Talk:List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom

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)

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)

2004 landslides in Scotland

 * Surely not sufficiently serious to be a disaster? BBC news 80.43.161.49 14:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * 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.

158.152.227.115 22.10 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * 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'.


 * 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)

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)

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)

If a flood occured after 'man' built on a flood plain, (Either into the houses built on the plain or further up stream as a result) How would that be classed? Obviously if the flood had happened into a natural, unpopulated flood plain, that's natural (maybe not a disaster). But if the floods were caused by a flood plain being built on, surely that's man made. hrf 20:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, in the Aberfan, Great Sheffield Flood, and Tay bridge disasters, the deaths were caused by the collapse of man-made structures, although in each case the collapses were triggered by weather related events, but there were fundamental design/construction flaws. In the example of the flood plain, assuming the deaths occur due to drowning or hypothermia through immersion, I guess you could still call it a natural disaster, even though it was pretty stupid to put the people in the way of the flood. After all, the 1953 East Coast floods occurred on a low lying coastal plain with inadequate coastal defences. Viv Hamilton 08:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Tornado in London
Big tornado in London recently... 138.243.228.52 08:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Earthquake
The Dover Earthquake is incorrectly labeled as 1380. It should be changed to 1580. Tedcoombs 19:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, now done. --mervyn 07:22, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Floods of 1947
These got much coverage in the press after the floods of 2007 (e.g. BBC News), so it seems strange that there is no reference to the 1947 floods on this page. Whenrybruce 22:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Citations needed
I have put the fact tag on those items in the list that need references. Where the list item is a link to a well referenced article, it should not be necessary to add additional references here. However some of the items link to unreferenced articles and others simply link to a place name or type of disaster, that doesn't detail the specific event in this list. Viv Hamilton 13:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Lynmouth flood 1796 or 1770
According to this article the 1796 Lynmouth flood was actually 1770. There is no reference for the entry giving 1796. Viv Hamilton 13:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Other Big Storm of 1987
This describes a relatively minor flash flood, not a disaster, and I don't think it merits inclusion. I would like to remove it. Rayhol (talk) 04:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree Viv Hamilton (talk) 07:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Why is smog listed here?
Should smog be included in this list at all? Surely it is primarily the result of human-generated pollution, not a "natural" disaster? Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed! - I just came onto the talk page to raise the same point - since there has been no reply to your comment, I'll remove the 'smog' entry. Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 20:14, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Somebody has clearly since seen it appropriate to put it back. It's arguable that just like flooding it is exacerbated by a combination of natural and man-made factors. Some flooding would not occur if the land into which rainwater could infiltrate wasn't covered in concrete. Also few of these would be termed "disasters" if they did not affect humans - who have historically chosen to live on flood plains, around river crossings, etc. Halsteadk (talk) 15:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Tables - two points
Halsteadk (talk) 14:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Is the only reason the main list of disasters split into two because of the date of the formation of the "United Kingdom". Seeing as this is a list of natural disasters and both lists relate to the same geographic area, I can't see that this split is helpful or necessary. This issue would probably best be resolved by renaming the article to relate to the British Isles, rather than the problemmatic and clumsy title at present (the Isle of Man isn't part of the "UK" but will have been affected by the larger scale disasters - this is why it's better to avoid using a political term like "UK" for natural things).
 * 2) What is the meaning behind the colouring in the second table? Either this needs explaining in a key, or if it is entirely random (as it appears) it needs to be removed - it doesn't look good and it implies some link between the items that are similarly coloured; a link which doesn't seem to exist (the orange ones do not all relate to earthquakes for example). If we are going to go down the lines of colour-coding (eg earthquake, disease, weather-related) then a more distinct range of colours would be preferable!

Winter of 2009/2010?
Should snow in winter time really be classed as a "Natural Disaster"? Sure it did cause some disruption in parts of the country, but I don't ever recall it being to "disaster" levels?

--noelmg 20:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.146.110.143 (talk)


 * 11 years later and it is still listed, without citing any references to support it either. I completely agree that this should not be in a list of disasters. Alex McKee (talk) 14:04, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Kent Earthquake of 2007
Should this be included...? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6602677.stm Davepusey (talk) 20:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Definition of "natural disaster"
The most recent two in the list, the unusually cold winters of the last two years do not strike me as being natural disasters. Could it be that some people are being too liberal with the term, or just generally melodramatic and/or pessimistic?04:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.61.94 (talk)
 * Completely agree with you, was going to post a message myself but you beat me to it. Is a few inches of snow during 2010 really a "natural disaster"? I think some items in the list certainly need to be pruned back to only the most severe. --Rackellar (talk) 22:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed - are the "22 deaths" quoted attributed to this particular winter? There are deaths every winter, a difference of 22 is likely to be neither here nor there across the last 100 years. "Disaster. Noun. A sudden event that causes great damage or loss of life." The winter's caused disruption, but certainly not great damage. Unless loss of life can be directly attributed, it doesn't fit the definition, and certainly doesn't warrant inclusion. Audigex (talk) 08:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Also agree. There's a huge amount of WP:recentism in the list - it needs a severe pruning from the bottom up.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Absolutely - heavy snow in the winter isn't a "natural disaster". Halsteadk (talk) 11:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree, was going to delete them, then thought I better check here, saw everyone agreed, so went ahead and removed them--Pontificalibus (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

