Police on routine patrol in North Hollywood, California, find themselves outgunned and without automatic weapons or armour, when they confront a pair of heavily armed, masked, armour-wearing bank robbers who begin shooting at them

Rescuers struggle to save people trapped in the rubble of their destroyed homes and a collapsed expressway after the catastrophic 7.1-magnitude 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

An average workday in Southern California turns into a day of tragedies and rescues after commuter and freight trains collide.

A siren sounds in Oklahoma and residents are advised to seek shelter because a tornado is about to touch down

Rescuers come to the aid of 100 people plunged into and then trapped in a wine cellar after a terrace collapses at a winery in Ohio during a national holiday celebration.

An explosion in a Kansas grain elevator sets off a chain reaction in the elevator and silos, trapping and injuring dozens of people, while the flammable grain dust generated by the explosion threatens to set off more fires

After the car of two high-school boys skids off the road, flips three times and lands upside-down in an icy pond, one of the boys escapes and a fire-and-rescue team search the freezing waters in hopes of finding the other boy alive

The threat of destruction looms for residents of Oklahoma's "Tornado Alley" when broadcasters warn of potentially catastrophic weather heading toward them.

A rescue team work to resuscitate two brothers after they fall into a frozen pond following a foolish dare, putting their own lives in danger as they venture on thin ice

Two construction workers become buried up to their necks in soil and rock when the wall of their Florida work site collapses, leaving them isolated and facing death.

In one of the worst hard-rock mining disasters of the last century, nearly 200 Idaho mine workers are trapped in a fire that circulates deadly smoke and carbon monoxide gas

Rescuers attempt to save apartment dwellers who ignored warnings and remained in their homes when Category 5 Hurricane Camille made landfall in the south-eastern US in 1969

Rescuers race against time to save the passengers and crew of an airliner after it stalls and crashes into a commuter-packed bridge, plunging the jet, six vehicles and a 41-foot section of the span into the icy Potomac River.

Rescuers in helicopters and inflatable boats battle the elements to save victims, including people stranded in their flooded homes and overturned vehicles as well as possibly suffering from hypothermia, in one of Texas's worst nights of flooding

Fires erupt in a lush but drought-stricken urban forest overlooking Oakland, Calif., killing 25 people, injuring more than 100 and causing $1 billion worth of damage in 1991. Many of the homes were built with wood, a key factor in the devastation.