Trouble Will Find Me Trivia Quiz

Beginning on August 8, 2023, a series of intense wildfires began to wreak havoc on the Hawaiian Islands. Prior to the start of the wildfires, Hawaii had been enduring a long dry spell with little to no rain, which caused much of the vegetation on the islands to dry out.

The first fire was sparked by downed power lines near the town of Lahaina, which is located on the western side of Maui. Hurricane Dora (which was passing south of the Hawaiian Islands) and a strong high pressure system to the north of the islands created strong winds which helped to fuel and spread the fires. Maui endured the majority of the devastation. However, wildfires had been sparked on other islands as well.

The wildfires were declared to be completely contained on September 28, 2023. In the end, the wildfires had claimed the lives of 102 people on Maui. No fatalities were reported from the other islands.

On March 24, 1989, an oil tanker named the Exxon Valdez ran aground at Bligh Reef, located within Prince William Sound off the southern coast of Alaska. The accident caused over ten million gallons of crude oil to spill into the water and onto the nearby shoreline, killing thousands of animals and leading to a massive cleanup effort costing billions of dollars.

The accident was attributed to the actions and inactions of Exxon Valdez' crew, who were allegedly suffering from fatigue at the time. Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez, was reported to have left his station as the vessel was still attempting to navigate from the Valdez Marine Terminal out to the open ocean. The captain allegedly handed over control of the ship to a less experienced pilot who was unable to effectively maneuver the vessel within Prince William Sound.

While there were no human casualties, the Exxon Valdez oil spill is often considered to be one of the most destructive environmental disasters in history.

On September 8, 1900, a massive hurricane made landfall at the city of Galveston, Texas, roughly 50 mi (80 km) southeast of Houston. The storm received the simple nickname of Great Galveston Hurricane as hurricanes would not begin to receive official names until 1953. The storm was retroactively declared to be a Category 4 hurricane according to the Saffir-Simpson Scale, which would not be created until 1971.

The storm was believed to have formed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on August 27, 1900. The storm traveled westward striking other areas in the Caribbean Sea such as the Antilles, Hispaniola and Cuba before making landfall at Galveston. Winds from the storm were calculated to have has a sustained speed of approximately 145 mph (230 km/h) when it struck Galveston.

The death toll from the Great Galveston Hurricane is believed to be in the range between 6,000 and 12,000 people, which even at its lowest estimation is significantly higher than more recent storms like Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Maria (2017).

On May 22, 1960, one of the strongest earthquakes to ever be recorded in history, struck near the city of Valdivia in south-central Chile. Nicknamed the Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960, the massive earthquake began at around 3:11 p.m. local time and lasted for around ten minutes registering between 9.4 and 9.6 on the Richter scale.

The earthquake had been so strong that it spawned multiple tsunamis that claimed the lives of people from all across the Pacific Ocean, including 138 in Japan, 61 in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines. Overall, the Great Chilean Earthquake claimed more than 1,655 lives and caused millions of dollars in damages.

It should be noted that Chile had endured three foreshocks near the city of Concepcion with a magnitudes between 6.8 and 8.3 starting at 6:00 a.m on May 21, 1960 (the day before) with the last foreshock only occurring fifteen minutes before the big one struck.

On September 15, 2011, over 300 vehicles were involved in one of the largest car accidents ever recorded. The massive pile-up occurred during a period of dense fog and strong winds on the Rodovia dos Imigrantes, a major highway located near the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Based on a translated news article from the Folha de Sao Paulo (a local newspaper), damaged vehicles were reported to have been piled up for over a mile (two kilometers) with several vehicles catching fire and dozens of motorists injured. However, despite the amount of vehicles involved in the accident, only one person was reported to have been killed in the pile-up.

The 300+ vehicle accident in Sao Paulo overtook a 216-vehicle pile-up that had occurred on November 3, 2002 near the city of Los Angeles, California.

