Calling it the apocalypse removes mankind's responsibility for our actions that contribute to greater death tolls from natural disasters, such as: abject poverty leading to shanty towns and poorly constructed buildings that collapse in earthquakes, lacking regulations or shoddy infrastructure that lead to technological disasters triggered by natural disasters, famine caused by war and desertification, flooding and erosion caused by clearcutting, etc. In addition, our actions may contribute to the frequency and intensity of the natural disasters themselves due to man-made effects on global climate, but we can save that debate for another topic.
One should also remember that although technology has improved survivability in a number of these types of disasters in the more well-to-do nations, there are simply a lot more people vying for the same amount of space, which means when a tsunami hits a crowded coastline or an earthquake strikes a crowded city, the odds of killing significantly more people go way up and often balances out the technological advances.
This entire decade has been pretty lousy for a variety of reasons, but topping that list has to be the number of natural and human-assisted natural disasters the world has experienced, which are some of the worst in recorded history, and perhaps the most frequent for any single decade (judging by my quick perusal of the list).
2001-2011 has included the following natural disasters:
- 2 of the 10 deadliest disasters in recorded history (Haiti Earthquake & Indian Ocean Tsunami) and 3 of the 10 deadliest disasters of the past century (the two previous plus Cyclone Nargis in 2008 in Myanmar).
- 3 of the 10 deadliest avalanches in recorded history.
- 2 of the 10 deadliest blizzards.
- 1 of the 10 deadliest cyclones.
- 7 of the 43 deadliest earthquakes.
- 4 of the 9 deadliest heat waves (Russia and Japan in 2010 and Europe and India in 2003).
- 2 of the 10 deadliest non-cyclone storms.
- 2 of the 10 deadliest tsunamis (Indian Ocean and Japan).
- 1 of the 10 deadliest wildfires (Australia).
The areas where we didn't make the top ten deadliest disasters this decade were in famines, communicable diseases, floods, tornadoes, and volcanoes; which is not to say those didn't happen or that they weren't deadly, just that it's been worse. We can mostly thank advances in medicine, bioengineered crops, flood control systems, and early warning systems for that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll
2010 was the deadliest year for natural disasters in a generation, with the two largest death tolls coming from the Haiti earthquake and the Russian heat wave:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4073966.../t/s-world-gone-wild-quakes-floods-blizzards/
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37357&Cr=disaster+reduction&Cr1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2010_natural_disasters
But 2011 is nothing to shake a stick at either, and it's not even done yet:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/02/natural-disasters-floods-earthquakes-landslides
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2011_natural_disasters
So no, it's not the apocalypse or any other such nonsense, it's a combination of a run of bad luck and mankind compounding the problem for a variety of reasons.
