The earthquakes will then roll on, time zone by time zone. The saved, perhaps 2 per cent to 3 per cent of the world's population, will be whisked to God, while the rest will be obliterated in what [Harold Camping] calls a "super horror story".

Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2011

"Sure, everything is ending," Jules said, "but not yet."

Jennifer Egan, ? Vi sit from the Goon Squad

In early November 2011, as protesters from the Occupy movement clashed with police on the streets of Oakland, California, shutting America's fifth-busiest container port, a frail, 90year-old man watched the events unfold on television at his nursing home in the city. He was Harold Camping, an evangelical preacher and broadcaster who had predicted - twice - that the world would end this year.

"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, 21 May will be the date of the Rapture and the Day of Judgement," Camping claimed on his Family Radio network in January. When Armageddon failed to arrive, he called up an alternative date, 21 October. But October also passed Rapture -le ss, and this serial false prophet became the butt of jokes from comedians the world over. Even Dolly Parton wrote a song poking fun at him. Having suffered a stroke in June, he retired from his radio station.

It is hard not to think, looking back over a year in which natural disasters swept across the globe, violence erupted both in the Middle East and on the streets at home in Britain, as the financial crisis assumed an urgent momentum, that Harold Camping's only error was the specificity of his predictions. The grand European project is crumbling, in the United States the Republicans are driving the nation towards default in defence of tax cuts for the ? per cent and Bashar al-Assad maintains his stubborn, murderous hold on power in Syria. Add to this Iran's putative nuclear programme, a world population that reached seven billion, rampant inflation, food riots, climate catastrophe . . .

These indeed feel like end times. It can seem as if we are living through Camping's "super horror story", surfing Yeats's blood-dimmed tide, waiting for the floodwaters to rise. In the little time we might have left, as it were, let's take a stroll through the ruins of 2011.

Earthquakes and floods

The first major disaster of the year struck New Zealand's South Island at lunchtime on 22 February. The epicentre of the earthquake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, occurred just outside Christchurch, New Zealand's second most populous city. One hundred and eightyone people were killed, most of them inside the headquarters of Canterbury Television, which collapsed and was engulfed in flames; 10,000 houses were destroyed and more than 100,000 were damaged, leaving many homeless.

Less than three weeks later, while international aid agencies were grappling with the crisis in New Zealand, the Pacific Ocean floor was wrenched open by the most powerful earthquake to strike Japan since records began. On 11 March, a 9. o -magnitude quake unleashed 40 -foot-high tsunamis that swept up to ten kilometres inland, swamping the eastern Tohoku region. Close to 1 6 , o o o people were killed; a further 4,000 are still missing. Such was the strength of the earthquake that it caused a shift in the earth's axis by up to 25 centimetres, speeding up the rotation of the planet and shortening the length of our days.

Then a new threat emerged. Scientists monitoring Japan's nuclear power plants found that cooling systems had been damaged by the floodwaters, leading to a build-up of hydrogen gas that triggered explosions at Fukushima Daiichi, one of the world's largest nuclear power stations. It had been built on a fault line. Reactors at Fukushima Daini (a second, smaller plant in the same prefecture) were also damaged and so were installations at Onagawa andTokai.

In the hours following the breach of the plant's defensive walls by the tsunami, three of the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi went into meltdown. Japanese officials initially tried to play down the severity of the nuclear threat, insisting that the Fukushima disaster should be graded level 4 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. In fact, initial readings showed radioactivity similar to that released in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Eventually, Fukushima was upgraded to level/, only the second event of this magnitude in the history of nuclear power.

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, antinuclear protests swept across Europe. In the most startling response, the previously pronuclear German government announced in May that it would close all 17 of its nuclear facilities by 2022. The motion approving the decision passed in the Bundestag by 513 votes to 79. It may be that the longest-lasting fallout from this nuclear disaster, in which no one died of direct radiation exposure or was injured as a result, will be environmental.

In a final act of seismic devastation, an earthquake struck Van in eastern Turkey in September, killing 600 people and leaving 60,000 others homeless.

In August, Hurricane Irene ripped through the Caribbean and along the east coast of the United States, killing more than 40 and forcing the unprecedented evacuation of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. The Southern and Midwestern states had suffered their own inundations when the Mississippi burst its banks in April, causing catastrophic flooding from Louisiana to Illinois.

