It seemed like a year of earthquakes.
In early February, earthquake-prone Taiwan was shaken by a 6.4-magnitude quake that killed 117 people and caused widespread damage across the country's south.
Almost all of those killed died when a 17-story residential building collapsed in Tainan.
Then, in August, almost 300 people died in central Italy in a 6.2-magnitude quake.
Later, in October, historic buildings in central Italy were destroyed when another, 6.6-magnitude quake struck, the most powerful to hit Italy since 1980.
The following month, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake and a series of aftershocks killed two people in New Zealand and prompted a tsunami alert.
Later in November, a 6.9-magnitude quake off Japan's Honshu island triggered tsunami waves again.
In the Indonesian province of Aceh, (AH-cheh) 103 people were killed in a December 7th earthquake that measured 6.5 on the Richter scale.
Away from the earthquakes of 2016, though, there was a single hurricane that proved far more deadly.
In late September, Hurricane Matthew brought winds of more than 250 kilometres an hour battering Haiti, leaving more than 840 people dead.
There were some destructive fires during the year, too, most notably with Israel suffering through both urban fires and bushfires in November.
In the city of Haifa, 75,000 people had to be evacuated from 11 neighbourhoods.
Also in November, in the United States, 14 people died in bushfires in the Smoky Mountains in the state of Tennessee.
One of the worst floods of 2016 took place in August in the US state of Louisiana, where 40,000 homes were damaged.
Finally, in Australia, eight people died and more than 8,000 were hospitalised in Victoria after a thunderstorm-asthma attack in November.
The asthma storm overwhelmed Victoria's emergency services, with paramedics dealing with an unprecedented 1,900 emergency calls in just five hours.
In response, premier Daniel Andrews announced a $500 million upgrade for the state's ambulance services.
