Disaster pictures of the year 2009


The La Democracia bridge over the Ulua river, built by the French in 1963, which has collapsed after a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake rocked Honduras.
A satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows tsunami waves crashing over American Samoa's Tafuna International Airport in Pago Pago.
A motorist had a lucky escape when his van careered off a mountain road. In a scene straight out of The Italian Job, Daniel Lyons was left hanging in mid-air after his vehicle plunged down the rock face in Colorado and dangled on a precipice.
Airline passengers wait to be rescued on the wings of a US Airways Airbus 320 jetliner that safely ditched in the frigid waters of the Hudson River in New York, after a flock of birds knocked out both its engines.
< A partially-constructed building which caught alight in Foshan, south China's Guangdong province.
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Cows and vehicles are stranded on a piece of land surrounded by flood water in Jeram Perdas, Malaysia.

The Hotel Chin shuai lies collapsed in floodwater during typhoon Morakot in Chihpen, in southeastern Taiwan's Taitung county.