President Suharto, President of Indonesia from 1967 until 1998 when his regime was overthrown, was the world’s biggest kleptocrat, that is a person who thieves from his government. Transparency International, in a 2004 report, estimated that he had stolen US$15-35 billion. In 2006, doctors testified Suharto had been brain damaged by a series of strokes and that he was not fit to face prosecution. He thus escaped justice and died in 2008.
Five Buddhist worshippers were killed on November 2, 1998, when three ceremonial joss sticks collapsed at the Phra Pathom Jedi Temple 36 miles (58km) northwest of Bangkok. The 79-88ft (24-27m) joss sticks, said to be the largest ever built in Thailand, are built in April 1998 to commemorate the 84th anniversary of the construction of a Buddha image at the temple. Police blamed inadequate foundations, but the joss sticks could have collapsed under their own weight as they had soaked up much heavy overnight rain.
A fire at the Hotel Daeyungak, Seoul, South Korea killed 162 people on 25 Dec 1971.
A total of 246 people were killed during a hailstorm at Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India on 20 April 1888.
In 1998 Bangladesh experienced its worse flood in living memory. Some 57% of the country was flooded resulting in 25 million people becoming homeless.
Flooding from the Hwai and Yangtze Rivers in eastern China in August 1950 destroyed according to official figures, 890,000 dwellings.
Some 800 people were killed in an accident during a firework display beside the Seine in Paris, France, to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin on May 16, 1770.
The fire following the April 18, 1906, San Francisco earthquake in the USA cost an estimated US$350 million at the time, equivalent to US$6.862 billion (£4.749 billion) in today’s terms (2001).
The worst famine caused by drought was in northern China in 1876-79, when between 9 and 13 million people are estimated to have died after the rains failed for three consecutive years. At around the same time (1876-78), approximately 5 million Indians died when the monsoon failed in successive years.
At an air-raid shelter in Chongqing, China c. 4,000 people were killed on 6 Jun 1941. The crowd were leaving the shelter after an air-raid when the warning siren sounded again. The 4000 deaths were due to suffocation and trampling as the crowd tried to return to the shelter.