Earthquakes, hurricanes, which holiday and conference locations are at risk

Problems
1 Who is at risk - which countries and which parts?
2 How can I find out?
3 Do I care?
4 How does it affect me?
5 What precautions could I take?

Answers
Note the Ring of Fire.

Countries which have had disasters (alphabetically by type of disaster)
Air Crashes:  Malaysia.
Air terrorism: Lockerbie, Scotland (American Airline). Entebbe.
Animals Escaped or Caged: Safaris; Wildlife; Zoos, Etc: bears (USA; Romania); rabies; sharks (Australia), snakes. Lions at Safari Park, S Africa; MGM hotel, Las Vegas.
Avalanches / Landslides:
Cruise Disasters: Titanic 19.. (many more).
Earthquakes
Fairground:
Fires (Forest: Australia; USA); Skyscraper: UK, London; Dubai?)
Floods: England: Harrow
Hurricanes and floods: USA Texas, New Orleans Katrina; Irma Key West; St Martin and St Martin; Puerto Rico.
Road Accidents: UK: . USA.
Sink Holes: USA, UK - St Albans.
Terrorist Attacks/bombs/train attacks: UK: London: IRA; ISIS. USA.
Train Accidents and Crashes: Tay River bridge Disaster, Scotland.
Tsunamis: Japan; Indonesia.
Volcanic eruptions: 1815 Mount Tambora, on Sumbawa island, Indonesia, April 5-10 1815, killed estimated 71,000 immediately, plus up to 100,000 from subsequently triggering a 13 foot hight tsunami, and floating islands of pumice, and black clouds causing the year without a summer, which in turn led to crop failures and the Irish famine and starvation. The cold and rain kept indoors a group of writers including Byron? and Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein.

This list is not comprehensive. You might wish to note the frequency, whether they are in cycles, such as every day, month, year, one hundred years, random and frequent, almost never, and whether one is expected soon.

How to record what interests you? You could list every country in the world and search for a type of disaster. Or look for disasters in the area where you plan to live.

UK Stories
For example:
My UK home in the borough of Harrow, is pretty quiet you might think. Harrow is inland and not on the coast. England was a country which throughout my childhood and teenage years had never had a rail crash, flood or earthquake, I thought.

The only flood I had heard of was at Lynton and Lynmouth in Devon years ago.

Major rail crash. I had never heard about this until I started researching and found it was the start of introducing triage to the British emergency services, copying US battlefield, dividing the casualties into those beyond help, those needing urgent treatment who might be saved, walking wounded who were able to walk off to a minor injuries department operated by first aiders, nurses or less senior doctors and surgeons.

During my life time, however, I have experienced:
River Pinn flooding my street (only kerb and ankle level - but it looked like a river ouring down the street and up my drive - supposedly stopped from ever happening again by flood prevention works.

Visible Preventions:
Thames Flood Barrier in London.

Climate Change
When I was a child we had serious snow drifts.  You can look at lists of white Christmases and snow weather reports.

Climate and Weather
Climate change is not the same as weather. Weather is if it is sunny today or stormy later today. It goes up and down, quite dramatically in some places, but only if the entire year's weather is different for several years to previous centuries do you have a climate change.

If it snows next week, that is bad weather, much colder than summer the same year, but could be no worse than the previous year. The lowest temperature goes up and down over a year, a decade or a century. Weather is like the Big Dipper (UK brand name for fairground ride) whilst climate change is like the sea level rising.

You can look at paintings in London's National Gallery and see people ice skating on the Thames. But this might be affected by the depth of the Thames which in those days was wider and shallower. Changing the flood barriers along the coast can protect one area of cliffs but send sea water to another area.

Make a list of countries you plan to visit.

They say forewarned is forearmed.
Check at least one of each of these, possibly several, ideally all.

Check area which had problems before and the frequency.

Check the ring of fire.

Check where you are in relation to danger and getting help.

If you have young children, do wish to stay together, or to divide and fly parents or protectors separately (like some royal families and some government ministers), so that in the event of an accident the children still have one parent?

