The year of 1970 was a fascinating year for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it is most memorable because of the wide variety of calamities which occurred, several big and several small. Initially on January 5th these was a 7.1 magnitude Tonghai quake which affected Tonghai County, within the Yunnan province in China, having an approximated 10,000 and 15,000 people killed and over 26,000 injured. On February 1 the Benavídez railway catastrophe close to Buenos Aires in Argentina occured with the derailing of a train killed 236 individuals. An avalanche at Val-d’Isère in France on February 10 killed 41 travellers to the vicinity. On April 11 one more avalanche above a TB respite hospital in the French Alps killed 74 individuals, many of them being adolescent boys. On March 4, the France sub Eurydice imploded whilst undertaking a training dive in the Mediterranean Sea killing all on board. In Osakain Japan on April 8th, a natural gas explosion at a metro construction site killed 79 people and injured over 400. On May 31st a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Ancash, in Peru accompanied by a landslide buried the town of Yungay. It was determined that in between 66,000 and 70,000 individuals were killed. On July 3 all 112 individuals on board Dan-Air Flight 1903 were killed when the British De Havilland Comet plane crashes into mountain tops north of Barcelona in Spain. Yet another crash on July 5th occurred with Air Canada Flight 621 crashing close to Toronto Airport, Toronto, in Ontario killing all 109 passengers and crew on board. In Melbourne, Australia on October 15th a part of the new West Gate Bridge fell into the river beneath, killing 35 building workers. On October 15 a cholera epidemic breaks out in Istanbul in Turkey that later develops on October 28th to east Slovakia leading to Hungary to close its border with Czechoslovakia. On November 13, a 120-mph tropical storm hits the heavily populated Ganges Delta region in East Pakistan (in what is currently known as Bangladesh), kills an estimated 500,000 individuals which makes it the 20th century’s most severe cyclone disasters. On December 12th there had been a landslide in western Colombia which left 200 people dead.
In addition to the above disasters, the Vietnam war carries on in the course of 1970. On March 5, the earlier decided upon Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty comes into effect, after being agreed to by 56 nations. The 1970 World’s Expo starts in Suita, Osaka, Japan on March 15th. On April 10, in a media release which had been written in sarcastic interview style, which is incorporated into promo copies of his first single album, Paul McCartney announces he leaves The Beatles. On December 31 he sues in the courts in Britain to wind up the band’s legal partnership, putting an end for the group. On April 11th, Apollo 13 with the astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and also Jack Swigert on board takes off for the Moon, however on April 13, an oxygen tank in the Apollo 13 spacecraft blows up, that pushes the crew to abandon the goal and return down to earth. The crisis intrigues the whole world with them splashing down safely in the ocean on April 17. The first New York Marathon was run in 1970.