Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

WHILE most people see the end of the millennium as an excuse for a global
party, a handful of doomsayers think differently. They’re predicting not just
worldwide computer meltdown, but everything from the resurgence of AIDS and the
Ebola virus to the coming of the anti-Christ.

Could the End be upon us? Nobody knows. But any events heralded by the
millennium would have to be dramatic indeed to top the many cataclysms that
Earth has already taken in its stride.

For New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ’s first millennium special, and in the spirit of
reassurance, we have put together a gallery of our favourite catastrophes.
You’ll find the almighty collision that gave birth to the Moon, megafloods in
North America that carved out a gothic landscape in the blink of a geological
eye and the disappearance of the sea that nurtured European civilisation.

Here, also, are tsunamis spawned when islands fell into the sea, a volcanic
eruption in Napoleonic times that was the largest for ten millennia and a
massive meteor crater in Australia so well disguised that it could only be seen
from space. Of course, no collection of disasters would be complete without a
couple of mass extinctions. And we don’t mean the puny event that killed off the
dinosaurs—that was a mere slap on the wrist compared with the global
purveyors of death you’ll read about here.

Since our world began, life has had to face many obstacles but has always
come out on top. In September, New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ’s second millennium
special will cover the search for life beyond Earth, a topic that looks set to
become a major preoccupation of the next millennium.

Assuming, that is, we survive this one.

• MELTDOWN – Siberia
• DAMBURST – Scablands
• KILLER QUAKE – Cascadia
• VANISHED – Mediterranean
• LANDSLIDE – Hawaii
• BOOM! – Tambora
• SECRET STRIKE – Acraman
• GAS ATTACK – Earth
• FIREBIRTH – Moon