Fatal Accidents or "disasters"

Sites where there have been "disasters" causing significant numbers of human deaths from a single incident or where repeated "tourism related" deaths have totalled a significant number. Only sites involving an "entry" are included (ie not city or town centres etc) and "simple" traffic accidents etc are not counted.

World Heritage Sites connected to 'Fatal Accidents or "disasters"':

  • Cape Floral Region Table Mountain - "... 10 to 20 fatalities on it a year" ; link
  • Everglades Crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in 1996, killing all 110 people on board. It crashed in the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area in the Everglades; link
  • Ha Long Bay 12 tourists killed on boat that sunk in February 2011; link
  • Hallstatt-Dachstein 13 people(10 students and 3 teacher from the Knabenmittelschule Heilbronn) died/freezed on 15 april 1954
  • Hampi In January 2009 the collapse of the Anegundi Bridge during construction caused the death of 8 construction workers
  • Huascaran National Park The Ancash Earthquake May 31 1970. Most of the destroyed towns were outside the inscribed park but "Fifteen members of a Czech expedition were climbing Huascarán at the time, and were among the thousands dead." ; link
  • Meknes Collapse of the Lalla Khenata mosque's minaret in the old Bab el Bardiyine neighbourhood left 41 people dead (February 2010)
  • Mining Sites of Wallonia Le Bois du Cazier colliery , the last major mining disaster in European history, which occurred in 1956 and cost 262 lives. (AB ev)
  • Mount Kenya "On July 19, 2003, a South African registered aircraft, carrying 12 passengers and two crew, crashed into Mount Kenya at Point Lenana: nobody survived"
  • Nasca Lines Seven tourists died in a plane crash while viewing the Lines (feb 2010). Five tourists had suffered the same fate in april 2008.; link
  • Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin Courrières disaster (1906, almost 1,100 deaths) (AB ev)
  • Qutb Minar A "stampede" of Schoolgirls inside the tower occurred in 1979 when the power inside the tower failed leading to 20 deaths and its subsequent closure to the public.
  • Sagarmatha National Park There have been 210 recorded deaths of climbers on "Everest". The worst single event was when 8 climbers died on May 11 1996 and 15 died during the season.
  • Sceilg Mhichíl there have been 3 deaths at Skellig Michael that resulted from tourists falling (1 in 1995 2 in 2009); link
  • Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch July 2006 6 Swiss soldiers died in an avalanche on the Jungfrau.
  • Te Wahipounamu Fox Glacier in Westland National Park: Two Australian tourists were killed 8 January 2009 when more than 100 tonnes of ice fell on them. Nine people, including four international tourists, died in a plane crash 4 September 2010 when the plane, carrying a party of skydivers and tourists, crashed at the end of the runway at Fox Glacier Airport.
  • Timbuktu At least 26 people have been crushed to death in a deadly stampede in the famous Djinguereber mosque in the city of Timbuktu (Feb 2010); link
  • Uluru Over 35 tourists have died climbing the rock - many by heart attack!
  • Yosemite National Park 18 deaths in 2011 "an unfortunate increase from recent years that has included a few terrifying deaths this summer, including three members of a church group who were swept over a waterfall and a pair of deaths from falling at Half Dome, the park’s signature peak." - New York Times 9/6/2011