We still need to define natural disaster - how about the heatwaves, they aren't sudden? Should we have a separate list of extreme weather events? Is there one already somewhere?--Pontificalibus (talk) 22:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This article is the wrong place to be defining "natural disaster". This article needs to follow the definition at the natural disaster article - if it is wrongly or unclearly defined then it needs fixing there, not here. There is no mention of suddenness in that article - it is simply down to a natural hazard and a vulnerability, so a heatwave could count. Halsteadk (talk) 19:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Request to delete this embarrassing page
This page is just an embarrassment. Take e.g. the idiotic comment about 2300 deaths from heat, when using the same method of calculation there are some 23,000 deaths from cold each and every winter.

I could mention the numerous other natural disasters which anyone who has done any research at all will be aware of.

And don't event think of suggesting I edit. I've had my fill of the politics of wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.78.91.97 (talk) 14:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that it should be deleted, or at least the title changed to list UK only "disasters", as the article doesn't really list many Irish natural disasters anyway following Ireland's attaining independence. It should follow the template of List of massacres in Great Britain and Northern Ireland if it is to remain as an article as "British Isles" is a contentious and arbitrary term.
 * One example of how misleading this page is the "2003 European heat wave" was not a problem in Ireland, only in Britain, France etc.
 * 92.251.161.43 (talk) 12:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

