famine vs catastrophe

famine and catastrophe both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
famine	Yes	No	No	No
catastrophe	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, catastrophe is a hypernym of famine; that is, catastrophe is a word with a broader meaning than famine:

famine: a severe shortage of food (as through crop failure) resulting in violent hunger and starvation and death
catastrophe: an event resulting in great loss and misfortune

Other hypernyms of famine include calamity, cataclysm, disaster, tragedy.

famine (noun)	catastrophe (noun)
a severe shortage of food (as through crop failure) resulting in violent hunger and starvation and death	an event resulting in great loss and misfortune
an acute insufficiency	a sudden violent change in the earth's surface
	a state of extreme (usually irremediable) ruin and misfortune