Searching the historical record of the Valley of Mexico for evidence of famines and epidemics, speaker Rodolfo Acuña-Soto of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and coauthors identified several drought-associated epidemics of hemorrhagic fevers that had swept the region, causing massive mortality. Among these, the authors describe four especially destructive epidemics that appear to have
killed between 20-90 percent of the entire population, leading to societal collapse: the epidemics of 1003–1011, 1545–1548, 1576–1578, and 1736–1737.
A full
90% of the Toltec population died in 1006 from some pestilential lethal "smell" emanating from a blond, white child. (
Sounds legit)
The epidemics of 1545 and 1576–1580 were particularly lethal. Together, they were responsible for approximately
12 million to 15 million deaths in the highlands of Mexico. During the epidemics, a large proportion of the population was incapacitated. Some witnesses described whole families dying of starvation rather than disease, even when not severely ill.
Cocoliztli, smallpox, and measles are the diseases that contributed the most to the population collapse of the
sixteenth century (
Acuña-Soto et al., 2000,
2004;
Flores, 1888;
Flores and Malvido, 1985;
Marr and Kiracofe, 2000).
Founded only 675 years ago, Mexico City is located in the same region where the once magnificent cities Teotihuacán and Tula collapsed 1,255 and 1,000 years ago, respectively. Similar catastrophic events occurred during the
sixteenth century, when the Valley of Mexico, as well as the whole country,
lost 80-90 percent of its inhabitants due to highly lethal epidemics. During the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, the population again went through several calamitous periods of high mortality, droughts, famines, and epidemics (
Gerhard, 1986;
León, 1982;
Ocaranza, 1933;
Therrell et al., 2004;
Yu-ping and Heligman, 1994).
Over the last 1,500 years, a total of 119 major epidemics and 38 famines were identified (see
Table 3-1). Drought was the main cause of 28 (73 percent) famines. The epidemics of smallpox of 1520–1521 and 1538–1539 induced famine by generalized social disruption. Other historic famines were caused by the particularly disastrous combination of summer frost followed by drought. Such was the case of the legendary famine of 1542–1545, when early frost killed all the corn plants in 1542 and was followed by prolonged drought during 1543–1544 when no rain was registered for 20 months. With no new harvest, reserves ran out, creating a very stressful situation that paved the way to a major famine (
Therrell et al., 2004). This series of events recurred in 1784–1786, the infamous “
year of the hunger” (
Cook and Sherburne, 1985). After the Conquest in 1520, famines were recorded with decreasing frequency.
15,896 deaths, 6,157 injured, 2,537 people missing.
2011 Japanese earthquake/tsunami
The Great Kanto Earthquake, the worst in Japanese history, hit the Kanto plain around Tokyo in 1923 and resulted in the
deaths of over 100,000 people.
Two separate 8.6 events merged into the largest earthquake the modern world had ever seen. A fault line, more than 600 miles long ruptured and left devastation, destruction and a giant tsunami in its wake. When it was over, the busy harbor
town of Valdivia was
flattened and
entire coastal villages had disappeared. Further inland, giant landslides had
buried villages and towns. The tsunami, caused by this monster quake, wreaked havoc all across the Pacific, from Hawaii to Japan and Alaska.
1960 9.5 Chile quake, largest in recorded history.
These and numerous other such statistics show that Mother Nature acts like a temperamental beast trying to shake off its fleas (us). Nature is quite capable of killing us off in cataclysmic numbers and has done so on a regular basis throughout history.
Good (0–0.1 ppm)
Moderate (0.1–0.2 ppm)
Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (0.2–1.0 ppm)
Unhealthy (1.0–3.0 ppm)
Very Unhealthy (3.0–5.0 ppm)
Hazardous ( > 5.0 ppm) 
