World Disasters

Uranium is best known for the destructive power of the atom bombs, which ushered in the nuclear era at the end of World War II, but given the effectiveness of nuclear power, nuclear power plants were constructed around the developed world during the second half of the 20th century. While nuclear power plants were previously not an option and thus opened the door to new, more efficient, and more affordable forms of energy for domestic consumption, the use of nuclear energy understandably unnerved people living during the Cold War and amid ongoing nuclear detonations.

A century of the industrial age saw unprecedented leaps in technology and engineering, from the first flight of an airplane to the first flight of humans to the moon. But alongside these awe-inspiring achievements were horrible disasters caused by faulty engineering or careless judgement. Catastrophes and Heroes explores eight such disasters and recognizes the unheralded heroes who stepped up to save others in times of great danger.

Based on more than five years of clandestine reporting on the front lines, No Turning Back is an utterly engrossing human drama full of vivid, indelible characters that shows how hope can flourish even amid one of the 21st century's greatest humanitarian disasters.

End Times is a compelling work of skilled reportage that peels back the layers of complexity around the unthinkable - and inevitable - end of humankind. From asteroids and artificial intelligence to volcanic supereruption to nuclear war, veteran science reporter and TIME editor Bryan Walsh provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.

On May 2, 2008, an enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in Burma, wreaking untold havoc and leaving an official toll of 138,300 dead and missing. In the days that followed, the sheer scale of the disaster became apparent as information began to seep out from the hard-hit delta area.

Russell and his friends have been through the ringer, but they survived. Now, there are only two questions left. Is Sarah safe? Where can they find her? He misses his wife. Every moment apart is torture. Sarah has been better. She doesn’t trust Spencer, even though he helped her escape Valintino. The wound has slowed her down, but she’s determined to get away.

Esta Primavera de 1940. Louise Belmont, de treinta años, corre desnuda y recubierta de sangre por el bulevar de Montparnasse. Para entender la macabra situación que acaba de vivir, esta joven maestra deberá sumergirse en la locura de un momento histórico sin parangón: mientras las tropas alemanas avanzan de forma implacable hacia París y el ejército francés está en plena desbandada, cientos de miles de personas aterrorizadas huyen en busca de un lugar más seguro.

Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than 24 hours. But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape - barely - but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats. On the run, Nax and his fellow failures plan to pull off a dangerous heist to spread the truth.

The gripping story of a chemical weapons catastrophe, the cover-up, and how one American Army doctor’s discovery led to the development of the first drug to combat cancer, known today as chemotherapy.

On January 12, 2010, a major earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people died, and the greater part of the capital was demolished. Dr. Paul Farmer, U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti, who had worked in the country for nearly thirty years treating infectious diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS, and former President Bill Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, had just begun to work on an extensive development plan to improve living conditions in Haiti.

Survival is Russel’s second biggest problem. In this new world, the major cities are in chaos. Cathy, a prepper with a knack for calling out criminals, only wants justice. Marcus Wright thinks she’s been sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. He can be ruthless. She wants to stop him. He moves on her first. Russel has been trying to quit, but who gives up drinking during an apocalypse? If it hadn’t been for Cathy, he wouldn’t have survived the plane wreck. She saved his life. Now, Cathy’s in trouble. He misses Sarah, but he can’t go home until he helps her.

Was the mom-and-pop station a trap? All around, people fought to survive. Russell, Cathy, and their faithful German shepherd Max just wanted to stay out of trouble. But trouble has a way of finding the desperate. They needed gas. It was their only option. When Cathy got shot, things looked bleak. Russell would need to find a place to treat her wound, away from the thugs that hunted them.

Laki is Iceland's largest volcano - and its most fearsome. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe.

To Chinese American teenager Chuntao, New Lake is a beautiful haven where she can hunt for treasures once swallowed up by a big flood. But when she’s caught scavenging by her biology teacher, a woman whose own past has been swept away, Chuntao is faced with an imponderable question: Which world was better - the ideal one she never knew or the destroyed one that now belongs to her?

When the dead come to life, it’s up to an admiral’s daughter and a former war hero turned town crazy to save a small town. Being the daughter of an admiral, helicopter pilot Jetta Cross is anything but an ordinary young woman. She’s placed in charge of her father’s former Navy Seal comrade, John Hunter; a fallen war hero with a tendency to relive his past and forgo reality. When a government-generated superbug hits the island, the locals become infected and a zombie outbreak plagues their quiet town. Hunter is left alone and to his own devices at their beach house. Often believing ...

Five quiet years of the apocalypse have passed in No Where… but that’s all about to change. Bob and Violet have four small mouths to feed. Then another pair is dumped in their laps, followed by two more. That makes eight. Life is hard enough in the UP of Northern Michigan, miles from anyone, in the middle of the apocalypse, and it just got worse. A band of marauders, on motorcycles no less, invade No Where. What they want is simple; they want everything and will stop at nothing to get it. Bob knows they won’t survive with the Winter Warriors in the area. Violet agrees, Wilson agrees. ...

Everyone knows the story of the Titanic, but in terms of loss of life that catastrophe doesn't even figure as one of the 50 worst maritime disasters of the last three hundred years. The causes of disaster are legion: besides icebergs and enemy torpedoes, ships have been sunk by fire, explosions, flooding, capsizing, storms, collisions and human error.

A World on the Brink of Collapse The Earth as we know it is unraveling. Unrelenting heat waves scorch the land. Cities crumble beneath rising oceans. Storms of unfathomable fury reshape coastlines overnight. Humanity stands at the precipice of annihilation, trapped in the aftermath of its own reckless consumption. In the heart of this unraveling world, Lila—a brilliant scientist and unyielding survivor—refuses to accept the inevitability of extinction. One Woman’s Fight for the Future Driven by an unshakable vision of renewal, Lila embarks on a perilous quest to restore balance to a ...

Most people today recognize the need for a new level of Government that can control all of the national governments on the planet. We just don't know how to go about getting one. We're now living on the edge of either a global nuclear weapons disaster, a world-wide pandemic (most likely created by a government weapons lab) or an environmental disaster that appears to be happening at this very moment. We can each try to do our best to avoid any one of these catastrophic endings to mankind - but most of us realize the helplessness of this strategy - OR we can use our existing technological ...

Transport Technology is coming soon. Visions Corporation. After revealing a new technology that is capable of replacing current methods of transportation and eliminating the world’s dependencies on oil, David Sampson struggles with the decision to make his breakthrough public. There’s no turning back when Visions, a megacorporation, releases a device the size of a cellphone which is embedded with the technology. Many embrace the new method of transportation; others protest, and a terrorist group condemn David and his family. When David realizes that society is not ready for this great ...