1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (122 page)

929

FACT :
Arica, Chile is
the driest place on Earth
with an average of 0.03 inches (0.76 millimeters) of rain per year.
Barely edging out my wife’s pot roast.

Robert Roy Britt, “101 Earth Facts,” Space.Com,
www.space.com
.

930

FACT :
The 1964 Great Alaskan Earthquake created
disastrous tsunamis
from British Columbia to San Francisco. The ground was pushed up thirty feet in the air in parts of Alaska; in others, it collapsed.
Alaska sounds like a great place to live. No, really.

“Eight of the Most Devastating Deadly Land Disasters,” WebEcoist,
www.webecoist.com
.

931

FACT :
The 2008 Great Sichuan Earthquake in China was felt
as far away as Shanghai
, over 1,000 miles from the quake’s epicenter. Nearly 70,000 people died, and more than 118,000 were seriously injured. Thousands of Chinese are still missing and presumed dead.
Ya think?!

“Eight of the Most Devastating Deadly Land Disasters,” WebEcoist,
www.webecoist.com
.

932

FACT :
In 1980, volcanic Mount St. Helens in Washington violently exploded, killing fifty-seven people and flattening 200 square miles of surrounding forestland. It was
the most deadly, economically destructive volcanic event
in American history.
Unless you count what the stock market has done in the last year, which I do, because I’m still dumb enough to look at my monthly IRA statement.

“Eight of the Most Devastating Deadly Land Disasters,” WebEcoist,
www.webecoist.com
.

“History—Mt. St. Helens,” Mount St. Helens Information Resource Center,
www.mountsthelens.com
.

933

FACT :
When Colombia’s volcanic mountain Nevado del Ruiz exploded in 1984,
the resulting mudslide buried the nearby town of Armero
, killing more than 23,000 people.
No one heard it coming?

“Eight of the Most Devastating Deadly Land Disasters,” WebEcoist,
www.webecoist.com
.

934

FACT :
In 1902,
a landslide of boiling mud spilled into the sea
on the island of Martinique, causing a tsunami that killed hundreds. Three days later, Mount Pelee exploded, obliterating the town of St.

Pierre with an avalanche of hot lava. Of 30,000 residents, only two survived.
The boiling mud would’ve been enough to send me packing. Why was anyone around three days later for the volcano eruption?

“Eight of the Most Devastating Deadly Land Disasters,” WebEcoist.
www.webecoist.com
.

David Wallechinsky, The New Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information (Canongate U.S., 2005), 397.

935

FACT :
More than 2,000 people died in 1960 when a tsunami pounded the coast of Chile with
a massive thirty-foot wave
, flooding 500 coastal miles and triggering the largest earthquake in the twentieth century.
The real tragedy is that all those people missed the '60s, which were a blast.

“Six Chilling Ice Storms, Tsunamis and Floods,” WebEcoist,
www.webecoist.com
.

936

FACT :
At least one group of researchers predicts that
the world’s production of oil will peak
in 2011. The sharp decline in oil supplies that will follow will drastically affect the world economy.
That will be fun.

Daniel Howden, “World Oil Supplies Are Set to Run Out Faster than Expected, Warn Scientists,” The Independent, June 14, 2007,
www.independent.co.uk
.