New Category Page needed
The page should link to a Category:Lists of National Disasters — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.58.227.134 (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on List of natural disasters in Great Britain and Ireland. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070929083407/http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2006/12/27/223771.html to http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2006/12/27/223771.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 08:54, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Great Storm of 170?
Storm	Southern England	26 November to 30 December 1704	Hurricane strength storm at 120 mph (190 km/h)	Up to 15,000 deaths, ships lost, mass damage to buildings and trees	Great Storm of 1703. These dates make no sense per the article "Great Storm of 1703". Something's gotta give.HowardJWilk (talk) 20:54, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on List of natural disasters in Great Britain and Ireland. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120415064808/http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/8januarstormguycarprapport.pdf to http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/8januarstormguycarprapport.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:51, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on List of natural disasters in Great Britain and Ireland. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140325222440/http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1650_1699.htm to http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1650_1699.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20161003053817/http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1975_1999.htm to http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1975_1999.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:09, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Split and delete?
Seems odd to have a article such as itself by a geographical grouping rather than by country. Should probably be split into one for Ireland and one for the United Kingdom and this article deleted. Just doesn't fit with other such articles and seems awkward. Canterbury Tail talk 16:01, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * better late than never, but strong agree, this seems like an incongruous list. Given that this is not listed as part of WikiProject Ireland compounds the overall feelings that this is very heavily weighted towards Great Britain. Smirkybec (talk) 14:42, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed strong agree here too - this list is... odd and weighted as well as lacking citations. Perhaps simply remove all references to Ireland within it as it's already missing some major events.   &#9749;  Antiqueight  chatter 16:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The original page was created to cover a list of natural disasters in the United Kingdom.  &#9749;  Antiqueight  chatter 17:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Would support a split; would also support deleting the Irish entries if the article was moved to "List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom". It's roughly the same amount of work either way. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:34, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I disagree - most of the events are Atlantic weather or climate shifts affecting both. As far as I can see on a quick look, the single Ireland-only one is "2008 -	2008 Irish flash floods - Flash floods throughout August lead to one death and the destruction of 50 houses." An Ireland-only list would need references specific to Ireland, which most probably are not. Perhaps it should only begin with Independence.  There is nothing odd at all about having an article on natural disasters, the great majority climate or weather, using "a geographical grouping rather than by country".  In fact this shows a mature encyclopaedic approach, which WP all too rarely takes (Dinosaurs of Idaho etc).  Johnbod (talk) 14:46, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * given that we have separate articles for the geology of both the main islands, then I believe the precedent is there to separate even if your argument is a physical rather than political geography. The Irish landmass is chronically under-represented in this list, and I don't think that is a good argument to keep this article as is. Smirkybec (talk) 15:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If there have been many Irish-only "natural disasters", then of course they should be added. It seems to me that Ireland is blessedly free from volcanos, earthquakes, droughts, extremes of weather lasting more than a day or two and the other sorts of disaster that dominate these lists in less-fortunate regions. Sometimes being "chronically under-represented" is a good thing. Try List of natural disasters in Indonesia for example, or India. Johnbod (talk) 15:29, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You don't find it notable that one of the most significant Irish disasters which has some natural causes is missing from the list or that British Isles is a majorly contentious term which the respective governments of the two countries refrain from using with each other in preference to 'these islands'. Ireland may seem blessedly free from some natural disasters but not so much from others. I would be happy to eliminate all references to Ireland in this particular list.  &#9749;  Antiqueight  chatter 16:04, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * ??? You're blaming the weather on the British? Why not. This used to be titled for "Britain and Ireland" and I've no objection to returning to that. "These islands" does not exactly work in article titles. Johnbod (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not remotely blaming the weather on the British. I would be happy to rename this for "Britain and Ireland". If we are BOLD can we just go ahead with that?  &#9749;  Antiqueight  chatter 21:14, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The Great Famine (Ireland) was on this list but it was deleted on 17 November 2020. --2001:BB6:4713:4858:F035:5F0F:738A:5824 (talk) 10:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I think that should be there, as the Scottish one is, and the Irish one a century before. I'm not entirely sure that plant diseases are a "natural disaster", but I can see the argument, & we should have all or none. In England the famine was much less severe but still pretty serious, although now almost entirely forgotten; we don't have a separate article, and should use European Potato Failure. Johnbod (talk) 13:56, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh - I'd assumed Antiqueight was talking about the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland when they were referring to the omission, but yes, the Great Famine is also missing. Was that a natural disaster? When Ireland was still exporting grain and other crops? To Britain? Well, then you're very much into political territory, aren't you. I would not be in favour of moving this article to "...in Britain and Ireland" because I accept "British Isles" as a geographic term - despite objections by some - and one that's already widely used here on WP. So for consistency's sake, stick with that, or - preferably - split the articles. An avalanche in Scotland or some weird weather patterns such as tornadoes in London have very little to do with Ireland. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 15:33, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Are there any "avalanches in Scotland" or "weird weather patterns" in London in the list (ok at least 1 of the last)? Most of it is severe but entirely unwierd events in the usual Atlantic weather patterns, or continent-wide climatic shifts. I'm not entirely sure that human disease outbreaks where the weather was not a significant factor belong here - eg COVID or the Black Death.  Johnbod (talk) 15:38, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No, actually I was referring to the 2 missing famines in Ireland as a starting point. Also the Tsunami mentioned only suggests Cornwall was affected and doesn't mention Ireland - It leads to the feeling that this page is only tangentially referencing Ireland and that therefore the two main Island groups should be separately handled and in any case the name "British Isles" is not accepted by at least on and should not be forced on one of the countries within the page.  &#9749;  Antiqueight  chatter 10:01, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Covid pandemic
The link/entry for the Covid 19 pandemic is for the Covid 19 pandemic in the united kingdom, but since this is a page for the british isles and not just the united kingdom, surely it'd be appropriate to add a link to COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland or just replace it with a link to the main covid pandemic page JamieDuwr (talk) 12:35, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Split into UK and Ireland?
I know this has been discussed a lot in the past, but should we be considering splitting this into two different articles. The problem is that a lot of the content on here is heavily centred on the United Kingdom. The COVID-19 pandemic affected Ireland, but the UK is statistics and facts are listed, and this is just one of many examples. As someone who has worked on this article over some time, I believe it would be in the best interest to split the two, as this article feels very UK based and kind of neglects Ireland. As ever, I am open for discussion on what others think. Fats40boy11 (talk) 19:04, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * My opinion has not changed, I agree that this article needs to be split into two representing the countries and not the island grouping. Thanks for brining this up again! Smirkybec (talk) 09:20, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response and I agree with you on that. I’ll admit that this is heavily weighted towards the United Kingdom, and you could even argue that certain parts of the article is heavily weighted toward England. Fats40boy11 (talk) 13:38, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course, being neighbours, some natural disasters can impact both nations. However, we wouldn’t put France and Spain into the same group, neither would we USA or Canada. I know these situations aren’t necessarily entirely the same, but it just seems odd that this has been put into a geographical grouping. Fats40boy11 (talk) 13:58, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thread resurrection but... there seems to be consensus for a split? At least, I've not seen anyone objecting. Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 15:14, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Given the lack of opposition here, I'm going to assume consensus and be bold. (My first time to split an article - wish me luck!) Bastun Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 10:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Covid 19, Monkeypox
How exactly are pandemics natural disasters? In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_disaster pandemics aren't even mentioned in the definition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.21.49.169 (talk) 15:32, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Citations to booty.org
Booty.org no longer exists. I've added a citation for the years 1252-53 which carries an explanation and link. But here's the actual page https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20130428154914/http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1200_1299.htm but it doesn't carry author information. Also looks like our text has been lifted verbatim. Cheers. Thelisteninghand (talk) 19:56, 6 September 2023 (UTC)