The immediate cause of the cash catastrophe was the failure of the House of Representatives to pass the Wall Street bailout bill.

NPR: Katrina's Unlearned Lessons Leave Financial Mess

There is no way to fill in the space between the spines so that they are proof against catastrophe, or easily fixable at any point of failure.

ECONOMIST: Lessons from Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima

But we acted because failure to do so would have led to catastrophe.

WHITEHOUSE: The Recovery Act �C Year One

Some supporters of nuclear disarmament describe our current approach to nuclear strategy as a failure of imagination that one day could lead to unprecedented catastrophe (proponents of missile defense often say the same thing).

FORBES: Nuclear Weapons: How Few Is Too Few?

That war, of which he was an enthusiast, was a catastrophe, he now admits, and he lays the blame for that on a failure to pay attention to the lay of the land.

NEWYORKER: Faces, Places, Spaces

Past incidents of aircraft trying to fly through volcanic ash clouds and suffering damage and engine failure led European officials to shut their air spaces rather than risk a catastrophe, said Joe Sultana, an official at Eurocontrol, the intergovernmental body that manages European air travel.

CNN: Air travel paralyzed as volcanic ash cloud lingers