25 Photos That Show the Endless Power of Nature

Violent natural disasters have been a fact of human life since the beginning of the species, but the death counts of the most ancient of these disasters are lost to history. The Mediterranean island of Stroggli, for example, is believed to have been completely wiped out by a volcanic eruption and ensuing tsunami that eradicated the entire Minoan civilization around 1500 B.C. How many lives were lost? We'll never know.