Winds and Tornadoes
Another cause of the destruction
of major cities is natural disasters. It is a statistical
fact that the age in which we live has seen an increase
in both the number and the seriousness of natural disasters.
In the last ten years, disasters caused by climactic changes
are a novel phenomenon. A dangerous and unwanted by-product
of industry is global warming. Industry is gradually disturbing
the balance in the world's atmosphere, giving rise to climactic
changes.According to the information of the American National
Climate Data Center, many disasters occurred in 1998.1
For example, Hurricane Mitch
has been referred to by a number of observers as one of
the world's worst natural disaster ever to strike Central
America. 2 The
Hurricane Mitch that hit Honduras and Nicaragua on 26 October
1998 left more than 10.000 dead behind3
The following are the most important disasters arising
from climactic changes which occurred in the last years:
On October 1987, the biggest
storm since 1703 hit Southeast England. Around 15 million
trees fell down and a great part of the woods disappeared.
16 people died, buildings were damaged and ships were
drifted to shores. 4
On 20 March 1998, 12 people died of the tornado that hit
Georgia.
On 27 March 1997, 27 people died of the tornado that hit
Texas.
The casualties was around 500 to 1000 people of the storms
that hit the west part of Bangladesh on 13 May 1996. Meanwhile
30.000 people were wounded and 100.000 people lost their
homes.
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Hurriyet, September 17, 2003
Takvim, September 14, 2003
Turkiye, September 20, 2003 |
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The Hurricane Andrew of 1992
caused a devastation of around half a trillion dollars in
Mexico Gulf alone. Bahamas needed 250 million dollars to
recover from the ruins of this hurricane. Meanwhile in East
America around 2 million people left their homes to save
themselves from it. 5 The
floods that affected the middle and east Europe on August
2002 caused 114 casualties. During the severest hurricane
of the last 40 years in Sound Korea on September 21, 2003,
around 200 people died only in two days.6
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(Sol üst
resim), Marty kasırgası binlerce Meksikalı'yı
evsiz bıraktı"
(Sol alt resim) Radikal, 15 Eylül 2003, "Asya'da
asrın tayfunu" |
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In the last few years, hurricanes, storms, typhoons and
other such disasters have had also a destructive effect
on the American continent as well as in several other places
in the world. In addition, floods have caused mudslides,
which have engulfed certain centers of population. Furthermore,
earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves have also caused
great devastation. Therefore, all this destruction brought
on upon the great cities by these calamities is an important
sign in each case.
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1.
National Climatic Data Center, "Billion Dollar U.S. Weather
Disasters", Ekim 2000, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/reports/billionz.html
2. M. Encarta Encyclopedia 2000, "Central America"
3. http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Resources/Weather/Severe/index.html
4. http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Resources/Weather/Severe/oct87.html
5. http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Resources/Weather/Severe/index.html
6. 2003 Dünya Almanak, Dünya Yayıncılık, s.395