On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747s collided at Los Rodeos Airport, which is located on the northern side of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Los Rodeos had received dozens of diversions that day due to a bomb threat at the nearby Gran Canaria Airport in Las Palmas. The extreme traffic volume, combined with dense fog at Tenerife at the time played a significant role in causing the disaster.

The two flights involved in the accident were KLM 4805, which originated in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Pan Am 1736, which originated from JFK Airport in New York City. KLM had erroneously started its take-off run at the same time that Pan Am was attempting to cross the runway and the two jumbo jets collided.

All 248 people aboard the KLM plane were killed and 335 out of the 396 people aboard the Pan Am plane were also killed in what is often considered to be the worst aviation accident prior to September 11, 2001.

Beginning on March 20, 2010, a volcano located in southern Iceland named Eyjafjallajökull began to show signs of activity. The volcano would eventually begin to erupt on April 14 and would continue to erupt for much of the spring, before finally returning to dormancy by June. Ash from the eruption was blown all across Europe, reaching as far as Russia, Spain and even into Morocco in northern Africa, causing health and agricultural issues.

The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull also had a major affect on air travel in the region. Ash spewed by a volcano is considered to be dangerous to jet aircraft as it can get ingested by the engines, potentially causing damage to them. As a result, many airlines in North America and Europe were forced to cancel flights, especially trans-Atlantic and European domestic routes due to the eruption.

It is estimated that the Eyjafjallajökull eruption of 2010 cost more than a billion dollars in aviation revenue. In addition, businesses across the globe that relied on air travel/logistics had been negatively affected by the shutdown of European airspace.

On December 12, 1917, a train traveling along the Culoz-Modane railway derailed near the commune of Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne in southeastern France. The train was operated using a Paris-Lyon Railway (PLM) Type 230 steam locomotive. Due to a shortage of locomotives at the time, the train company decided to place nineteen cars onto a single locomotive. Only three of the cars were said to have been equipped with pneumatic brakes, while the other cars had either no brakes at all or were only equipped with hand brakes.

The train was carrying 982 French soldiers who were returning home from Italy after fighting in World War I, in addition to some cargo. Due to the heavy load of the train, combined with the lack of braking power in most of the cars, the train ended up in an uncontrolled descent reaching 84 mph (135 km/h), more than triple the speed limit for that section of track. Several of the cars jumped the rails, crashed and subsequently caught on fire, costing the lives of roughly 675 soldiers.

Due to the timing and nature of the accident, the French government had decided to keep documents related to the accident classified for ninety years. These documents were eventually made public in 2007.

The sub-Saharan region of Africa has long been prone to severe drought, which have led to several long periods of famine around the region. One of the worst of these famines occurred in Ethiopia between the years 1983 and 1985. The famine primarily affected northern regions of the country, including areas that would later become part of Eritrea in 1993. The effects of the 1983 drought and famine were exacerbated by ongoing political turmoil within Ethiopia at the time.

Two philanthropic concerts known as "Live Aid" were held on July 13, 1985. One of the two concerts was held at Wembley Stadium in the United Kingdom and the other was held at the former John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both concerts featured many prominent celebrities and music artists in an attempt to raise money and bring relief to people affected by the famine.

It is estimated that over 1.2 million people died and over 2.5 million others were forced to leave their homes as a result of the 1983 Ethiopian famine.

On October 14, 2017, two explosive rigged vehicles were involved in a massive terrorist attack that occurred in the city of Mogadishu, Somalia. One of these vehicles was detonated in the Hodan District of Mogadishu, destroying a hotel and severely damaging a nearby embassy operated by Qatar. The explosion killed 587 people and injured hundreds more.

The attack was allegedly carried out by the Al-Shabaab organization, whom authorities believed originally intended to target foreign embassies and government buildings located around Mogadishu's main international airport. However, when security personnel began to inspect one of the vehicles, the driver seemingly panicked and drove through the barrier triggering the first explosion. A second vehicle was detonated by the terrorists about a half hour later killing two additional people. A third vehicle was able to be detained by authorities before it could be detonated.

