DIVINE
WINDS
The Mongols may have ruled the largest contiguous empire in human
history -- at its height, it dominated a quarter of the
earth's population -- but they failed twice to bring Japan to its knees.
On
both occasions (in 1274 and 1281), the invading Mongolian fleets
were thrashed by powerful typhoons and suffered heavy losses. In the
second
invasion, some 80 percent of Kublai Khan's hastily built warships sank
during a
two-day storm, known in Japan as "kamikaze"
or "divine wind." In the popular mythology of the time, Raijin, the
god of thunder, was said to have stirred up the divine wind and shielded Japan
from the Mongols. Some 660 years later, kamikaze would take on another meaning,
becoming synonymous with the suicide attacks carried out by the Japanese during
World War II.
SUNKEN
ARMADA
In 1588, the "invincible" Spanish Armada of 130 ships set sail
to attack the English Channel, but was delayed by a series of storm that
forced the fleet back to Lisbon. When
the Spanish fleet finally arrived two months later, the British Navy,
led by
Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake, had regrouped and was able to
mount
a spirited defense of the Channel. Disorganized and battered by British
artillery, the Armada retreated and began the treacherous journey back
to
Spain. Along the way, the leading Spanish ships were rocked by a
cyclonic
depression off the Bay of Biscay and, three days later, the rearmost
ships were
battered on the rocks off the shores of Ireland. In total, the Spanish
lost more ships in bad weather than in combat with the British.
PARIS
HAILSTORM
If the opulence of the royal court at Versailles and France's
increasingly shaky financial situation were at the root of the revolution of
1789, perhaps so was the weather. Beginning in 1785, a series of bad harvests
-- possibly the result of volcanic eruptions in Iceland that shifted weather patterns -- contributed to food
shortages that roiled an already restive underclass. But the final straw was
quite possibly a hailstorm in May 1788 that destroyed crops in a 150-mile radius around Paris, sending
grain prices through the roof. Ten months later, following the failed meeting
of the Estates-General and the formation of a breakaway National
Assembly, the French
Revolution was underway.
BHOLA
CYCLONE
The Great Bhola cyclone wasn't particularly strong by historical
standards -- it may not have even been the strongest gale to strike the
Indian Ocean in 1970 -- but its fateful timing and
unlucky course through the densely populated Ganges Delta of East
Pakistan made
it the deadliest cyclonic storm ever. Carrying 115 mile per hour
winds, it destroyed crops and razed entire villages, leaving
roughly half a million people dead when all was said and done. Relations
between
Pakistan and its disconnected easternmost province were already strained
before
the storm, but the Pakistani government's handling of the Bhola
cyclone caused the tensions to boil over into violent anti-government
protests and, by 1971, civil war. Nine bloody months later, Bangladeshis
had
won their independence from Pakistan.
KATRINA
The category-five monster that slammed into New Orleans,
Louisiana, on August 29, 2005, holds an infamous place on record as causing the
most extensive damage ($108 billion worth) and as one of the five deadliest
hurricanes in the history of the United States. Some 1,833 people died as a
result of the storm, as flood waters from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake
Pontchartrain overflowed the antiquated U.S. Army Corps of Engineer-designed levees
that protected the city's inhabitants. And yet, it's not as if they didn't see
the devastation coming. Experts had long warned about the cataclysmic effects
of a major hurricane's direct impact on low-lying New Orleans and, alert to the
danger, President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency two days before
Katrina made landfall. But no one, it turns out, was really quite ready for the
chaos that ensued. With inadequate preparations made for evacuation, looting
and rioting broke out across the city, while residents drowned in the attics of
their homes or were left to die in hospital beds, The president's unqualified
FEMA appointee, Michael Brown, was shown to be just that, while Bush was
lambasted for a belated and inadequate National Guard response -- and for appearing
distant. (In Bush's memoirs, he called the scathing comments from
Kanye West -- "George Bush doesn't care about black people" -- the worst moment
of his presidency.) Worse, the perception that America couldn't handle its
affairs at home though it had committed heavily to wars overseas seemed to
change the national tenor to the effort in Iraq. And it certainly didn't
help Bush's cause that Cuba and Venezuela, two nations he vilified, were the
first to offer to come to America's aid with pledges of donations and aid.
CYCLONE
NARGIS
On May 2, 2008, a
strengthening Cyclone Nargis came off the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal and pummeled
central Burma, causing what would become the worst natural disaster in the country's
history. Some 138,000 people are thought to have died as a result of the storm,
though figures are notoriously inaccurate, as the government is thought to have
suppressed the death toll. High winds, storm surges, and heavy rains destroyed
entire villages, stranding millions in remote areas without access to food,
water, or medicine. Compounding matters, the ruling military junta refused
offers of international aid for nearly four days, only finally appealing to the
United Nations on May 6. The first international air deliveries of supplies
started arriving two days later, and in limited quantities, as the junta
refused access to NGOs and humanitarian relief agencies waiting with planes
full of supplies just across the border in Thailand. The international furor at
the Burmese regime -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused the
government of creating a "man-made
catastrophe" -- focused attention on the paranoid callousness of the ruling
junta. It may
not have directly empowered the opposition movement, but the shocking
images of corpses dangling from trees and of families starving even weeks
after the storm, exposed the regime's incompetence and cruelty and foretold the
beginning of the end of the military junta.
Source - Foreign Policy