Check if any warning signs, signals, emergency numbers, must points, safety areas.

Do not park under avalanche warning signs on maintain road at some ski resorts in the USA.

Mountain roads may get blocked by rock fall. Do you have a choice of routes?

Do a google search for a specific country, such as Madeira. Add a specific topic, such as earthquake or hurricane.

Ask your travel agent. Or travel insurance company.

Check the destination country's weather and safety warnings.

Check the foreign office of the UK or USA or the country where you are living
Any website about precautions to take often starts with dire warnings about the high likelihood of disaster, or reassurance that such as event is highly unlikely.
Check social media or friends living in each area.

Warning Sign in Chile. From Wikipedia.

INFAMOUS DISASTERS
Mexico Earthquake 2017: death toll 273 (reported Sept 22; Source BBC)
Mexico 1985 Earthquake: killed 10,000+ (Reported Set 22 2017; Source BBC)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/11304701/Boxing-Day-tsunami-then-and-now-in-pictures.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami

PRECAUTIONS
A few precautions:
Always have an escape plan.

Don't hike or travel solo out of main public transport routes.

If you are alone, make toilet stops in public places such as hotels.
When stopping for the toilet in the woods, ask somebody else to watch to prevent interruption and risk of falling over unseen (snake bit, twisted ankle, sharp incline, lost on way back, whatever).

Even in sun, carry a wrap for unexpected cool weather later, eg indoors in air conditioning, at night outdoors, on a breezy boat, after you get wet in rain or at a theme park.

Keep food and a credit card with you at all times. For example, people in a hotel fire in the USA who survived around the outdoor pool were wearing shorts but could get help and money because they had their phones and credit cards in their pockets.

Have a meet-up point for family if you get separated.

BE HAPPY

Be like pilots in WWII (A favourite song, they scraped him off the trance like a pound of strawberry jam and he ain't gone fly no more). Be like the cockneys in WWII who were famed for their sense of humour.

In wartime (WWII) Britain, the slogan was: Keep calm and carry on. I also like the American saying, : Prepare for worst but hope for the best.

Visiting Disaster Sites and Sights
Why?
You can visit current danger zones if you are:
1 A danger chaser. Storm chaser. twister chaser.

2 An official in charge of rescue operations. (Army, navy, air force, relief organizations, fire service, doctors, first aiders, delivery of tents and food and supplies, helicopter pilots, police stopping looting, United Nations, volunteers with 4 by 4 vehicles, boats, wetsuits, rangers removing dangerous animals such as escaped animals from zoos and stranded wildlife, livestock and pets.)

3 The reporter for newspaper, radio or TV station.

4 Seeking to rescue or be with relatives. (The problems are getting transport when airports are closed, roads are blocked by floods and trees, landlines are down - a solution is aid agencies delivering phones which are independent of landlines. A second problem is that the area may be under an evacuation order so nobody is allowed in. The third difficulty is locating people who may move to safer zones.)

5 President or government official of the country or another country assessing damage and reassuring people that problems are being noted, money is being allocated, supplies are being allocated, personnel and transport supplied and help is on its way.

Historic Visitor Sites

Pompeii [7] is in Campania, Italy, not far from Naples. Its major attraction is the ruined ancient Roman city of the same name, which was engulfed by Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Wikipedia.) Italy.

Tips
http://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/758743/earthquake-risk-japan-nepal-italy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/unusual-holiday-destinations-where-the-terror-risk-is-low/
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Natural_disasters_in_the_United_States
Guinness World of Records

Trips
Pompei, Italy
https://wikitravel.org/en/Pompeii
Italian Tourist Board
http://www.italiantouristboard.co.uk
Tambora, Indonesia. Trek to the edge of the volcano. An intrepid few go down into it. See:
www.visittambora.com (They also visit uninhabited Moyo island which has waterfalls.)
http://www.indonesia.travel/en

Photos from Wikipedia article on Keep Calm And Carry On.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have lots of posts about how I got lost in France and Cambodia, and how to cope in emergencies. Please follow me here and share links to your favourites posts.