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

JFK’s assassination in 1963, I was 7.

Natural disaster? Aberfan.

Same - military family and many trips from Belgium on that ferry. When they refitted the remaining Townsend Thorsesn ferries as P&O there was still 'TT' engraved on all the seats. I was a nervous ferry passenger for a long time afterwards. Also Heysel as we were in Belgium at the time. I remember hearing about it from the teacher in my primary school classroom.

Disaster averted at the 11th hour (does this count?) - the Cuban missile crisis October 1962 - stand off between US and Russia. I remember the utter relief on my parents' faces when we heard on the radio that Kennedy and Kruschev had agreed terms (and ww3 was no longer about to start).
Actual disaster Aberfan in 1966.

I also have these as earliest "disaster" memories, and for similar reasons.

For anyone who either remembers Aberfan or is just learning about it I have a recommendation. I C 'Chuck' Rapaport was working for LIFE magazine, he went to Aberfan after the disaster to photograph, 'a town without children'.

The photos are both beautiful and haunting. I can't quite explain them but they are well worth seeing.

https://amateurphotographer.com/technique/a-town-without-children-aberfan-photographs-from-1966/

@ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea

I don't remember the Birmingham Bombings but I think after Bloody Sunday my parents stopped watching the news at tea time to shield us from upsetting news.

Maybe your parents did the same?

The famine in the 80s and Chernobyl and the Khmer Rouge slaughtering people in Cambodia

The Challenger disaster. I was living in America at the time and was only 5 so not sure how much I understood of it but still have clear memories of that day.

I am not sure where it was but I remember mum rushing round getting spare blankets and bedspreads to send somewhere in the 3rd world i know there were haunting pictures on the tv must have been a famine or some disaster, mum was sobbing as she collected the blankets i was about 7 i am 61 now
the main one I remember was Dunblane that was awful I could not believe it
the one that affected me most was Twin Towers. i was shopping in a caravan shop and harrowing pictures came on a tv they had by the counter. i thought it was a movie but when I heard it i felt sick to my stomach. i wanted more than anything to see my family as I felt the end of the world was starting. later i visited the site in America which was so moving i sobbed my heart out those poor people and of course the search dogs and rescuers too
in the London tube bombings a couple from my home town were killed they normally drove to work but that day took the tube as they were going out that night from work. i could not believe that sweet girl from my home town and her partner were killed. i often see her grave when i go to family ones. so unfair

I was final year of primary at SHAPE when the Heysel stadium disaster happened.

Jones town

9/11 attacks

The Torrey Canyon oil spill, not sure if that counts as a disaster, but it was on the news a lot and affected our family holiday.

I was probably down the hall from you! Did you go to SHAPE international school? We were right next to the Canadian section.

The 1971 San Francisco earthquake. I was 5. I'm quite amazed by other disasters that happened in my childhood that didn't register with me at all.

Chernobyl was the first big disaster I remember

Same

I remember getting in from school and my Mum was sad as the children had been killed in Aberfan. She explained it would be the same as all the children I know dying and some of the teachers as well.

Lockerbie and Hillsborough. Probably Hillsborough resonated more as my dad was there. I'm 43.

Aberfan.
Though I do vaguely remember the floods of 1953 - or at least the appalled faces of adults in the family after listening to news on the ‘wireless’. I could tell that something awful had happened.

Apollo 13. I'd have been 7 years old. It genuinely never occurred to me that the astronauts night not make it safely home to Earth, but I can remember my parents being very on-edge, and my infants' school headmistress leading a special prayer for the astronauts before we went home.

Very unusually, my dad put the telly on as soon as he came in from work (normally we'd eat first, in silence), and my 5-year-old brother and I were allowed to stay up way past our customary bedtimes to watch their capsule splash down and be sure they were safely retrieved from the water.

It was certainly an event to remember.

9/11, I'd not long turned 6 and I remember seeing it all over the news when I came home from school.

The IRA bombings in the 70s

I grew up with the fear of the IRA (in England) but the first disaster I remember was the Battersea rollercoaster disaster 1972 because we used to go there.

Dunblane, was 8 and some others in the classroom were in tears

The Summerland fire disaster, August 1973, on the Isle of Man. I was around 8 and the family in the next street came from there. I was convinced they’d died until I actually saw them the next day.