The Mogadishu bombing of 2017 is considered to be one of the deadliest terrorist attacks to have occurred since September 11, 2001.

On June 30, 1908, a meteor estimated to have been around 160-200 ft (50-60 m) in diameter exploded over the Tunguska region of Siberia in central Russia. Nicknamed the Tunguska event, the incident was described by scientists as being a meteor air burst. A meteor air burst is when an incoming meteor explodes approximately 3-6 miles (5-10 km) above the surface of the Earth, which causes it to almost completely disintegrate before striking the ground. Much of the damage and injuries from the Tunguska event were caused by the shockwaves generated by the explosion.

The Tunguska event is often considered to be the most powerful meteor air bursts ever witnessed in recorded history. The Tunguska event destroyed flora and fauna across an area of approximately 830 square miles (2,000 square kilometers). Due to the sparse population of the region, the Tunguska event allegedly only killed three people though their remains were never found, so even that is debatable.

A similar event occurred more than a century later when another meteor air burst occurred near the city of Chelyabinsk in 2013. While this event was less powerful, it caused more injuries and destruction due to the higher population density in that area of Russia.

On April 26, 1989, one of the deadliest tornadoes in recorded history touched down in the country of Bangladesh. It was named the Daulatpur-Saturia Tornado as the towns of Daulatpur and Saturia (located west of Dhaka) received the most casualties and damage from the storm.

The Daulatpur-Saturia Tornado was reported to have had a wind speed between 210-252 mph (338-405 km/h), which would put it at around an F4 on the Fujita scale. This may seem like a tamer storm when compared to an F5 storm (which is a tornado with winds exceeding 261 mph or 419 km/h). However, due to the fact that it touched down in a densely populated, low-income region of the country as opposed to a region featuring open plains and farmland made this storm turn out to be just as dangerous.

It is estimated that over 1,300 people were killed in the Daulatpur-Saturia Tornado. This number is roughly double that of the Tri-State Tornado, which claimed 695 lives in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana on March 18, 1925.

On November 28, 1979, Air New Zealand 901 crashed into Mount Erebus, which is located on Ross Island in Antarctica. Air New Zealand 901 was a sightseeing flight which was intended to take passengers on a roughly 11-hour flight from Auckland, New Zealand over to the Antarctic coastline and then back to New Zealand.

Air New Zealand 901 was operated using a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft. The flight was scheduled to fly around the vicinity of McMurdo Base, an American research station located near Mount Erebus. The accident was attributed to an error in flight planning in addition to whiteout conditions near the mountain, which made it difficult for the pilots to tell the difference between clouds and the snow covered terrain of Antarctica.

All 257 persons aboard the flight were lost and Air New Zealand subsequently put a stop to their Antarctica sightseeing tours.

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck underwater approximately 45 miles (72 kilometers) off the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan. The earthquake triggered a massive tsunami that struck the coastline less than an hour later.

Seated along the coast was the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which had been equipped with six boiling water nuclear reactors. The plant has previously been shut down when the earthquake initially struck. However, the tsunami (generating waves over 45 feet / 14 meters in height) that followed ended up causing extensive damage to the reactors and their safety systems leading to the most devastating nuclear meltdown since Chernobyl in 1986.

Over 19,000 people were killed in the disaster overall, with thousands of others either injured, declared missing and/or afflicted with radiation related ailments.

On October 15, 1970, 35 workers were killed when the West Gate Bridge collapsed while still under construction. The West Gate Bridge is a cable-stayed box girder bridge that stands above the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia. It would eventually be completed on November 15, 1978.

The West Gate Bridge had mostly been designed by the engineering firm Freeman Fox and Partners which was based in London, England. The cause of the collapse was determined to be flaws in both the design of the bridge itself, as well as unusual methods used during its construction.

A similar collapse occurred about four months earlier during the construction of Cleddau Bridge in Pembrokeshire, Wales, which had also been designed by Freeman Fox and Partners.