The storm system that brought the floods was also responsible for the deadliest US tornado season since 1936. One twister, which tore through Joplin, Missouri, on the evening of 22 May, was a mile-wide monster that killed more than 160 people and injured as many as a thousand more.

Monsoons raged across Asia between June and November, trailing destruction. Heavy flooding in Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia killed more than a thousand people, left more than a million homeless and severely affected the rice harvest. Further heavy rains in China provided brief relief to droughthit northern provinces but caused havoc in the south, killing hundreds and causing damage estimated at close to $6. 5hm With typhoons battering the Philippines and Indonesia, few in Asia escaped the deluge of 2011.

Talking about a revolution

The Arab spring seemed to come from nowhere, leaving media commentators floundering - it was the Twitter revolution, the weeks in which Facebook changed the world. Fuddled hacks ascribed the revolts to the explosion of social media, using one thing they didn't understand to explain another.

There were fears that it was the beginning of an Islamist revolt, an attempt by militants to seize power from leaders who for too long had pandered to the west. The profoundly democratic nature of the uprisings caught the mainstream press by surprise. And it all started with a humble street vendor in Tunis .

In late December 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26 -year-old seller of fruit and vegetables, was harassed and assaulted by police for not having the correct work permit: his weighing scales and $200 worth of his produce were confiscated. He attempted to complain to the local governor, was refused entry to the municipal offices and returned with a jerrycan of fuel. Recalling images of Buddhist monks during the Vietnam war and the Czech student Jan Palach after the Soviets crushed the Prague spring of 1968, fire engulfed Bouazizi's body. That same fire soon swept across the region, driving the kleptocrats and demagogues before it.

Bouazizi's death sparked imitative acts of self-immolation in Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. However, the main focus remained on Tunisia, where protesters angered by the treatment of the young man soon turned their attention to unemployment, government corruption and rising food prices. Thousands marched on Tunis, Sidi Bouzid and other cities, calling for President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to stand down. Revolution arrived with astonishing swiftness and there were violent clashes with police until, on 14 January, the military forced B en Ali's hand. The head of the Tunisian national army vowed to "protect the revolution" and the president fled the country, first to France, where his plane was denied permission to land, and finally to Saudi Arabia. The Arab spring had begun.

Three days later, a man set himself on fire on the steps of the Egyptian parliament building in protest against his poor working conditions. As in Tunisia, the protests mounted with speed. By 25 January, there were 50,000 demonstrators camped in Tahrir Square in Cairo, calling for an end to the 29 -year reign of President Hosni Mubarak. There were riots in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria over the next several weeks as the dictator attempted to maintain his hold on power. Government-imposed curfews wer e not enforced by the reluctant army, and the public protests erupted into violence, particularly on the "Friday of Anger", 28 January, when hundreds of thousands of Egyptian demonstrators marched on Tahrir Square after afternoon prayers. On 11 February, Mubarak handed power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and was placed under house arrest at a presidential palace in Sharm-el Sheikh.

The spark of revolution leapt from one nation in the Middle East and North Africa to the next as the protesters, most of them young and disenfranchised, sensed the possibility of change. Libya was next in line, as riots erupted in Benghazi, the country's second-largest city, against the rule of Muammar al-Gaddafi. The colonel, who came to power in 1969, threatened to crush the uprising, calling on an army more loyal, if far smaller, than in neighbouring Egypt, to take back territory seized by rebels at the end of February.

Civil war erupted. Thousands had died by the time that the United Nations adopted Resolution 1973 on 17 March, imposing a no -fly zone over Libya and authorising all action short of invasion in defence of civilian lives. Helped by coalition strikes led by the French and British air forces, the rebels resisted a government counter offensive and, over subsequent months, slowly wrested control of the country's major cities from Gaddafi. A big breakthrough came in the Battle of Misurata when rebels retook the town and its airport from loyalist forces after a long and bloody battle. At the end of August, they took Tripoli and began to move the headquarters of their National Transitional Council to the city.

Finally, in October, Gaddafi was captured in his home town of Sirte. Bloodied, jostled by jubilant rebels, he begged for mercy before he was summarily executed.

