From volcanic fury to nuclear devastation, these catastrophic events have shaped our world in the most tragic ways. Join us as we count down history's most devastating explosions that claimed countless lives! Our list includes both natural volcanic eruptions and man-made disasters that forever changed the course of history.
00:10Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most lethal explosions the world has ever fallen victim to.
00:16For our criteria, we're including both natural eruptions and man-made blasts.
00:21A mushroom cloud appeared.
00:23People who saw this in Hiroshima are nearly all dead by now.
00:31Bhopal disaster.
00:32First on our list is the deadliest industrial disaster in human history.
00:37In Bhopal, India, in 1984, a pesticide plant had an extremely fatal gas leak.
00:42Almost 40 years ago, this factory in Bhopal, in India, had a leak that released tons of poisonous gas.
00:49When the leak was initially discovered, management thought it was just a water leak.
00:54Within a few hours, a terrifying amount of gas had built up, causing immense pressure.
00:59The tank broke in the night, and roughly half a million locals were exposed to this poisonous gas, with over 3,500 dying almost immediately.
01:083,000 people had died within the first few hours.
01:12Estimates claim that there have been more than 15,000 more deaths since then, but the true death toll will be impossible to verify.
01:19Has the industry learned anything from this tragic loss of life and the horrendous aftermaths that followed?
01:26Chernobyl.
01:27In 1986, in the Ukrainian SSR, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered a horrific catastrophe.
01:34So it wasn't worth it.
01:35The power was climbing.
01:36I didn't know exactly what that was coming.
01:39What was that?
01:41Poor management led to inexperienced operators performing a test that resulted in a meltdown.
01:46Just after 1 a.m., Chernobyl Reactor 4 exploded and destroyed its entire building.
01:53The chain of disaster is now complete.
02:0130 people were killed due to the effects of the immediate blast, but the true number of lives lost will never be known.
02:07The figure ranges from 4,000 to 16,000 people, with some even going as high as 60,000.
02:14With the 500-ton safety cap blown off and air being sucked in below, the reactor becomes a giant blowtorch.
02:22At least 350,000 people had to be evacuated from the area, and the area still isn't safe to live in.
02:29Armero Tragedy
02:30Volcanoes are terrifying works of nature.
02:34Upon eruption, they'll release tons of perilous lava, ash, and gas.
02:39In 1985, the Colombian stratovolcano, Nevado del Ruiz, erupted, bringing death and disaster upon the nearby town of Armero.
02:48The relatively small explosion melted a mere 5 to 10 percent of the ice cap that covered the volcano.
02:55Nevertheless, it was sufficient to trigger the violent descent.
02:59Estimates believe at least 23,000 people lost their lives, but many blame the government rather than the volcano.
03:06This is because scientists had warned them of their impending doom, but the government ignored these warnings.
03:11The mudslides reached the city of Armero, 30 miles east of the crater, at a speed of perhaps 25 miles an hour, covering the city in mud.
03:22Thirteen villages other than Armero were affected, making it one of the deadliest eruptions in human history.
03:28It still erupts fairly regularly, but thankfully, the government has started to take it a lot more seriously following this event.
03:35After the disaster, hospital preparedness plans were updated for such cases.
03:39Unzen eruptions
03:41Mount Unzen lies on the coast of Kayushu, one of Japan's westernmost islands.
03:47It's still fairly active, and in 1792, resulted in Japan's worst volcanic disaster.
03:53One of its immense lava domes collapsed due to earthquakes, which then led to a landslide.
03:59Mount Unzen serves up an extravaganza, some 35 pyroclastic flows a day.
04:06This, in turn, caused a tsunami, which devastated the nearby city of Shimabara.
04:11Since it was so long ago, we can't get an accurate death toll.
04:15Historians estimate that at least 15,000 people died, mainly due to the tsunami and landslide.
04:21Within moments, it overwhelms the valley.
04:23So the explosion itself wasn't particularly deadly, but it led to a diabolical domino effect, which wreaked havoc upon Kayushu.
04:31Lak'i eruptions.
04:33This explosion was so immense that it altered global temperatures, causing crop failures and droughts in places as far as India.
04:41This eruption produced an enormous amount of lava.
04:44Most of Iceland is inhospitable, with volcanoes being a major factor.
04:49One of their worst volcanic disasters began in June 1783, when the Lak'i fissure began erupting.
04:56It wouldn't stop for eight months, causing 120 million tons of sulfur dioxide to be released.
05:03By the time Lak'i finally stopped erupting in February 1784, it had emitted 8 million tons of fluorine, a highly toxic chemical.
05:12This had a domino effect, which scientists believe caused droughts and crop failures globally.
05:19In Iceland, roughly 9,500 people died, alongside 50% of their livestock.
