What a disaster!

A genre that seems to have made a strong comeback - almost single-handedly on the back of Roland Emmerich - is the disaster film. Lately, it's taken an environmental tinge with films like Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow and a certain delight in the coming apocalypse with his Mayan inspired 2012.

It was a genre that was all the rage in the early to mid 1970s, films such as Airport and The Poseidon Adventure doing big business. Then they disappeared, certainly from my perspective, until probably the crop of "asteroid coming to destroy the world" flicks at the end of the 90s.
Interestingly, Wikipedia lists well over a hundred disaster flicks though some of the categories feel a little 'small' ie 'cars and trucks'.

So what is it about disaster films that we like - blowing stuff up? ordinary people put into extraordinary circumstances? Bruce Willis nobly sacrificing himself (and the laws of physics) to save mankind? Is the resurgence of the genre a reflection of our concerns about terrorism, global warming and how tenuous the planet is ... or an excuse for a big budget spectacle low on character and high on special effects?

Do you have a favourite disaster film? If so, what is it and why?

Could Australia make a notable contribution to the genre or is budget a limitation? I vaguely recall the tv mini-series Scorched that explored perhaps every Australians' greatest fear - an out-of-control bushfire in the height of summer. What about a big screen variation?

Your views are most welcome ...