On a somewhat related note, I send something like the following to my Cognition students after we talk about the availability heuristic (the 1918 flu epidemic isn't included because I was trying to keep it relatively current; I haven't added the 2008 Burma cyclone (~134K) or the 2008 China earthquake (~70K)).
Invariably, students think the 2005 hurricane Katrina is very high on the list (and are particularly surprised about the 2003 European heat wave). Patrick __ Rank these events in terms of number of lives taken: 1958 - 1961 Chinese Famine 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic 1985 Columbia volcano 1996 - 1998 North Korean famine 1999 landslide in Venezuela 1999 Hurricane Mitch 2003 Iran earthquake 2003 European heat wave 2004 Indian ocean tsunami 2005 Kashmir earthquake 2005 Hurricane Katrina Chances are, you probably haven't even heard of most of these events. (Scroll down to see the actual death toll) 1958 - 1961 Chinese Famine: 30 million dead 1996 - 1998 North Korean famine: 1.2 million dead 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic: 750 thousand dead 2004 Indian ocean earthquake/tsunami: 283 thousand dead 2005 Kashmir earthquake: 87 thousand dead 2003 European heat wave: 37 thousand dead 2003 Iran earthquake: 26 thousand dead 1985 Columbia volcano: 23 thousand dead 1999 landslide in Venezuela: 20 thousand dead 1999 Hurricane Mitch: 18 thousand dead 2005 Hurricane Katrina 1.8 thousand dead (data compliments of wikipedia) -- Patrick O. Dolan, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology Drew University Madison, NJ 07940 973-408-3558 [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
