Natural disaster
A solar flare is a phenomenon where the Sun suddenly releases a great amount of solar radiation, much more than normal. Solar flares are unlikely to cause any direct injury, but can destroy electrical equipment. The potential of solar storms to cause disaster was seen during the 1859 Carrington event, which disrupted the telegraph network, and the March 1989 geomagnetic storm which blacked out Quebec. Some major known solar flares include the X20 event on August 16, 1989, and a similar flare on April 2, 2001. The most powerful flare ever recorded occurred on November 4, 2003 (estimated at between X40 and X45).
Superflare
However, this does not match the known properties of superflare stars. Such stars are extremely rare in the Kepler data; one study showed only 279 such stars in 31,457 studied, a proportion below 1%; for older stars this fell to 0.25%. Also, about half of the stars which were active showed repeating flares: one had as many as 57 events in 500 days. Concentrating on solar-type stars, the most active averaged one flare every 100 days; the frequency of superﬂare occurrence in the most active Sun-like stars is 1000 times larger than that of the general average for such stars. This suggests that such behaviour is not present throughout a star's lifetime, but is confined to episodes of extraordinary activity. This is also suggested by the clear relation between the magnetic activity of a star and its superflare activity; in particular, superflare stars are much more active (based on starspot area) than the Sun.