The pathetic figure of a one-time tyrant blub - bing brought to mind another man who was assassinated without trial in 2011. On 1 May, without any warning, President Barack Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, had been killed in Abbottabad, a quiet garrison town in northeastern Pakistan. It was an undoubted coup for Obama, yet the news fell flat, seeming like a throwback in the light of events that were unfolding across the Middle East.

Syria could yet become the next target of international intervention as the secular dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad seeks to maintain power in the face of widespread unrest. Thousands have been killed in a crackdown by the government as Assad's army uses tanks and shelling to quell the uprisings. Still they march on the streets of Damascus, Hama and Horns. What began as a series of loose -knit, sporadic protests in sympathy with the people of neighbouring countries has, once again, turned into a civil war.

As the youth of the Middle East and North Africa took to the streets in pursuit of free speech and fair wages, in England it was for trainers and plasma TVs, or so the Daily Mail would have had us believe. Mark Duggan, a 29 -year-old mixed-race man from Tottenham, north London, was shot dead by police during a botched arrest on the evening of 4 August. A local protest at the killing turned violent; rumours of a police attack on a 16 -year- old girl fuelled the rage. Riots broke out across London on the nights of 7 and 8 August, coupled with widespread looting and arson. After a major police operation and the hurried return of David Cameron and other political leaders from their summer holidays, the night of 9 August was quiet in the capital, but the looting spread to towns and cities across England.

Meltdown

The stock-market recovery of late 2010 and early 2011 always felt sham. Greece was still lurking there, like Chekhov's gun, waiting to go off. Sure enough, after the FTSE 100 briefly broke through the 6,000 mark in July, the financial crisis took a definitive step from the banks that caused the 20 08 crash to the governments that bailed them out. Over the next four months, world markets plunged as the sovereign debt crisis spread from peripheral states into the heart of Europe and the US lost its AAA-rating for the first time in history.

Gold was the only investment worth holding in the early days of the crisis. Its value rose towards $2,000 an ounce as traders bought the precious metal for its safe -haven and inflation - hedging properties.

However, the gold rally began to fizzle out in November when markets around the world suffered severe declines as fears rose of a new, even more painful credit crunch. The downgrade of US debt by Standard &. Poor's on 5 August was driven as much by political intransigence as economic gloom. Point-scoring and name -calling during the "debt ceiling crisis", when the US came within hours of defaulting on its $i5trn of debt, merely served to validate the rating agency's decision. An interim solution was found; given the divisions between Democratic cost- cutters and Republican tax- cutters, the issue of the debt ceiling will no doubt continue to be used as a political football for years to come.

Focus swiftly moved to Europe, where the tragicomedy of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sex scandal was swiftly forgotten as the debt crisis spiralled. In October, steps were taken to contain the pánicas European leaders proposed writing off 50 per cent of Greek debt, imposing new austerity measures on Italy and Greece and agreeing to increase the European Financial Stability Facility to euroitrn. It wasn't enough. After spreading a last wave of alarm by proposing a national referendum on the austerity measures, the hapless Greek prime minister George Papandreou stepped down in November. Italy was the next to suffer as short-sellers pounced on a country which, despite a healthy fiscal position, was always thought incapable of implementing a programme of austerity.

Having survived sex scandals and allegations of corruption over the course of his 17-year political career, Silvio Berlusconi was brought down by the markets. As Italy's borrowing costs soared above the 7 per cent rate, leaving the country unable to refinance its debt, he, too, resigned as prime minister.

Spain and the previously untouchable France were now in the firing line, their debt yields rising to unprecedented heights. Even Germany's interest rates hit record levels . For the first time, the break-up of the eurozone seemed a distinct possibility. Germany holds the key to the European debt crisis, but Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to be pushed into hasty decisions. Although she and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, maintain that it is closer integration, rather than a break-up of the Union, that will save Europe, the markets will not wait for much longer.

At home, David Cameron survived a rebellion from his own party as Eurosceptic MPs pushed for a referendum on EU membership. But selfcongratulation over the coalition's fiscal prudence soured when it became clear that the UK was on the verge of a second recession in three years. With its major trading partners in Europe staring into the abyss, the UK seems to be holding a decidedly fragile economic position moving into 2012.

