1983 — Witold Rybczynski, Taming the Tiger: The Struggle to Control Technology, Viking Press (1983), →ISBN:
Another ecological megadisaster may occur in Brazil, where, some scientists believe, the large-scale lumber industry could denude the jungle to the point that the reduction in vegetation, and hence in oxygen production, will affect the biosphere on a global scale.
1986 — Beverley Raphael, When Disaster Strikes: How Individuals and Communities Cope with Catastrophe, Basic Books (1986), →ISBN, page 308:
The threat of nuclear war poses megadisaster to the city communities of the world directly and to all ecology.
He describes how the next megadisaster — a Seattle earthquake, a tidal wave inundating New York City — will set the nation reeling.
2009 — Richard Ben-Veniste, The Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate to 9/11, Thomas Dunne Books (2009), →ISBN, page 309:
On the one hand, the families were out in force, demanding answers from the former city officials whom they felt had contributed to the loss of life on 9/11 by not preparing adequately for the megadisaster that claimed the lives of their loved ones.
2010 — Jay M. Feinman, Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It, Portfolio (2010), →ISBN, unnumbered page:
James W. Greer, president of the Association of Property and Casualty Claims Professionals, lamented, "It was as if some small group of high-level financial magnates decided that the only way to save the industry's financial fate from this megadisaster [Hurricane Katrina] was to take a total hands-off approach and hide beneath the waves and the flood exclusion."
2010 — Sisira Jayasuriya & Peter McCawley (with Bhanupong Nidhiprabha, Budy P. Resosudarmo, & Dushni Weerakoon), The Asian Tsunami: Aid and Reconstruction After a Disaster, Edgar Elgar Publishing Limited (2010), →ISBN, page 12:
The response to a megadisaster such as the 2004 Asian tsunami raises many issues.
2012 — Daniel P. Aldrich, Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery, University of Chicago Press (2012), →ISBN, page 75:
This chapter uses case studies along with a new data set focused on Kobe's nine wards after the city's 1995 megadisaster, the earthquake known in Japanese as the Hanshin Awaji Daishinsai (the Great Hanshin—Awaji Earthquake), […]
Noun: "an unforeseen event of any kind with exceptionally unpleasant, distressing, or unfortunate results"
