Demographic research points out that due to WWI some 20.000.000 did not live (ie died or weren’t even born in the first place). For 1550 days of war, that shows a death toll of way over 12000 a day for over 4 years straight.
Cardoon
Reading through just a handful of event on that first link, and remembering what the Germans had done to the Russians and Poles, I can’t help thinking that they got what they deserved, even when you consider what happened to the German soldiers that were captured at Stalingrad it looks pretty much justified.
There was a bunch of flyers going round my university after the WTC bombing, suggesting that the UK day of mourning was only applied because the lives lost were American. Referred to in the leaflets were the Turkish earthquake, the Srebrenica massacre and the Rwandan atrocities.
Some of the figures seemed wildly inflated (and for this OP, all did not occur in a single day in in Srebrenica and Rwanda), although a figure of 500000 in Rwanda in a ten week period suggests something like 7000 a day on average.
I struggled to track down a single agreed figure for the Turkish disaster, with estimates from 3000 to 40000, although CNN says 17000.
Srebrenica: couldn’t find a consistent figure for the timeframe or death toll.
Up to now I had been a little bit suspect of the earthquake totals, as I had a little difficulty imagining how people could be killed outright by an earthquake when everyone lived in light, one-story structures. I had assumed that the total includes deaths due to disease and starvation long after the “single-day” requirement.
However, Carpoon’s contibution seems to indicate that an earthquake may have also caused flooding, especially in China, which could easily and nearly instantly kill many, many people.
And of course, the regular floodings in Bangladesh work in similar ways.
There are a number of sites listing numbers between 1 and 1.1 million dead in 1201, in Upper (Northern) Egypt and Syria. Considering that these areas were fairly heavily populated, and that much of the local construction was mud brick rather that light structures, I could easliy see how massive death would occur.
I’ts not clear from anything I can find whether or not the deaths all appened in a day, or over weeks. I’d suspect that much of the death was from injury and starvation, as opposed to actual trauma on the first day.
The Yellow River floods seem to be the consistant big killers, and IIRC, the Yellow River shifts riverbeds every 150 or so years, causing massive flooding an destruction each time, but also re-enriching the valeys at the same time, which brings more farmers and villiages back to the valley, only to be flooded out again on the next shift. Further, IIRC, the Three Gorges Dam project was intended to end this cycle, but has been a disaster in it’s own right…
Many British were killed as well. One of the worst terrorist acts in British history.
You make a good point re: every day more people probably die than the number mentioned here. But 100 million people would be about 2% of the population, which seems like an awful large percentage of the population to die on one day. Is that right?
Probably not. But think about all the babies born. Of course, than means every 50 days the population of the earth rolls over, so 100,000,000 is way off. In any event, the birth rate far exceeds the death rate.
Come to think of it, the world grows by 1,000,000,000 people every three years at our current pace (thanks ALOT India, China, and Africa). That’s only 913,000 births per day. But at the 100,000,000 deaths a day rate, we’re, uh, screwed. So I’m gonna take a stand, and agree with Gazoo on how unlikely it is that 100,000,000 people die each day.
When Hitler was planning the holocaust he was reported to have said “Who remembers the Armenians?” Turkey was responsible for the slaughter of 1,500,000 Armenians in 1915 when they tried to assert independence. You can find accounts of 5,000 killed in one day (possibly April 24) or, in this link, 24,000 in three days.
There were people of many nationalities killed.
I was merely reporting what I read, I made no comment on the validity of the statement.
According to the World Factbook, the global death rate for 2001 is 8.93/1,000 population. Assuming a world population of 6 billion, annual deaths therefore equal 53,580,000, giving an average daily death toll of about 147,000. tc, you seem to have slipped a few decimal points in your calculations.
In any case, some of the previous one-day death tolls for floods and earthquakes would greatly exceed the “background” death rate, especially considering the world population was much lower (although the annual death rate per 1,000 would have been much higher).
One this one, very dark day, a quarter of the population of all the people on earth died.
That is, if you believe.
quote:
Originally posted by tc
Assuming a worldwide population of 5*109, and average life of 50 years (probably too high on a world-wide scale we arrive at 100 million ‘normal’ deaths per day. I would guess that this has seasonal fluctuations, and a cold winter day in China, or an exceptionally hot day at the end of a tropical dry season can seriously change this. Any disasters or massacres are simply too small not to disappear in the statistical fluctuations.
[cynic conclusion]I all shows that even when it comes to killing large populations, we cannot (yet) beat mother nature. Maybe with a serious deployment of H-bombs we’d come close…
These number are way off somehow. With a 5 billion poplation number to start, if you assume a steady population and a ONE year life span, then one three-hundred-sixty-fith of the population would die daily. That comes out to 14 million a day. I don’t know what the right answer is but 100 million is WAY too high.
Yes, of course… What can I say. I was in a hurry. It was late… That is 100 million per year, which comes out as about 300 000 per day. Which brings it closer to the ‘disaster’ numbers.
I withdraw my earlier statement, and submit that ‘disasters’ are not negligible, compared to the average ‘normal’ daily death toll.
does anyone have an idea how many people–on average–die per day?
Earthquakes along the coast or just off-shore can cause tsunamis (a.k.a. tidal waves), which also kill huge numbers pretty much instantly.
I remember learning of a powerful 'quake in Egypt that had put a long, heavily populated stretch of coastline under water in minutes - too fast for most people to escape. That might have been the 1201 tremor already mentioned.
No, no, no, the Three Gorges are on the Yangtze river. And since they won’t raise water levels until 2003, how can you tell it’s a disaster (yet)?
You’re right about the Yellow river, though. As a matter of fact, when I read the OP, the first thing that came to mind was the intentional flooding of Kaifeng, during the Qin dynasty. I heard 300,000 people were thought to have died that day. I don’t have cites, and that was a long, long time ago, so I doubt anyone has accurate statistics on that event.
On March 9, 1945 American planes bombed Tokyo with incendiaries. The total dead for the night was an estimated 85,000. “It is believed that more people died from fire in a six-hour time period than ever before in the history of mankind”. - From “Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of the Good War”.
And now the award for the most deaths by machete in any three day period in the 20th Century. Step forward Rwanda! Wait a minute - there seems to be a tie! Every country in Africa is a war zone! Rwanda ties with Somalia, Nigeria, the Sudan, the Congo, etc etc etc etc - all countries deserving of recognition for senseless violence, war, genocide, massacres, hacking, stabbing, clubbing, bone crunching, skull bursting and consequent famine, starvation and revenge. On account of there being no one left in Africa with arms (or feet), the award will be accepted by on behalf by the Khmer Rouge.
Ah, right you are. I’d mistaken the Three Gorges for another dam, which, (again, IIRC) has suffered failures and uncontrolled releases that cost some 3000+ lives in one storm.