Seconds from Disaster

On March 11, 2011, the largest ever recorded earthquake, a 9.0 on the Richter scale, and tsunami off Japan's coast result in 15,893 deaths, 2,572 missing, and 6,152 injured. Finally, there was the meltdown at the TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant causing Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign five months later on August 25, 2011. The meltdown also displaced around 100,000 people from their homes, jobs, and farms in the nearly 12.5 mile exclusion zone around the reactor.

After several engagements over the previous days, on May 27, 1941 elements of the Royal Navy sink the German battleship Bismarck.

In 1963, a landslide from Monte Toc into the reservoir of the Europe's highest dam causes a giant flood wave that destroys the village of Longarone and other villages, claiming over 2,000 lives.

They were the Branch Davidians led by charismatic David Koresh. After a 51-day siege at the ranch of an armed religious cult, the Federal Bureau of Investigation tries to end the standoff with tear gas, but a fire breaks out and engulfs the compound. By the end 76 Davidians died and 4 ATF agents, including 22 children.

A series of decisions and mistakes lead to the deaths of 11 oil rig workers and the world's largest oil spill disaster.

On November 26, 2008, terrorists attack two luxury hotels (one of them the famous Taj Mahal Hotel), a Jewish educational center, a café and a train station in Mumbai, killing 166 people. They also placed pipe bombs in two taxis, which killed the drivers whilst driving to a hotel.