From Ukraine to Gaza
Televised in front of millions of people on January 28, 1986, NASA launched the Challenger space shuttle, carrying seven crew members. But just 73 seconds later, the Challenger burst into flames, killing everyone on board.
When the Number Four reactor experienced a meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986, a lot of questions remained unanswered for years.
As investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency became more prevalent, it was immediately clear that various design flaws and a lack of employee training were to blame for the disaster.
However, it was a tragedy that could have been avoided. On the day of the launch, frigid temperatures in Florida caused engineers to express concerns about the plastic O-rings, which sealed the ship's rocket boosters. The executives were warned that the unfavorable weather conditions would potentially lead to disaster. The warning was dismissed.
Of course, the weather itself couldn't be prevented, but the infrastructure in Myanmar and the lack of a warning system made the disastrous effects of Nargis worse.
There had been warnings about Fukushima's generators from Japanese scientists to its owners, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). TEPCO later admitted that they knew safety changes were needed but failed to implement them.
The lack of earthquake-resistant designs for physical structures was, in part, why around 300,000 people died. The destruction was so big that it was even difficult for international aid to come in after the quake, increasing the loss of lives.
Owned and operated by Transocean for BP, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an industrial disaster that began on April 20, 2010, off the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion led to 11 casualties and 17 injured people.
When the rig capsized and sank two days later, oil began spilling into the water and continued to do so for months. An ecological disaster, it could have been avoided had BP been more prepared for such a catastrophe.
Preventing earthquakes isn't possible, but building appropriate infrastructure and having disaster preparedness plans in place are. Unfortunately, Haiti didn't have any of these when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit on January 12, 2010.
The invasion, and Iraq's subsequent refusal to withdraw from Kuwait by a deadline mandated by the United Nations, led to a direct military intervention of forces led by the US. Known as the Gulf War, it could have been avoided if Hussein had agreed to the UN agreement.
Three days before the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was warned in a memo from naval intelligence that Tokyo's military and spy network was focused on Hawaii.
The flooding killed 1,836 people in New Orleans, and caused billions of dollars in property damage. The government's response was slow, and as investigations went on to understand why the levees broke, they discovered fault in the levee's design and building.
Seen as a surprise attack that would throw the US into World War II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 had plenty of ignored warnings.
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, it brought a lot of devastation, especially during the aftermath. Much of the city is below sea level, but a series of levees built during the 20th century by the Army Corps of Engineers were alleged to be sufficient if a storm approached. While some flooding was inevitable, no one predicted those levees would break.
On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein's Iraq conducted an invasion against the oil-rich country of Kuwait. This resulted in a seven-month-long Iraqi military occupation of the country.
The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics by eight members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September. They infiltrated the Olympic Village and killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine others hostage. Negotiations were unsuccessful, so the police ambushed the terrorists and killed five of the eight members. However, the rescue attempt failed and all the hostages were killed, plus a West German policeman.
On November 19, 2010, an explosion at New Zealand's Pike River coal mine caused one of the largest mine disasters in the nation's history. Only two survived, and 29 people died.
Later investigations found that health and safety systems at the mine were inadequate, and reports of excessive methane levels, which reached explosive volumes, had been ignored.
Sources: (Live Science) (Ranker) (History)
See also: After Chernobyl–meet the Ukrainian ghost city of Pripyat
Operation Barbarossa was the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union, beginning on June 22, 1941, during World War II. Involving 10 million combatants, it remains the largest land offensive in history.
Prior to the Games, there had been warnings at the West German embassy in Lebanon that an incident would occur during the Olympics. Intelligence officers urged them to take all necessary precautions, but the West German government failed to act.
However, due to the German's poor strategic planning, the operation failed. They also mistakenly assumed that the campaign would be a short one, and that the Soviets would quickly give in. But they were wrong. It's estimated that 566,852 people were killed in the battlefield, and another 1,336,147 died sick or wounded.
The Rwandan genocide of 1994 was a planned-out ethnic cleansing of members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, by armed Hutu militias.
The RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat on May 7, 1915 during World War I.
The Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg. The incident took the lives of 1,500 people, but that number could have been much lower had there been enough lifeboats or a double hull.
What's also shocking is that the Titanic received several ice warnings in the days before it sank, some of which were never delivered to Captain Edward John Smith. He made adjustments for the warnings he did get, but unfortunately that wasn't enough.
The Germans had warned the US about their unrestricted submarine warfare in publications like The New York Times, right until the liner left from New York City to Liverpool. The British government even warned the captain that they were too close to the coast and should zigzag through so as to avoid the German U-boats. But this was ignored, which lead to the death of 1,960 passengers.
The genocide had been in the works for at least two years, and could have been stopped with tougher action from outside powers. The warnings were first brought to the world's attention when the Belgian ambassador to Rwanda, Johan Swinnen, warned that the Hutus were preparing for an ethnic cleansing. Another Belgian, professor Filip Reyntjens, appeared before the Belgian senate and warned of the Hutu death squads. An estimated 491,000 to 800,000 Tutsi died.
On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by a 9.0 earthquake, which caused a major tsunami. This led to power loss in the Fukushima plant. Without power, the cooling systems failed in three reactors, and their cores subsequently overheated. This resulted in the most severe nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Nargis was an extremely destructive and deadly cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the history of Myanmar. It hit the coast of the Asian country on May 3, 2008, causing a total of 138,373 deaths.
No matter the time period and where you look in the world, history is filled with the consequences of people’s collective mistakes and misunderstandings. And these have unfortunately led to some of history's biggest preventable disasters. Even the consequences of many natural disasters could have been diminished if people had just been attentive and listened to the warnings.
Intrigued? Click on to discover some of the biggest avoidable disasters recorded in human history.
Historical disasters that could have been avoided
The world was marked by these tragedies
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No matter the time period and where you look in the world, history is filled with the consequences of people’s collective mistakes and misunderstandings. And these have unfortunately led to some of history's biggest preventable disasters. Even the consequences of many natural disasters could have been diminished if people had just been attentive and listened to the warnings.
Intrigued? Click on to discover some of the biggest avoidable disasters recorded in human history.