What is "cataclysms"

Usage examples of "cataclysms".

They show Hresh glimpses of ragged survivors of the early cataclysms trekking across the frozen landscape, seeking places where they would be safe: caviandis, hjjks, even the People themselves, fleeing toward the cocoons where they will wait out the interminable eons of cold.

Battle, murder, and sudden death of all kinds and varieties notwithstanding, the most hectic moments of the most earth-shaking cataclysms in which he had been involved paled their ineffectual fires beside the eye-shrivelling dazzle of that second.