This is a list of disasters, both natural and man-made.

Classical-Era disasters 

 Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption, Italy
 Alexandria earthquake which destroyed the Pharos of Alexandria
 Rhodes earthquake destroyed the Colossus of Rhodes
 The city of Rome suffered from a major fire during the time of emperor Nero

Biblical disasters

 Sodom and Gomorrah which were destroyed in an undetermined Biblical disaster.

Modern-Era disasters 

 Mobile magazine explosion (May 25, 1865)
 Krakatoa, Indonesia, volcanic eruption, (August 26, 1883)
 Great Galveston Hurricane and Flood, Galveston, Texas (September 8, 1900)
 1906 San Francisco earthquake, San Francisco, California (April 18, 1906)
 Halifax explosion, Halifax, Nova Scotia (December 6, 1917)
 The Boston Molasses Disaster, Boston, Massachusetts (January 15 1919)
 Tri-State Tornado, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana (March 18, 1925)
 The Bombay Explosion, Victoria Dock Bombay, India (April 14 1944)
 The Port Chicago Explosion (July 17 1944)
 Hartford Circus Fire, Hartford, Connecticut (July 6, 1944)
 Texas City Explosion, Texas City, Texas, (April 16, 1947)
 Great Smog of 1952, London, England
 24 hours of Le Mans disaster, France, (June 11, 1955)
 The Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak, Midwest, United States (April 11, 1965)
 BLEVE explosion at a refinery in Feyzin, France (January 4, 1966)
 Aberfan disaster, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales (October 21, 1966)
 Ibrox disaster, Glasgow, Scotland  (January 2, 1971)
 Summerland disaster, Isle of Man (August 2, 1973)
 The Super Outbreak, tornadoes in 13 U.S. states (April 3, 1974)
 The Flixborough disaster, North Lincolnshire (June 1 1974)
 Hyatt Hotel disaster, Kansas City, Missouri (July 17 1981)
 Heysel Stadium disaster, Brussels, Belgium  (May 29, 1985)
 Piper Alpha Disaster, North Sea, Scotland, (July 6 1988) 
 Hillsborough disaster, Sheffield, England  (April 15, 1989)
 Bijlmerramp disaster, Bijlmerramp, Netherlands (October 4 1992)
 Chicago Heat Wave of 1995, Chicago, Illinois
 May 3rd tornados, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
 Enschede fireworks disaster, Enschede, Netherlands (May 13, 2000)
 Kaprun disaster, Kaprun, Austria (November 11, 2000)
 European Heat Wave of 2003, Europe
 Bam Earthquake, Iran (December 26, 2003)
 Hurricane Katrina, United States (August 23, 2005)
 Hurricane Rita, United States (September 24, 2005)

Dam disasters

 Great Sheffield flood, Sheffield, England (March 11, 1864)
 Johnstown Flood, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, (May 31, 1889)
 St. Francis Dam Disaster, Los Angeles, California, (March 12, 1928)
 Teton Dam collapse, 1976

Environmental disasters
 Love Canal, Niagara Falls, New York (1970s)
 Seveso disaster, Italy, 1976
 Bhopal Disaster, Bhopal, India (December 3, 1984) 
 Exxon Valdez oil spill, Prince William Sound (March 24, 1989, 1989)
 Prestige oil spill, off the Spanish coast, (April 15, 2002)

Nuclear disasters
Up to this day, most nuclear incidents did not cause many deaths, except for the Chernobyl disaster and Windscale fire. Some of the incidents in the early nuclear age were not well documented or were kept secret. Here is a list of the known nuclear incidents.

  December 12,1952  Chalk River Toronto Canada
  November 1955  Idaho Falls, Idaho
  September, 1957 Kyshtym disaster, Soviet Union 
  October 1957  Windscale fire, Sellafield, England
  January 1961  Idaho Falls, Idaho
  October 5, 1966  Idaho Falls, Idaho
  December 7, 1975  Lubmin, East Germany
  March 28, 1979  Three Mile Island accident, Pennsylvania
  April 26, 1986  Chernobyl accident, Ukraine. This is the biggest known nuclear accident to date.  
  March 24, 1992  St. Petersburgh, Russia
  November 1995  Japan (see Nuclear accidents in Japan)
  September 20, 1999 Tokaimura nuclear accident, Tokaimura, Japan
  March 11, 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan

War disasters

An attack with much collateral damage may be considered a disaster, such as the attack on KdF Ship Wilhelm Gustloff, 1945, the worst or perhaps second worst maritime incident in history, in terms of loss of life in a single vessel (see also note at the end of the article RMS Titanic).

 The Blitz, (German massive bombing), caused the deaths of an estimated 42,000 civilians in major British cities.
 Dresden fire-bomb attacks, between 35,000 and 135,000 civilians killed in few days, by United Kingdom and United States massive bombing in Dresden, Germany (between February 13 and February 15, 1945).
 Tokyo fire-bomb attacks by United States, is estimated to have killed 83,000 civilians.
 Nagasaki and Hiroshima nuclear bombing by United States in Japan
 Vietnam agent orange herbicide sprayed on few millions Vietnam civilians and US troops, by United States during the Vietnam War between 1961 and 1970.

Air disasters 

This is a list of disasters involving objects in flight or near-flight. See also: List of space disasters, List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners, Incidents in Aviation
 Hydravion disaster Rio de Janeiro 3 December 1928 
 Airship R101 disaster (October 5 1930)
 Hindenburg disaster (May 6 1937)
 Munich air disaster (February 6 1958)
 Staines air disaster (British European Airways Flight 548) (July 18 1972)
 Ermenonville air disaster (Turkish Airlines Flight 981) north of Paris (March 3 1974)
 Tenerife disaster collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's (March 27, 1977)
 Mount Erebus disaster in Antarctica (Air New Zealand Flight 901) (November 28 1979)
 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion (January 28 1986)
 Ramstein airshow disaster (August 28, 1988)
 Lockerbie disaster (Pan Am Flight 103) (December 21 1988)
 Kegworth air disaster (January 8 1989)
 China Airlines Flight 611 (May 25, 2002)
 Ukraine airshow disaster (July 27, 2002)
 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (February 1, 2003)
 Shootdown of Boeing 747 Korean Air Flight 7 (September 1 1983)
 Japan Airlines Flight 123  (August 12, 1985)
 Singapore Airlines Flight 006 (October 31, 2000)
 Air France Flight 447 (June 1, 2009)

Railroad disasters 

 Armagh rail disaster (June 12, 1889)
 Tangiwai railway disaster (December 24, 1953)
 Granville railway disaster  (January 18, 1977)
 Eschede train disaster (June 3, 1998)
 Ladbroke Grove rail disaster (October 5, 1999)
 Neyshabur disaster (February 18, 2004)
 Madrid train terror attacks (March 11, 2004)
 Ryongchon disaster (April 22, 2004)

Ship and ferry disasters 

 RMS Titanic sinking (April 15, 1912)
 KdF Ship Wilhelm Gustloff (January 30, 1945)
 Cap Arcona sinking (May 3, 1945)
 SS Andrea Doria sinking July 26, 1956
 Herald of Free Enterprise (March 6, 1987)
 M/S Estonia sinking (September 28,1994)

Fire disasters 

 Great Fire of London, London, England (September 2-September 5 1666)
 Great Chicago Fire, Chicago, Illinois (October 8, 1871)
 Peshtigo Fire, Peshtigo, Wisconsin (October 8, 1871)

Other websites 
Almanac of disasters

History-related lists