Natural Disasters Escalating Worldwide - Parallel to Biblical End Times?

Six major earthquakes in the last seven years, plus the deadliest hurricanes (Katrina and Rita) - does that look like "end of days" birth pains described by Jesus?

Statements of late twentieth to twenty-first century increases in natural disasters are coming from worldwide sources. Although most attribute it to climate change, the rapid increase in weather catastrophes shown in reports below seems to match up with Bible prophecy of end times:

Daniel 12:1, Old Testament: "... There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then."

Matthew 24:3, 4, 6-8, New Testament: "As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. 'Tell us,' they said, 'when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?'

Jesus answered: '...You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains'" (see verses 3-12 for full context).

Anything we may say about parallels to Bible prophecy is certainly subject to speculation. But these statistics and quotes sound eerily similar to the Bible verses above:

In 2006, The European Journal of Public Health reported: "Natural disasters are increasing in frequency because of the worldwide deterioration in the natural environment. The incidence of floods, storms, earthquakes and droughts and the number of people affected by them are escalating greatly..."

..."Weather-related disasters throughout the world continue to rise, from an annual average of 200 in 1993-1997 to 331 per year in 1998-2002."

The United Nations Bureau for Crisis Prevention & Recovery more recently stated:
"The 21st Century has already been marked by escalating economic losses and human devastation caused by natural disasters. In 2008 alone, more than 300 disasters killed more than 235,000 people, affected more than 200 million others and caused losses and damage worth USD 181 billion."

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported the "Worst Weather of the Twentieth Century" in a chart. It speaks mostly of hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. On their list, the escalation increases from spaces of over twenty years between disasters to at least one happening nearly every year:

-From 1900 to 1925 there were no significant hurricanes, floods or tornadoes in the United States.
-From 1928 to 1938 there were three.
-From 1938 to 1974 there were four.
-And from 1975 to 1999 there were seven.
The NOAA's worldwide report almost mirrors the USA statistics in percentage of increased disasters in the latter twentieth century.

MSNBC's Technology and Science Department recently did a pictorial feature on the rapid recent increase in the number of earthquakes. Regarding the most disastrous earthquakes (6.6 and higher with great loss of lives), MSNBC reported one on record in China in 1556, then none for nearly four centuries until the major San Francisco quake in 1906, and none again until 1964. Then...

From 1964 to the latest Haiti and Chile earthquakes in February 2010, there have been eleven major earthquakes - six of them since 2003 alone.

Canada's CBC News posted a similar story including hurricanes, floods and volcanic eruptions. And Fox News has posted a seemingly endless list of these disasters plus tornados and wildfires.

In all, the past twenty years outweigh any other written recorded history of natural disasters. It's something to think about as we ponder God's will for our lives and what we do with the time He has given us.

The original version of this article was published here at The Underground Online Magazine.

Sources:
-MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24032081/ns/technology_and_science-science?pg=9#DEADLYquakes_science;
-CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/05/08/f-natural-disasters-history.html;
-Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/specialsections/naturaldisaster/;
-European Journal of Public Health http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/17/2/206.pdf;
-UN Bureau for Crisis Prevention & Recovery http://www.undp.org/cpr/we_do/integrating_risk.shtml;
-U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0905244.html;
-Scriptures taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.