Catastrophe or catastrophic comes from the Greek κατά (kata) = down; στροφή (strophē) = turning (). It may refer to: A general or specific event Disaster, a devastating event The Asia Minor Catastrophe, a Greek name for the 1923 Greek defeat at the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey after the defeat The Holocaust, also known by the Hebrew name HaShoah which translates to "The Catastrophe" The Chernobyl Catastrophe, a name of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster Blue sky catastrophe, a type of bifurcation of a periodic orbit, where the orbit vanishes into the blue sky Catastrophic failure, complete failure of a system from which recovery is impossible (e.g. a bridge collapses) Climatic catastrophe, forced transition of climate system to a new climate state at a rate which is more rapid than the rate of change of the external forcing Cosmic catastrophe, thought experiment about what would happen if the sun were to suddenly disappear Ecological catastrophe, a disaster to the natural environment due to human activity Error catastrophe, extinction of an organism as a result of excessive mutations Impending climatic catastrophe, conjectured runaway climate change resulting from a rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system Infrared catastrophe or infrared divergence is a situation in particle physics in which a particular integral diverges Iron catastrophe, runaway melting of early earth's interior as a result of potential energy release from sinking iron and nickel melted by heat of radioactive decay Late Bronze Age collapse Malthusian catastrophe, prediction of a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth has outpaced agricultural production Mitotic catastrophe, an event in which a cell is destroyed during mitosis The 1948 Palestinian exodus in Arabic. Nedelin catastrophe or Nedelin disaster, launch pad accident at Baikonur test range of Baikonur Cosmodrome Oxygen catastrophe, the biologically induced appearance of dioxygen (O2) in Earth's atmosphere Runaway climate change or Climatic catastrophe, hypothesized runaway global warming when a tipping point is exceeded Toba catastrophe hypothesis, hypothesis that the Toba supervolcanic eruption caused a global volcanic winter and 1,000-year-long cooling episode Ultraviolet catastrophe, the prediction by classical physics that a black body will emit radiation at infinite power Vacuum catastrophe, the discrepancy between theoretical and measured vacuum energy density in cosmology Art, entertainment, and media Fictional entities Catastrophe, the main antagonist in The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs Film Catastrophe (film), a 1977 American