RECENT WORLD CALAMITIES The word calamity, what does it mean to you? Government may see the H1n1 outbreak as a calamity, businessmen may see a sudden recession as a calamity, and students may see being punished for not doing their homework a calamity. So what does calamity actually mean? According to the Oxford dictionary, the word calamity actually means an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster. Simple way of saying it, calamities are natural or man made disasters that happens everyday and effects innocent people who are at the wrong place at the wrong time. A calamity such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the 20 th April 2010 was devastating; it has marked a deep scar in history. This oil spill incident was the largest marine oil spill in the history of petroleum history. The explosion of the wellhead caused the release of 4.9 million barrels of crude oil over 6500 to 180 000km and the death of 13 platform workers. During March and early April, several platform workers and supervisors expressed concerns with well control. At approximately 9:45 p.m. CDT on April 20, 2010, methane gas from the well, under high pressure, shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform, and then ignited and exploded. BP estimated the worst case-flow at 162,000 barrels per day. The spill caused extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats as well as the Gulfs fishing and tourism industries. Scientists have also reported immense underwater plumes of dissolved oil not visible at the surface. Crews have been working hard to protect hundreds and miles of beaches, wetlands and estuaries along the northern Gulf coast, using barricades, skimmer ships and containment booms along the shorelines. Many short-term efforts to stem the flow of oil were carried and has been reported successful. Three basic approaches to remove the oil from the water have been carried out, they are burning the oil, filtering offshore, and collecting for later process However, spilled oil naturally disperses via storms, currents and osmosis with the passage of a long time, this in time could damage more aquatic life. Another harsh catastrophe was the volcano eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. The eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull was a sequence of volcanic eruptions which caused enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe over and initial period of six days in April.