List of mass evacuations

This list of mass evacuations includes emergency evacuations of a large number of people in a short period of time. An emergency evacuation is the movement of persons from a dangerous place due to the threat or occurrence of a disastrous event whether from natural or man made causes, or as the result of war.

Evacuees fleeing Hurricane Rita in Texas, United States

Ancient times

  • 480 BC – The Greek officer of the state and navy commander Themistocles ordered the evacuation of Athens as a strategic countermeasure to the approaching Persian army, leading to 100,000 inhabitants being displaced in the late summer.

1st century

  • 60–61 – Boudica's uprising results in the mass evacuation of numerous Roman settlements in Britain.
  • 79 – Eruption of Mount Vesuvius causes evacuation of Pompeii and surrounding areas.

5th century


13th century

14th century

19th century

20th century

U.S. military dependents board USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in the aftermath of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

21st century

Evacuees at evacuation site Mira Mesa High School
  • April 2001 – 77,000 inhabitants (around 2/3 of the population) of Vicenza, Italy) were evacuated for several hours so that an unexploded bomb, originally dropped in World War II, could be safely disarmed.[11]
  • September 11, 2001 – Evacuations from high-rise buildings across the United States. This included 3200+ survivors of the World Trade Center disaster and inhabitants of downtown Manhattan, New York City. Numerous other evacuations of high-rises in Chicago, Illinois included the Sears Tower and the Thompson Building. The evacuation of New York included the largest sea evacuation in recorded history, with over 500,000 being evacuated in 9 hours by hundreds of boats.[2]
  • January 2002 – 300,000 residents of the city of Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo were evacuated in three days due to the eruption of the Mount Nyiragongo.[12]
  • August 2002 – The 2002 European floods led to the evacuation of 50,000 residents of Prague, Czech Republic, on 13 August, with a total of 200,000 Czechs during the second week of August.[13] Elsewhere in Europe, more than 120,000 people were evacuated in the German city of Dresden, 36,000 in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and 1,500 in Hungary.[14]
  • September 2004 – Evacuation orders were issued for over 2.8 million residents in advance of Hurricane Frances, potentially the largest in Florida's history.[15] FEMA later granted assistance to 229,500 applicants largely associated with relocation expenses.[16]
  • July 2005 – 20,000 people were evacuated from the city of Birmingham in the United Kingdom after a security alert due to a bomb scare.[17]
  • August 2005 – Hurricane Katrina led to a mass evacuation of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, with approximately 80% of the city's population of 484,000 evacuating before the storm struck.
  • September 22, 2005 – At least 2.5 million evacuated coastal Texas and Louisiana due to the approach of Hurricane Rita.[18] This is the second largest evacuation in U.S. history, and the third-largest peacetime evacuation in modern times.
  • July to August, 2006 - The evacuation of nearly 15,000 American citizens from Lebanon during July and August 2006 was one of the largest overseas evacuations of American citizens in recent history.
  • October 2007 – More than 1.4 million people were evacuated in the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian in anticipation of Typhoon Krosa.[19]
  • October 2007 – California wildfires forced more than 900,000 people in Southern California to evacuate, making it the largest evacuation in California's history[20] and the largest evacuation for fire in United States history.[21]
  • May 2008 – 2008 Sichuan earthquake: Approximately 200,000 people are evacuated in Beichuan County, China because of flooding fears after a landslide created dam became unstable.[22]
  • August 2008 – At least 1.9 million people were evacuated from coastal Louisiana, including New Orleans, for Hurricane Gustav.[23] In western Cuba, at least 300,000 people were evacuated.[24]
  • March 2011 – Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, between 170,000 and 200,000 people are evacuated within a 50-mile radius of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in fear of large casualties due to radiation poisoning.[25]
  • August 2011 – A mass evacuation stretching from North Carolina to New York was ordered because of Hurricane Irene and its size.[26]
  • June 2013 – Nearly 1,000,000 people evacuated in 12 days from Uttarakhand, India due to a flash flood and landslide. This operation was completed by the Indian Air Force, ITBP, NDRF, and local authorities. Helicopters were widely used because road networks were severely damaged.
  • October 2013 – Nearly 975,000 people (world Bank report says close to 1,000,000 people) were evacuated in 36 hours from the coastal areas of Odisha (more than 850,000) and Andhra Pradesh (nearly 90,000) in the face of Cyclone Phailin. This operation was completed by the Indian Air Force, ITBP, ODRF, and local authorities.
  • December 2014 – Nearly 1,000,000 people were evacuated in the eastern Philippines before typhoon Hagupit.[27]
  • April 2015 – Operation Maitri was carried out by India to evacuate stranded Indian citizens and foreigners from Nepal and humanitarian relief during the Nepal earthquake of magnitude 8.8.
  • April 2015 – Operation Raahat (India) was carried out by India to evacuate stranded Indian citizens from Yemen. A total of 4640 Indian citizens and 960 foreign nationals were rescued.[28]
  • May 2016 – Approximately 88,000 people were evacuated from Fort McMurray (Canada) due to a wildfire that grew out of control quickly. This was the largest evacuation in the Province of Alberta's history. Evacuees went north to Oil Sands camps, and communities to the south.[29]
  • October 2016 – More than 2.5 million people were told to evacuate in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina due to the approach of Hurricane Matthew, becoming the tenth most destructive in U.S. history.[30][31]
  • February 2017 – Evacuation of 188,000 civilians from the city of Oroville, California and other towns near the Oroville Dam due to impending failure of auxiliary spillway systems.[32]
  • July to September 2017 - Evacuation of Cariboo Regional District, British Columbia, Canada, resulted in 35,616 people under evacuation order or alert over 77 days due to a record-setting wildfire season, with 996,141 hectares burnt in 232 fires, and 60 homes and 167 other structures destroyed over 48,099 km2. No deaths were recorded.[33]
  • September 2017 ─ One week after Hurricane Harvey rampaged coastal Texas and Louisiana, 7 million people (in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina) were told to evacuate due to Hurricane Irma. Low estimates of the actual number of evacuees is 700,000 people.[34]

