A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
The Armero tragedy occurred following the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz stratovolcano in Tolima, Colombia, on November 13, 1985. The volcano's eruption after 69 years of dormancy caught nearby towns unprepared, even though volcanological organizations had warned the government to evacuate the area after they detected volcanic activity two months earlier.
Salgar is a town and municipality in the Colombian department of Antioquia.
The 2009 Messina floods and mudslides occurred in Sicily on the night of 1–2 October, mainly along the Ionian coast in the Province of Messina. They also affected other parts of northeastern Sicily and killed a total of at least 31 people, some of whom were swept out to sea. More than 400 people were left homeless, as many houses collapsed.
The 2010 Ugandan landslide occurred in the Bududa District in eastern Uganda on 1 March 2010. The landslide was triggered by heavy rain between 12 pm and 7 pm that day. At least 100 people were believed to have been killed, and 94 bodies were found.
At around CST 2:10 a.m. (UTC+8) on 23 May 2010, train K859 travelling from Shanghai to Guilin derailed in a mountainous area in Dongxiang County, within Fuzhou City, Jiangxi. At least 19 people died, and 71 were injured. At least 53 people were rescued and another 280 were taken from the train. Within 12 hours all survivors had been removed as the rescue effort got underway.
The 2010 China floods began in early May 2010. Three hundred and ninety-two people died, and a further 232 people were reported missing as of June 30, 2010, including 57 people in a landslide in Guizhou. Fifty-three of the deaths occurred from the flooding and landslides between May 31 and June 3, and 266 deaths occurred between June 13 and June 29. Four hundred and twenty four people were killed by the end of June, including 42 from the Guizhou landslide; 277 more were killed and 147 were missing in the first two weeks of July, bringing the death toll as of August 5 to 1,072. A landslide in early August in Gansu killed at least 1,471 people and left 294 missing. In total, the flooding and landslides killed at least 3,185 people in China by August 31. More than 230 million people in 28 provinces, municipalities, and regions, especially the southern and central provinces and regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing Municipality, Gansu, Sichuan, and Guizhou, and the northeastern province of Jilin were affected, while at least 4.66 million people were evacuated because of the risk of flooding and landslides in the latter half of June. By early August, over 12 million people were evacuated, and that number rose to 15.2 million by August 31.
A series of floods in Colombia began in late April 2011, coinciding with the country's rainy season. Torrential rains triggered extensive flooding and landslides that killed at least 187 people and affected 1.2 million. It destroyed and damaged 1,450 and 149,270 houses respectively, and left more than 69,000 residents homeless. Estimates have placed damages at US$5 billion. After September, a second wave of flooding and landslides killed another 81 people, wounded 65 more and affected approximately 289,000. However the heavy rain and flooding effected 28 out of 32 departments of Colombia.
The 1985 Puerto Rico floods produced showers and thunderstorms across the island and the deadliest single landslide on record in North America, that killed at least 130 people in the Mameyes neighborhood of barrio Portugués Urbano in Ponce. The floods were the result of a westward-moving tropical wave that emerged off the coast of Africa on September 29. The system moved into the Caribbean Sea on October 5 and produced heavy rains across Puerto Rico, peaking at 31.67 in (804 mm) in Toro Negro State Forest. Two stations broke their 24-hour rainfall records set in 1899. The rains caused severe flooding in the southern half of Puerto Rico, which isolated towns, washed out roads, and caused rivers to exceed their banks. In addition to the deadly landslide in Mameyes, the floods washed out a bridge in Santa Isabel that killed several people. The storm system caused about $125 million in damage and 180 deaths, which prompted a presidential disaster declaration. The tropical wave later spawned Tropical Storm Isabel.
On 2 May 2014, a pair of mudslides occurred in Argo District, Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan. The death toll is uncertain, the number of deaths the number of deaths is believed to be at least 350 and no more than 2,700. Around 300 houses were buried and over 14,000 were affected. Rescuers responding to the initial mudslide were struck by a second mudslide, which further hampered rescue efforts.
On 30 July 2014, a landslide occurred in the village of Malin in the Ambegaon taluka of the Pune district in Maharashtra, India. The landslide, which hit early in the morning while residents were asleep, was believed to have been caused by a burst of heavy rainfall, and killed at least 151 people. Rains continued after the landslide making rescue efforts difficult.
This is a list of notable recorded floods that have occurred in India. Floods are the most common natural disaster in India. The heaviest southwest, the Brahmaputra, and other rivers to distend their banks, often flooding surrounding areas.
The Mocoa landslide was a natural disaster that took place in 2017. During the pre-dawn hours of 1 April 2017, locally heavy rain triggered flash flooding and landslides in the city of Mocoa, Putumayo, Colombia, killing at least 336 people, injuring 400, and leaving 200 others missing. It is the third-deadliest weather-related disaster in Colombian history, and is regarded as the worst catastrophe in the history of Mocoa.
On 16 August 2017, severe flooding caused a mountainside to collapse, triggering a landslide which affected a fishing village in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ituri province. The disaster killed at least 200 people. Much of the damage is attributed to poorly regulated housing in vulnerable mountainous regions and heavy deforestation.
In late June through mid-July 2018, successive heavy downpours in southwestern Japan resulted in widespread, devastating floods and mudflows. The event is officially referred to as Heisei san-jū-nen shichi-gatsu gōu by the Japan Meteorological Agency. As of 20 July, 225 people were confirmed dead across 15 prefectures with a further 13 people reported missing. More than 8 million people were advised or urged to evacuate across 23 prefectures. It is the deadliest freshwater flood-related disaster in the country since the 1982 Nagasaki flood when 299 people died.
On December 22, 2021, a landslide at a jade mine in the Hpakant township in Kachin State, Myanmar, killed at least three people, and left between 70 and 100 missing.
A large landslide occurred in Noney district of the Indian state of Manipur near the Tupul railway construction site on the night of 30 June 2022. It killed 58 people and three people were missing. Eighteen people were injured. Twenty-nine Indian Army personnel and 29 civilians were among the deceased. Of the missing three people, two were civilians and one was an Indian Army personnel.
On February 6, 2024, a landslide occurred in Maco, Davao de Oro, Philippines, after heavy rainfall, killing at least 98 people.
On 29 April 2024, a blockage in a culvert beneath a railway embankment led to a catastrophic failure and inundation in Kenya, killing at least 50 people. The event was initially described as a 'dam failure'. The flood occurred following heavy rains in the previous month that killed over 110 people. Casualties came from the town of Mai Mahiu, where another 84 people were reported missing, and 109 people were hospitalized.
