What is the first major disaster you remember

[Shmoigel]

The first one I clearly remember was the King’s Cross fire in 87 and Lockerbie in 88

Tell me yours

2004 tsunami

Woolworths fire 1979
Famine 1984
Chernobyl 1986
Ferry disaster 1987
Hillsborough 1989
Dunblane 1996

Yes so was I, I had only just started school, I remember talking to my little friend about it and we were both scared it would happen to us and said we'd jump out of the window (despite not living within a mile of a slag heap).

Zeebrugge ferry disaster

Oh I remember the 1987 storm very clearly too. I remember going into my mum and dad's room, and hearing the bins rolling around outside.

Hillsborough. I was still in primary school but read all my parent’s newspaper cover to cover . The images still haunt me.

Bizarrely it's the Torrey Canyon oil spill (1967) for me. At low tide, you can still see traces of the oil on Cornwall's beaches.

Piper Alpha

same, perhaps more commonly known as the zeebrugge disaster.

The Torrey Canyon oil spill disaster.

Me too @Willowkins - I was five.

Zeebrugge ferry disaster
Marchionesse
Hillsbororough
Kings Cross fire
Clapham rail crash
Great storm

All late 1980s 😔

I said Zeebrugge, but actually I remember Heysel, which was a couple of years earlier.

Oh gosh not sure of the order of these but things that stick out are Hillsborough, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster because I was at school with a girl whose parents were on it, Clapham Junction rail crash, because my mum went to work on that line. Lockerbie for sure. Chernobyl.

Remember the Kegworth air disaster also in the late eighties. I’m surprised I managed to get on a plane in 1990.

Zeebrugge ferry disaster, kings cross fire and lockerbie I think.

Lockerbie

The Challenger and the Herald of Free Enterprise.

I remember Hillsborough and Lockerbie very vaguely, and the Zeebrugge ferry and Piper Alpha oil rig disasters and the start of the Gulf War.
James Bulger’s murder is the first big news event I remember watching on tv, and the first I had real feelings about.
I’m 44.

slightly later memories but Warrington and the Arndale centre.

September 11th I think.

earliest big news story memory was Diana dying

The fire at the Stardust nightclub (Dublin) in 1981. 48 young people died.

I lived opposite Abbey Wood’s, I remember climbing over all of the trees that had been blown down.

the 2004 Tsunami, 7/7 bombings and Hurricane Katrina. I vaguely recall something about 9/11 attacks said at school by a teacher but I don’t remember the actual incident.

i vividly recall 7/7 and all the news reports. Particularly the lady with the burns mask thingy on her face.

actually I remember the start of the Iraq war and all the terrible things that happened to the Iraqis but I don’t quite remember the year.

Aberfan disaster - I remember other disasters but they are later.

The Battersea funfair disaster in 1972. We used to go to it so was quite a shock.

Also the Tenerife air disaster of 1977.