Catastrophic Floods And Storms

I'm beginning to think that these are not perfect storms. I'm beginning to think these are regular storms and we have a shitty boat.

- Jon Stewart.

The lion's share loss of life from catastrophic storms, and a significant share of the disastrous floods causing great loss of life in relatively recent history, have happened in two general areas.

* South Asia (especially Bangladesh) and Myanmar (formerly known as Burma)

* The Philippines

Certainly, these areas are subject to regular, extreme weather events and have large populations. But, other places that experience similar extreme weather events seem to suffer far fewer casualties as a result, suggesting that poor preparation and disaster response also plays an important role in the disaster related carnage in these regions.

Some examples of these disasters with the number of resulting deaths, according to the 2017 World Almanac and Wikipedia, are as follows:

South Asia and Myanmar

* 61,000 Typhoon, October 1942, Bangladesh 

* 40,000 Hurricane, October 15-16, 1942, Bengal, India

* 6,000 Tidal wave/flood, October 10, 1960, Bangladesh

* 4,000 Tidal wave/flood, October 31, 1960, Bangladesh 

* 22,000 Wind storm, May 28-29, 1963, Bangladesh 

* 17,000 Wind storm, May 11-12, 1965, Bangladesh 

* 30,000 Wind storm, June 1-2, 1965, Bangladesh 

* 10,000 Wind storm, December 15, 1965, Bangladesh 

* 4,892 Flood, June, 1968  Rajastan and Gujarat states, India

* 780 Tidal wave/flood, October 7, 1968, Northeast India

* 300,000 Cyclone, November 13, 1970, Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh 

* 1,217 Monsoon rains, June-August 1973, India 

* 28,700 Flood, July, 1974, Bangladesh 

* 2,500 Tidal wave/flood, August 12, 1974, Bangladesh 

* 3,800 Food, July, 1978, N ad NE India

* 15,000 Tidal wave/flood, August 11, 1979, Morvi, India

* 900 Monsoon rains, June 1983 India 

* 15,000 Cyclone, May 25, 1985, Bangladesh 

* 2,055 Tidal wave/flood, July 22, 1987, Bangladesh

* 1,000+ Flood, August-September, 1987, Bangladesh

* 2,379 Flood, June-September, 1988, Bangladesh

* 1,000+ Flood, September, 1988, Northern India

* 450 Multiple cyclones, May 6-11, 1990, Southeast India 

* 139,000 Cyclone, April 30, 1991, Bangladesh 

* 2,000 Monsoon, June, 1993, Bangladesh 

* 1,000+ Cyclone, November 6, 1996, Andhra Pradesh, India 

* 108 Cyclone, May 19, 1997, Bangladesh 

* 1,320 Cyclone, June 9, 1998, Gujarat, India 

* 1,441 Food, July-September, 1998, Bangladesh

* 326 Monsoon, August, 1998, Bangladesh 

* 9,392 Cyclone, October, 1999, East India 

* 1,000+ Flood, September 19-30, 2000, India and Bangladesh

* 1,100+ Flood, July-August, 2002, India, Nepal and Bangladesh

* 220 Cyclone, May 19, 2004, Myanmar

* 2000+ Flood, June-September, 2004, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar

* 53,769-53,969 Tidal wave, December 26, 2004, Sri Lanka (35,322), India (18,045), Bangladesh (2), and Myanmar (400-600) and many more outside South Asia (176,502) in Indonesia, Thailand, and elsewhere

* 1,110 Flood, July 21-August 3, 2007, Bangladesh

* 1,103 Flood, July-September, 2007 India

* 3,363 Cyclone, November 15, 2007, Bangladesh

* 138,366 Cyclone, May 2-3, 2008, Myanmar

* 1,063 Flood, June-July 2008, India

* 260 Cyclone, May 23-26, 2009, India and Bangladesh

* 992 Flood, July-September 2009, India

Total since 1942 910,708+ (12,307 on average per year 1942-2015)

