2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
230,000 pax

This Boxing Day disaster remains fresh in the minds of most Asians. The 9.0-magnitude quake off Sumatra, Indonesia released an energy equivalent to 1,500 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and resulted in a seafloor displacement 10 meters long horizontally and several metres high vertically. Eleven countries were hit by the resultant waves, some of which were 30 metres high. 

1975 Banqiao Dam flood
90,000–230,000 pax

A collision of a typhoon and a cold front caused a year’s worth of rain to fall in just 24 hours, resulting in collapsed buildings and 62 failed dams. Some 700 million tonnes of water were unleashed at Banqiao Dam, creating a wave 10 kilometres wide and 3–7 metres high that engulfed the plains below at a speed of 50 kilometres per hour, wiping out an area 55 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide.

1920 Haiyuan Earthquake
240,000 pax

This earthquake hit the maximum intensity of the Mercalli scale (XII ), causing damage to 7 provinces and regions from the Yellow Sea to Qinghai province, and from Inner Mongolia to central Sichuan. 200km of surface faulting resulted, causing landslides and redirecting river flows. Water bodies in western Norway were disturbed by the quake.

1976 Tangshan Earthquake
242,000 pax

This disaster hit at 3:42 in the morning in an industrial city. It took only 14–16 seconds for the 7.1-magnitude quake to flatten the entire city. Some survivors said that nature had given some warnings of the impending quake: strange lights and sounds in the sky, rising and falling well water levels and animals behaving erratically.

526 Antioch Earthquake
250,000 pax

Antioch was a thriving Turkish trading post and home to the wealthy and intellectual of the time; it was a city of high Greek civilization blended together with Asiatic elements. But it was destroyed in 526 by a devastating earthquake that shifted the harbour upwards, rendering it forever useless. A fire then followed, destroying any remaining buildings that were still standing.

1839 India Cyclone
300,000 pax

This was the event that led to the coining of the word "cyclone" by Henry Piddington (of the British East India Company) as he tried to describe the devastating effects of the 12-metre-high waves that pounded the mouth of the Ganges River. About 20,000 vessels in the harbour were destroyed, and the city of Coringa was never completely rebuilt.

1970 Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh
500,000 pax

In the middle of the night, in an area that was East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), a Category 3 typhoon made landfall at 185 kilometres per hour. The deadliest tropical cyclone ever hit this densely populated, lowlying area, killing many people in their sleep.

1556 Shaanxi China Earthquake
830,000 pax

This quake might have been well over eight on the Richter scale – three-quarters of the population within a 840-kilometre radius were killed. It was said that this quake redirected rivers, created new hills, opened up tracts of land to form new bodies of water, and basically rearranged the scenery as though everything were made of modelling clay.

1887 Yell ow River, China Floods
900,000–2,000,000 pax

The Yellow River (also known as "The River of Sorrow") has a history of hurting those who live around it. Yet in spite of the frequent flooding, the yellow silt that accumulates in its lower regions is the key to the fertile farmlands that the people depend on. In 1887, disaster struck when it overran its dikes, inundating 11 large towns and hundreds of villages in the province of Henan.

1931 China Floods
1,000,000–4,000,000 pax

It was a time of civil war and the clearing of the Yangtze River of its sedimentation was the last thing on the minds of south China’s rulers. With torrential rains from April to August, one of the most populous areas of the time suffered immense loss of life. People died not only from drowning, but also from starvation and disease long after the floodwaters had subsided.