Аннотация:A brief review of the main results of a study into the statistics of damage from natural disasters, inparticular from strong earthquakes, is given. Attention is drawn to a certain discrepancy between the statisticsof catastrophes indicating the possibility of rare earthquakes with especially heavy damage values and thepractice of underestimating this factor in historical research. Examples of the decisive impact of strong seismiccatastrophes of the past on the history of a number of human societies are given. In combination withother factors, these catastrophes even changed the nature of land use from irrigated agriculture to nomadicanimal husbandry. It is also noted that the level of damage from natural disasters can characterize not onlythe strength of the natural impacts, but also the increase in vulnerability of human societies to strong externalimpacts characteristic of crisis periods.
