sentence in a maximum security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, USA.

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