The End of the (News of the) World

In 2007, Clive Goodman, the royal editor of the News of the World, was jailed for intercepting voicemails of friends of Princes William and Harry. Andy Coulson, the paper's editor at the time, was also forced to resign, even though he denied all knowledge of the hacking. Goodman was presented as a rogue operator, and the matter was largely forgotten.

In late 2010 and early 2011, more revelations about phone -hacking emerged. Celebrities from Hugh Grant to Sienna Miller began to talk about having been hacked. In January, Coulson, who had been hired by Prime Minister Cameron to be his chief of communications, was forced to resign from yet another job. Then, in early July, the story took off. Phone - hacking, it seemed, was rather more common at the newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch than we had been led to believe. The News of the World had employed private investigators to hack into the phones of relatives of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan and victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks, as well as that of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Murdoch's decision to close the paper felt dramatic; in retrospect, however, it was no great sacrifice for him. But the scandal did not end there and it had a huge impact on the News Corporation empire. The company's bid for full ownership of B Sky B was withdrawn after intense political pressure; in July, Murdoch and his son James were called before a parliamentary select committee along with the chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks (she later resigned and Murdoch, Jr stood down from the board of News Group Newspapers last month).

Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan commissioner of police, also resigned over his force's handling of early investigations into phone-hacking. News Corp's share price was battered and Murdoch was sued by dissident shareholders. The company somehow survived, but only just.

The End of Days

"It's always darkest before it goes pitch black."

E L Kersten, Despair Inc

For eschatologists disappointed by the failure of Harold Camping's prophecies, there isn't long to wait. Ancient Mayan scrolls suggest that the world will end on 21 December 2012. In the meantime, seven billion people jostle for space on an overcrowded and overheating world, even though, as of 2011, that number no longer includes Elizabeth Taylor, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Lucian Freud, Amy Winehouse or Steve Jobs.

As the Republicans and Democrats continued to slug it out over the debt ceiling, the divide in US grass-roots politics was equally pronounced. The Tea Party lost ground in the opinion polls, but still looks certain to have a significant impact on the 2012 US presidential election. The Occupy movement spread from Madrid to New York to London and scores of other cities.

Amid all the gloom and destruction, a few rays of hope glimmered. Laurent Gbagbo was arrested in April, bringing to an end the Ivorian civil war, which claimed more than 1,500 lives, and was flown from Côte d' Ivoire to The Hague to face prosecution before the International Criminal Court. Ratko Mladic, the last major war criminal from the Balkan conflict of 199899, was apprehended after 16 years on the run. Alleged to have ordered the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims after the fall of Srebrenica, Mladic was also extradited to The Hague to stand trial. In Sweden, surgeons completed the first artificial organ transplant, successfully placing a plastic windpipe covered in his own stem cells in the throat of a 36 -year- old suffering from latestage tracheal cancer. There was also good news for Amanda Knox, Gilad Shalit and Kate Middleton. Knox and Shalit escaped a life of mindless drudgery in an alien culture, and as for Middleton . . . well, she got to wear a nice dress.

Even a seer as gifted as Harold Camping would be hard-pressed to tell what 2012 will bring. A resolution to the European debt crisis is overdue; if 2011 taught us anything, it was that temporary or tentative solutions are not enough. The 2008 Beijing Olympics marked the start of the worst phase of the credit crunch. Let us hope that London 2012 will herald the end of this ugly chapter of economic history.

In November, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran had carried out tests "relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device". President Ahmadinejad seems set on forcing confrontation with the west.

There will no doubt be more protests against government cuts in the UK, further strikes and, perhaps, a dawning realisation on the part of the coalition that its slash -and -bur ? policies have left Britain ill-prepared for a sustained period of low global GDP growth. In August, with the seven billion on earth ticking up towards eight, we will see the Nasa rover Curiosity land on Mars to test its suitability for human habitation. If the Mayans are right, we'll have four months to change planets.

Author affiliation:

Alex Preston's second novel, "The Revelations", will be published by Faber & Faberin February

newstatesman.com/writers/alex_preston

Alex Preston

worked as a trader in the City of London for ten years before becoming a novelist. His first book, This Bleeding City, was published by Faber & Fab er in 2010. His next, The Revelations, will be published in February next year. He is now working on a PhD on violence in the novel. On page 29, he begins an essay looking back over an extraordinary year of turmoil and unrest, both at home and abroad, and why these "indeed feel like end times".