The Asian tsunami disaster reminded us of both the power of human charity and the gap between the rhetoric and action of governments – not to mention the ongoing animosity between Washington and Paris. But above all, it was a reminder of our own inevitable weakness. No amount of money or power can protect you against the Earth itself.

So we decided to pick out ten places that do not exist any more, to demonstrate just how frail human civilization can be when faced with the elements, a foreign military or economic collapse - and ten more that were rebuilt after devastation, to show what can be achieved with time and effort.


1. Pompeii

On August 24th, 79AD, the Italian volcano Vesuvius erupted, burying the prosperous Roman resort of Pompeii and nearby fishing village Herculaneum under 10 feet of ash. 20,000 are believed to have died from the heat, gas and ash. Excavations of the site, beginning in 1748, have found that the eruption happened so suddenly that some locals did not even have time to cover their faces. On the upside, it taught us a lot about life in ancient Rome, and gave Robert Harris a nifty setting for a novel.

Two million people now live in the volcano's shadow - and a total of 500 million are thought to live in the vicinity of active volcanoes worldwide.


2. Chernobyl

The Book of Revelation mentions a poisonous star that will one day fall to earth and poison the waters. In English, its name is Wormwood - in Russian, Chernobyl. In April 1986, the top of the nuclear power reactor in the quiet Ukrainian town of this name unexpectedly blew off, killing 10,000 and making as many as 3.5 million ill.

The effects were felt as far away as Wales, where certain farms still face restrictions due to their sheep eating radioactive grass. More than 300,000 people were resettled over the next ten years, and an exclusion zone of 30km from the power station was put in place. A huge slab of Ukraine and Belarus was left peppered with ghost towns, populated only by the 3,500 people that refused to leave. The power station remained in operation until 2000.


3. Dunwich

A victim of the sea, although in a rather quiet way. In medieval times the Suffolk village was once one of England's largest ports. Unfortunately, it was sited on sandy cliffs that the waves have been slowly eroding for centuries. One particularly violent storm in 1342 washed 400 houses into the North Sea.

Today, only a small village remains at what was once the western edge of the town. The last of the town's original churches, the 14th century Greyfriars priory, is now only a few feet away from the sea. Many expect it to be destroyed by the end of the century.


4. Tombstone, Arizona

The site of the 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral is technically still there, but only as a tourist destination. The American West boomed in the second half of the 19th century, as easterners and immigrants flocked across the continent in the hope of making their fortune from the gold, or other helpfully expensive metals, in them thar' hills. Tombstone was one of many towns that sprung up around the resulting mines and the mills to process the ore.

But, by the 1890s, commodity prices had declined; when mines flooded, it had become cost prohibitive to retrieve the metals and the towns of the west emptied as quickly as they had sprung up. Now Tombstone exists only as a reminder of western heritage, and its chamber of commerce proudly advertises no fewer than eight local ghost towns on its website.


5. Tibet

The roof of the world is now a region of China, although the Dalai Lama's government has been in exile in various incarnations since 1959. And it is the Brits' fault, too. Although China had established its right to have resident commissioners in the territory with the help of an army in 1750, it was a 1907 treaty between the UK, China and Russia that validated the Chinese claim to sovereignty.

Although a small case of civil war briefly allowed Tibet and Mongolia to both declare their independence, the People's Army arrived in 1951. More than a million people are thought to have died in the famine that followed the 1959 rebellion. India, incidentally, also claims sovereignty.


6. Fallujah

Despite being one of the cities with the most civilian casualties in the first Gulf War, it remained relatively peaceful after the fall of Saddam, thanks in part to its pro-American mayor. However, the US quickly managed to upset the locals by setting up a position at the local Ba'ath party headquarters in April 2003, and mowing down fifteen of the 200 Iraqis that gathered to protest their presence.

Since then, it has become one of the most dangerous areas of the country: only Baghdad has seen more US casualties. Last spring, four US security contractors were murdered and their bodies mutilated in the city. Despite that, the local authorities claimed that the city held no insurgents. That did not stop the forces of light though and, last November, an attempt to flush out the enemy began under the name Operation Phantom Fury.

More than 2000 were killed and it was later revealed that the US troops had orders to shoot all males of fighting age seen on the streets, regardless of whether they were armed. Most locals had evacuated in fear of the US advance. Earlier this month, it was reported that only 10 per cent had since returned. There is little sign of normality returning.


7. Babylon

Unlikely as it may seem, this is one city in Iraq that Americans did not destroy - although they did use the archaeological site as military depot, causing substantial damage in the process. This city, located on the eastern bank of the River Euphrates, was the capital of an empire as far back as the 24th century BC.