05:25Many of these deaths were due to the famine that followed.
05:28It was an immense tragedy, and it's unclear how many lives were lost outside of Iceland due to its effects.
05:34The period from the autumn of 1784 until the spring of 1785 was the most dismal that I ever lived through.
05:42Mount Pully
05:43Our next eruption took place in the Caribbean, in the Lesser Antilles.
05:48From April 1902 until 1905, Mount Pully displayed the most activity we've ever seen.
05:54It made its way to the nearby city of Saint-Pierre, causing the deaths of almost 28,000 residents during May 1902.
06:02Like a nuclear blast, within minutes, 30,000 people lay dead.
06:08Most of these people lost their lives within three minutes, on May 8th, 1902, when a 100 miles per hour cloud of gas was unleashed on the island.
06:18But it wasn't just the number of deaths.
06:20It was the fact that an entire town was transformed into a smoldering shell filled with corpses.
06:25It's believed only three survived this ordeal.
06:28A further 2,000 deaths were caused later in May, many of them rescuers.
06:33It went down in history as the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
06:38No volcano in history had ever been so thorough in its devastation, and yet so selective.
06:44Krakatoa
06:45The island of Krakatoa lies in the Sunda Strait, Indonesia.
06:50It's one of the most infamous volcanic islands.
06:52As in 1883, it caused the loudest recorded sound in human history.
06:57On the 27th of August, 1883, it experienced its most violent eruption.
07:03On the 27th of August, 1883, the uninhabited volcanic island of Krakatoa blew itself out of existence.
07:11It was so loud they could hear it in Perth, Western Australia.
07:15It caused a plethora of tsunamis and disasters, leading to over 36,417 confirmed deaths.
07:22The explosion was so vast that it was roughly 13,000 times the size of Little Boys.
07:28The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
07:31The eruption was so loud, the sound was heard over a twelfth of the Earth's surface.
07:35The eruption caused a massive shift in the island of Krakatoa's geography, destroying roughly 70% of it.
07:43And scientists of the time struggled to comprehend the geological forces that caused the tragedy.
07:49Nagasaki
07:49Atomic bombs are the most destructive weapons ever created, by a significant margin.
07:55They've been used in warfare twice, both occasions being in August 1945 against Imperial Japan.
08:02If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on war industry.
08:07America first bombed Hiroshima on August 6th, then Nagasaki on August 9th.
08:12The latter explosion killed somewhere between 60 and 80,000 people in the immediate blast.
08:18The majority of them were civilians.
08:20The bomb missed the aiming point and fell into a valley.
08:24This time there was no firestorm, but even so, more than 50,000 people were killed.
08:31Nagasaki was the least damaged of the two cities, largely due to its geography and the bomb exploding in an industrial area.
08:39That doesn't make it any less horrific, however.
08:41It's impossible to calculate how many deaths it caused in the decades following, but we can say for certain that it would be a horrendous figure.
08:48The flash radiation of heat from the blast scorched hillsides as far as 8,000 feet away from ground zero.
08:56Mount Tambora
08:57Indonesia is a region with a variety of active volcanoes, such as Mount Tambora in Sumbawa.
09:03In 1815, it was responsible for the deadliest volcanic eruption ever recorded.
09:09In 1815 in Indonesia, the Tambora volcano awakes.
09:13It began in 1812, but it peaked in April 1815.
09:20It erupted so violently that it reduced worldwide temperatures, causing a year without a summer in 1816.
09:28What follows are cold spells, bad harvests, and the biggest famine of the 19th century.
09:34Around 10,000 people were killed directly by the eruption, but somewhere between 49 and 90,000 died in the post-eruption fallout.
09:42This is what earns it the title of the deadliest recorded eruption, with the highest estimates claiming over a quarter of a million people lost their lives.
09:51How could a single volcano at the other end of the world cause so much death and suffering?
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10:12Hiroshima
10:13For the majority of human history, volcanoes have been the source of Earth's most violent explosions.
10:19Comparing the destructive capabilities of volcanoes to man-made atomic bombs is harrowing.
10:24The bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 resulted in the deaths of between 90 and 166,000 people, most of them civilians.
10:40For decades afterwards, thousands suffered from health complications caused by the disaster.
10:46Ladders, railings, even people left their outlines on stone and metal.
10:50This makes it impossible to calculate how many lives were lost.
10:53It was truly one of the most violent acts of war ever perpetrated.
10:57Hopefully, it will never be outdone, as nuclear weapons are so powerful now, the consequences would be even more appalling.
11:06Although no one has used a nuclear weapon since, arguments continue as to the morality of dropping the bomb.
11:12Were there any other especially destructive explosions we forgot to include?
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