Hurricanes are increasingly breaking records for intensity and the destruction they leave in their wake. Here we look at some of the most powerful storms in history.

It is 20 years since Hurricane Katrina barrelled into south-east Louisiana, killing 1,833 people and creating a calamity on a previously unimagined scale. The storm hit on 29 August 2005, leaving most of the city underwater and its population without power, food and shelter.

“My city, New Orleans, has fallen into utter chaos,” resident Windi Sebren told the BBC at the time. “My life in New Orleans is over for the time being – I have to start over completely.” 

Katrina is undoubtedly one of the worst disasters to have hit the United States in living memory. Here we revisit pictures from Katrina and some of history’s other powerful and destructive hurricanes.

The most lives lost: The Great Hurricane of 1780

On the night of 9 October 1780, after a balmy day on the Caribbean island of Barbados, rain began to fall. The next morning a breeze picked up – and by 6pm a hurricane slammed into the island at full force. Known as the Great Hurricane, it remains the deadliest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. Estimates of the death toll range between 20,000 and 27,500.