| The year 2005 could be portrayed as a year of | | | | Indonesia (1000 dead), or floods in China |
| unparalleled natural disasters. The Boxer Day | | | | (567 dead). In India 1000 people died when |
| tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, in Southeast Asia, | | | | record rainfalls triggered major floods and |
| which killed more than 231,000, set the scene | | | | landslides. On August 29, Hurricane Katrina |
| for the year 2005. The massive Indian Ocean | | | | hit the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts |
| quake, measuring 9.15 on the Richter scale, | | | | killing 1,228 people. Later in October, a |
| sent waves as high as 30 meters and as far | | | | 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck northeast of |
| away as 1000 miles in Bangladesh, India, Sri | | | | Islamabad, Pakistan, and in Indian Kashmir, |
| Lanka, and east Africa. The scene looked like | | | | killing 74,564. Following this, Hurricane |
| something out of a Hollywood disaster film. | | | | Stan struck Guatemala and El Salvador killing |
| Entire coastlines were altered as the | | | | about 1,000. These seven natural disasters of |
| seemingly never-ending surging tide | | | | 2005 alone took the lives of nearly 80,000 |
| pulverized everything in its path. An | | | | people, not including the Southeast Asia |
| avalanche of donations immediately poured | | | | tsunami of December 26, 2004.Tropical storm |
| forth from the international community to the | | | | Zeta, named from the sixth letter of the |
| affected area, so much so, that at one point | | | | Greek alphabet, is now the 27th storm to form |
| one charity organization requested that the | | | | in the Atlantic this year. According to Chris |
| people stop sending cash.The deadly tsunami | | | | Vaccaro of the National Oceanic and |
| quickly dwarfed other routine disasters that | | | | Atmospheric Administration, this is the first |
| were not reported in the front pages of the | | | | time in 154 years that the 21 recorded storms |
| media, such as, earthquakes in Iran (612 | | | | in 1933 have been exceeded. |
| dead), an 8.7 magnitude earthquake in | | | | |