The Philippines

* 440 Typhoon, October 22, 1952

* 107 Typhoon, June 30, 1964

* 300 Typhoon, September 15, 1970

* 583 Typhoon, October 14, 1970

* 526 Typhoon, October 15, 1970

* 454, Tidal wave/flood, August 7, 1972

* 169 Typhoon, December 3, 1972

* 215 Typhoon, May 20, 1976

* 400 Typhoon, October 27, 1976

* 176 Typhoon, November 25, 1981

* 1,363 Typhoon, September 2, 1984

* 650 Typhoon, November 25, 1987

* 7,000+ Tropical storm, November 5, 1991

* 600+ Typhoon, November 2-3, 1995

* 220+ Typhoon, November 6-12, 2001, also Vietnam

*1,060+ Flood, November-December 2004

* 145 Typhoon, September 21-28, 2005, also SE Asia and S. China

* 1,000 Tidal wave/flood, February 17, 2006

* 450-1000+ Typhoon, November 30, 2006

* 233 Typhoon, June 20-25, 2008, also China

* 498+ Typhoon, September 23-30, 2009, also SE Asia

* 375 Typhoon, October 3-10, 2009

* 159+ Typhoon, October 30-November 3, 2009, also Vietnam

* 105+ Typhoon, July 13-17, 2010

* 1,257 Typhoon, December 16, 2010

* 2,000+ Flood, July-December, 2011, also Cambodia and Myanmar

* 1,146 Typhoon, December 4, 2012

* 7,986 Typhoon, November 8, 2013

* 173 Typhoon, July 15, 2014, also Vietnam and China

Total since 1952 29,790+ (465 on average per year 1952-2015)

UPDATE February 6, 2017: Maybe Bangladesh really is simply a victim of circumstances. Charlie's Diary makes some pertinent observations:

Consider Bangladesh, and the Bay of Bengal fisheries collapse, not to mention the giant anoxic dead zone spreading in the By of Bengal (which means those fisheries won't be coming back for a very long time). There are nearly 170 million people there, mostly living on alluvial flood plains feeding into the gradually rising ocean. If the sea level rises by just one meter, 10% of the land area will be flooded; most of the country is less than 12M above sea level. It's a primarily agricultural economy (it's one of the main rice and wheat producing nations), heavily dependent on fisheries for protein to supplement the diet of its citizens. 

Bangladesh can't survive the 21st century on this basis. It's vulnerable to devastating tropical cyclones bringing storm surges, and as the atmosphere heats, these are going to become more energetic. The loss of fisheries may cripple its ability to feed its population, even if temperature rises don't kill off the wheat and rice crops. Flood, famine, and storm look as if they will inevitably render a large part of the country uninhabitable within 50 years. 

I see three possible responses:

* A rational and humane response to this would involve attempts to: promote GM crops with increased heat resistance and increased bioavailable protein and micronutrient contents to repace the dying fisheries: promote female literacy, education, and access to healthcare (demographic transition correlates strongly with female education and emancipation): redeploy human capital to urban center construction in the northern highlands: invest in survival infrastructure (flood/weather shelters), and so on.

* An unplanned, current-day response to this would be to provide ad-hoc famine relief and aid on demand, to wring hands when millions die in heat emergencies or super-cyclone storm surges, to prevent mass emigration by criminalization rather than by trying to make Bangladesh a more attractive place to stay, and so on. You know this scenario because we're living it today.

* A white supremacist response to this would be to build a wall around Bangladesh--probably a "virtual" one patrolled by killer robots--and starve the inmates to death so they don't pump any more carbon into the atmosphere. After all, the residual carbon content of a dead foreigner is measured in single-digit litres.

Also in favor of Bangladesh is the fact that a major public health campaign has dramatically reduced the extent to which people in Bangladesh relieve themselves away from proper toilets, in a very modest number of years, with huge positive health returns, in part out of a Muslim pride pitch. But, rising religious sentiments have also led to numerous assassinations of atheist bloggers, gays and other people seen as threats to the reigning cultural order.