Six hundred years later, it was the home of Hammurabi's law tablets. Following a period of domination by Assyria, it became the capital of a new empire, this time under Nebucadnezzar. But visits from a succession of conquerors left it in obscurity centuries before the time of Christ. That has not stopped the Iraqis being proud of their ancient forebears, however. Saddam, himself, installed an enormous portrait of himself with Nebuchadnezzar, with the caption: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq." Ozmyandias or what?


8. Troy

Another victim of war - not to mention lust, jealousy, and the stupidity of a society that did not see anything suspicious about the unexplained appearance of a giant wooden horse. The story of Achilles' big sulk was consigned to legend until the 1870s, when German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann found the remains of a bronze aged city in northwestern Turkey, including a whole lot of arrowheads dating from the 12th century BCE. Half a century later, a Swiss scholar, Emil Forrer, claimed that he had found parallels between Hittite texts and the Iliad, and that the city of Taruisa was the Trojan Capital.

Either way, and whether the Greeks hastened its demise or not, Troy is no more. However, the Turkish government, knowing a nice little earner when they see one, have officially renamed their archaeological site Troy. Schliemann's dig, which like its forerunner has been comprehensively looted over the years, now features a play park, museum and giant wooden horse. Beware of Turks bearing tacky crap.


9. Atlantis

Plato put the story of the advanced civilization wiped out by earthquake or tidal wave 9,000 years previously into the mouth of his mentor, Socrates. It is altogether possible that the story was a parable to demonstrate Socrates' theories on the ideal civilization, but people have remained fascinated by the idea of an advanced civilization destroyed on the whim of the gods ever since.

Since then, various academics have identified various possible sources for the story, including a city on the island of Santorini wiped out by a volcano, the Minoan civilization of Crete that fell around a millennia before Plato's time, as well as possible sites as far a field as the Black Sea, Gibraltar, Troy, Iceland and Cornwall. As recently as November 2004, American architect Robert Sarmhurst claimed to have found walls off eastern Cyprus that fit Plato's description.


10. The Amazon Rainforest

Well, large chunks of it, at least. The Amazon is home to more than half of the planets remaining rainforests, containing quite literally millions of species not found anywhere else, including one fifth of the planet's birds. But it is on its way out. More than one fifth has already been destroyed, and it is currently estimated to be vanishing at a rate of 52,000 square kilometres (20,000 square miles) a year - three times the last official figures. Bye bye biodiversity, bye bye carbon sink, hello global warming. This is not an act of god, or the horrors of war: it is just economics.


. . . and ten places that rose from the ashes


1. London

The Great Fire of London in 1666 left 100,000 - around a sixth of the population - homeless. However, it did put an end to the Great Plague and, miraculously, only around nine to sixteen people were killed. The rebuilding efforts included St Paul's cathedral, one of the city's best-known landmarks.

2 and 3. San Francisco and Tokyo

was leveled in the 1906 earthquake that measured 8.25 on the Richter scale, leaving over 250,000 homeless and 700 dead. Seventeen years later, Tokyo got it worse - much worse - when a quake measuring 8.3 left more than 100,000 dead. Now they are two of the great cities of the world. Go figure.

4. Coventry

Coventry was extensively bombed during World War II. Its 14th century cathedral was destroyed, its factories leveled and a thousand people were killed in one night in November 1940 alone. In German, 'koventrieren' now means 'to destroy by bombing'. Today, Coventry has a population of 360,000.

5. Hamburg

The RAF bombed Hamburg in retaliation for the destruction of Coventry: 42,000 were killed in the resulting firestorm. It is now Germany's second largest city, with almost two million inhabitants.

6. Dresden

Dresden was another victim of WWII, controversially carpet bombed by the RAF in February 1945 even though the end of the war was in sight. 35,000 were killed. It is now twinned with Coventry, to commemorate the war.

7 and 8. Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first, and to date only, victims of atomic bombs. In the space of an hour, two bombs nicknamed "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" had killed almost 120,000 people. That number again is thought to have later died of cancer. Today, both cities are provincial capitals, with Hiroshima being home to 1.1 million people, and Nagasaki 400,000 more.

9. Gdansk

I realise World War II's becoming something of a theme here; but then it is worth remembering that if post-Bush Iraq does half as well as post-war Europe, things might somehow work out. Gdansk wasn't quite so lucky, being locked out of Marshall Aid and into the Warsaw Pact. Despite 90 per cent of the city being razed to the ground during the German retreat and Soviet advance in March 1945, it was rebuilt to become a major centre of Polish industry.

10. Stalingrad

Stalingrad was the site of the bloodiest battle of the war in 1942-3, with more than one million people killed. Today, rebuilt and renamed Volgograd, it is home to a million people in the Northern Causacus.