Talk:List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom
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[edit] Droughts and Heatwaves?
Perhaps we need to give this article more depth? I'd say droughts and heatwaves fit into the disaster definition. We shouldn't also feel constrained about whether a disaster kills people or not, structural damage and cost should be a factor. --JDnCoke 18:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] 2005 Update
We're lacking some stuff for this year, I believe there was quite a severe Tornado that hit Birmingham this year? I'll endeavour to sort that out... --JDnCoke 18:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] 2004 landslides in Scotland
- Totally agree, there were no fatalities or casualties in any of the landslides. It was a very intense rain storm which came after a few days of heavy rain, definitely not a disaster. Likewise the Boscastle and Carlisle floods. These are were all extreme weather events, but not natural disasters. These and possibly other so called disasters in the list should be deleted.
- Just noticed something else - The Irish Potato Famine may be considered as a natural distaster (but that is debatable, some historian's argue that the famine resulted as much from British exploitation of Ireland's unaffected crops which were exported to England, and could have been used to feed the starving), but in any case Ireland is not in the United Kingdom. So this should also be deleted, unless the page is re-named 'List of natural disasters in the British Isles'.
158.152.227.115 22.10 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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- I would disagree, the disaster page says is a natural or man-made event that negatively affects life, property, livelihood or industry often resulting in permanent changes to human societies, ecosystems and environment. Now the Scottish Landslides did exactly that... Also to 158.152.227.115 Ireland was, I suppose you could coarsely say "owned and run" by "England" or "Britain" at that point so perhaps from a historical perspective it should be put there, though I do agree. --JDnCoke 18:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Potato famine and other comments
All of Ireland was then part of the United Kingdom (up to 1922) so the Irish potato famine qualifies. It would be impossible to separate the natural (potato blight) cause from the manmade worsening of this disaster, so I think it should stay within natural disasters.
Overall, this page does need a lot of extra work and maintenance to keep it accurate and up to date + it's difficult to define "disaster" -- in List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll I imposed a cut-off of 40 fatalities, but that would probably be excessive here. Major storm-flood events tend to have fewer casualties now with better emergency services and forecasting (or none viz Boscastle).
There is a page called European windstorm which perhaps should be used to tally major storms which weren't "disasters" (tho Boscastle is not a European windstorm as defined there). --mervyn 17:02, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- A cut-off at 40 fatalities? That's ridiculous, considering that modern emergency services minimise death tolls drastically, for a western country natural disasters should be catagorised via financial cost. You need to rethink this approach. --JDnCoke 18:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Not natural
'Aberfan and the Tay Rail Bridge are not natural disasters, they were man-made disasters in the same way that if a bulding collapses due to having been badly built then it is a man-made disaster. --JBellis 16:24, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've deleted Great Sheffield Flood from this list. It is not a natural disaster. It was caused by the collapse of a man made dam soon after completion. Viv Hamilton 13:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
- Just deleted Great Sheffield Flood from the list again. Please discuss reasons before adding it back. Viv Hamilton 21:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Tornado in London
Big tornado in London recently...
138.243.228.52 08:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