References

  1. "Timeline of the San Francisco Earthquake". The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18lsxFcDrjo
  3. "A City Submerged – Winnipeg and the Flood of 1950 – CBC Archives". CBC. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
  4. "Geographical location and extent of radioactive contamination". Chernobyl.info. Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Archived from the original on 2007-06-30. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  5. "Air India, History of Air India, Air India Flight Services, Air India International, Passenger Operations, Awards in Air India". Thisismyindia.com. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
  6. Cowell, Alan (February 3, 1995). "Dutch Rivers Are Receding, But Danger to Dikes Persists". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-02.
  7. "CAPITULO IV. ESTUDIO DE CASO: PERGAMINO" (PDF) (in Spanish). CENTRO estudios sociales y ambientales. INFORME FINAL IAI 2004 ENSO ARGENTINA. 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-10-07. Retrieved 2016-07-14.
  8. Shelby, A. Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press/Borealis Books, 2003.
  9. "Officials stage mass evacuations in China's deadly floods". Associated Press. August 7, 1998. Archived from the original on 2008-03-29. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  10. "Hurricane Floyd – A Night To Remember, A Day Of Evacuation Frustration To Forget". Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 9, 2000. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
  11. "Thousands Evacuated From Italian City to Detonate WWII Bomb". People's Daily. April 30, 2001. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  12. "Volcano Risk Reduction: A Case Study from Goma (DRC)" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. December 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-10-26. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  13. "Prague battles flood waters". BBC News. August 14, 2002. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  14. "EADRCC Situation Report No. 2 on the Flood/CZECH Republic" (PDF). Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  15. "Downgraded Frances blows across Florida". CNN.com. 2004-09-05. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
  16. "Ten Years Later: Remembering Hurricane Frances". fema.gov. 2014-08-29. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
  17. "British police order evac of central Birmingham district". USA Today. July 10, 2005. Retrieved 2008-06-01.
  18. "Evacuation Planning in Texas: Before and After Rita" (PDF). Texas House of Representatives. Government of Texas. 2006-02-14. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
  19. Yanping, Li (October 24, 2007). "China Evacuates 1.4 Million People as Typhoon Krosa Hits Coast". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  20. Brennan, Peter J.; Demian McLean (October 24, 2007). "California Fires Rout Almost 1 Million People, Kill 5". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
  21. http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/map-shows-massive-evacuation-area.html
  22. "China plans mass exodus from quake zone". CNN. May 29, 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-01.
  23. Anderson, Ed (2008-08-31). "1.9 million people evacuate south Louisiana". The Times-Picayune. Retrieved 2008-09-01.
  24. Will Weissert (2008-08-30). "Gustav now Category 4, winds of 145 mph". BlueRidgeNow. Retrieved 2008-09-01.
  25. McCurry, Justin (March 16, 2011). "Radiation spike forces evacuations at Fukushima nuclear power station". London: guardian.co.uk home. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
  26. Severson, Kim; Barry, Dan; Robertson, Campbell (August 27, 2011). "Damage and Flooding Scar Atlantic Seaboard". New York Times.
  27. https://news.yahoo.com/typhoon-hagupit-triggers-massive-evacuation-philippines-021318742.html
  28. "India evacuates 4,640 nationals, 960 others from Yemen". www.oneindia.com. 2015-04-10. Retrieved 2015-04-11.
  29. "Wildfire rages in Fort McMurray as evacuees settle in Edmonton". www.CBC.ca. 2016-05-04. Retrieved 2015-05-04.
  30. "Hurricane Matthew batters Florida's northeast coast; four deaths linked to storm". 2016-08-07. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  31. "Why Didn't People Evacuate for Hurricane Matthew?". Palm Beach Daily News. 2017-06-01. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
  32. http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/us/california-oroville-dam-spillway-failure/index.html
  33. "Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) | Cariboo Regional District". Cariboo Regional District. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
  34. https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/09/09/magnitude-irma-drives-massive-evacuation-from-florida/cdbZjGJrvgIF0Todpws4VJ/story.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
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