Disasters usually hit people indeveloping countries harder than people in wealthy countries. Over 95% of deaths from disasters happen in low-income countries, and those countries lose a lot more money compared to richer countries. For example, the damage from natural disasters is 20 times greater in developing countries than inindustrialized countries.[7][8] This is because low-income countries often do not have well-built buildings or good plans to handle emergencies.
To reduce the damage from disasters, it is important to be prepared and have fit for purpose infrastructure.Disaster risk reduction (DRR) aims to make communities stronger and better prepared to handle disasters. It focuses on actions to reduce risk before a disaster occurs, rather than onresponse and recovery after the event. DRR andclimate change adaptation measures are similar in that they aim to reducevulnerability of people and places to natural hazards.
When a disaster happens, the response includes actions like warning and evacuating people, rescuing those in danger, and quickly providing food, shelter, and medical care. The goal is to save lives and help people recover as quickly as possible. In some cases, national or international help may be needed to support recovery. This can happen, for example, through the work ofhumanitarian organizations.
TheUnited Nations defines a disaster as "a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale".[9]: 13 Disasters result fromhazards occurring in areas where people live under exposed or vulnerable conditions. Human factors such as inadequate planning, poor development practices, and lack of preparedness can increasecommunity vulnerability toclimate hazards.[10]
Disasters are defined as events that have significant adverse effects on people. When a hazard overwhelms the capacity of a community to respond or causes widespread injury or damage, it is classified as a disaster.[11] The international disaster databaseEM-DAT defines a disaster as “a situation or event that overwhelms local capacity, necessitating a request for external assistance at the national or international level; it is an unforeseen and often sudden event that causes great damage, destruction, and human suffering.”[12]
The effects of a disaster encompass human, material, economic, and environmental losses and impacts.[9]: 13
UNDRO (1984) defined a disaster in a more qualitative fashion as:[13] "an event, concentrated in time and space, in which a community undergoes severe danger and incurs such losses to its members and physical appurtenances that the social structure is disrupted and the fulfilment of all or some of the essential functions of the society is prevented." Like other definitions this looks beyond the social aspects of the disaster impacts. It also focuses on losses. This raises the need for emergency response as an aspect of the disaster.[14] It does not set out quantitative thresholds or scales for damage, death, or injury.[citation needed]
A study in 1969 definedmajor disasters as conforming to the following criteria, based on the amount of deaths or damage:[14][15] At least 100 people dead, at least 100 people injured, or at least $1 million damage. This definition includes indirect losses of life caused after the initial onset of the disaster. These could be the effects of diseases such as cholera or dysentery arising from the disaster. This definition is still commonly used. However it is limited to the number of deaths, injuries, and damage in money terms.[14]
The scale of a disaster matters.Small-scale disasters only affect local communities but need help beyond the affected community.Large-scale disasters affect wider society and need national or international help.[9]
It is usual to divide disasters into natural or human-made. Recently the divide between natural, man-made and man-accelerated disasters has become harder to draw.[4][16][6] Some manufactured disasters such assmog andacid rain have been wrongly attributed to nature.[17]
The sudden, drastic flow of snow down a slope, occurring when either natural triggers, such as loading from new snow or rain, or artificial triggers, such as explosives or backcountry skiers.
A series of waves hitting shores strongly, mainly caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake, usually caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, underwater explosions, landslides, glacier calvings, meteorite impacts and other disturbances above or below water
Scholars have argued the term "natural disaster" is unsuitable and should be abandoned.[21] Instead, the simpler termdisaster could be used. At the same time, the type of hazard would be specified.[22][23][24] A disaster happens when a natural orhuman-made hazard impacts avulnerable community. It results from the combination of the hazard and the exposure of a vulnerable society.
Climate change and environmental degradation are sometimes called socio-natural hazards. These are hazards involving a combination of both natural and human factors.[9]: 18 All disasters can be regarded as human-made, because of failure to introduce the rightemergency management measures.[26]
Famines may be caused locally by drought, flood, fire or pestilence. In modern times there is plenty of food globally. Long-lasting local shortages are generally due to government mismanagement, violent conflict, or an economic system that does not distribute food where needed.[27]
A disturbance caused by a group of people that may includesit-ins and other forms of obstructions, riots, sabotage and other forms of crime, and which is intended to be a demonstration to the public and the government, but can escalate into general chaos
The escape of solids, liquids, or gases that can harm people, other living organisms, property or the environment, from their intended controlled environment such as a container.
An event involving the significant release of radioactivity to the environment or a reactor core meltdown and which leads to major undesirable consequences to people, the environment, or the facility
Complex disasters, where there is no single root cause, are more common indeveloping countries. A specific hazard may also spawn a secondary disaster that increases the impact. A classic example is anearthquake that causes atsunami. This results incoastal flooding, damaging anuclear power plant on the coast. TheFukushima nuclear disaster is a case in point. Experts examine these cascading events to see how risks and impacts can amplify and spread. This is particularly important given the increase inclimate risks.[28]: 143–145
Some researchers distinguish betweenrecurring events like seasonal flooding andunpredictable one-off events.[29] Recurring events often carry an estimate of how often they occur. Experts call this thereturn period.
The effects of a disaster include all human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts.[9]: 13
The Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) records statistics about disasters related to natural hazards. For 2023, EM-DAT recorded 399 disasters, which was higher than the 20-year average of 369.[12]
Between 2016 and 2020 the total reported economic losses amounted to $293 billion. This figure is likely to be an underestimation. It is very challenging to measure the costs of disasters accurately, and many countries lack the resources and technical capacity to do so.[30]: 50 Over the 40-year period from 1980 to 2020 losses were estimated at $5.2 trillion.
In 2023, natural hazard-related disasters resulted in 86,473 fatalities and affected 93.1 million people.[12] Whilst the number of deaths was much higher than the 20-year average of 64,148, the number affected was much lower than the 20-year average of 175.5 million.
According to a UN report, 91% of deaths from hazards from 1970 to 2019 occurred in developing countries.[31] These countries already have higher vulnerability and lower resilience to these events, which exacerbates the effects of the hazards.
Hazards such asdroughts,floods, andcyclones are naturally occurring phenomena.[32] However,climate change has caused these hazards to become more unreliable, frequent and severe. They thus contribute to disaster risks. Countries contributing most to climate change are often at the lowest risk of feeling the consequences.[33] As of 2019, countries with the highest vulnerability per capita release the lowest amount of emissions per capita, and yet still experience the most heightened droughts and extreme precipitation.[33]
Disaster risk reduction progress score for some countries in 2011. The score of 5 is best. Assessments include four indicators that reflect the degree to which countries have prioritized disaster risk reduction and the strengthening of relevant institutions.[34]
Disaster risk reduction aims to make disasters less likely to happen. The approach, also called DRR or disaster risk management, also aims to make disasters less damaging when they do occur. DRR aims to make communities stronger and better prepared to handle disasters. In technical terms, it aims to make them more resilient or less vulnerable. When DRR is successful, it makes communities less thevulnerable because itmitigates the effects of disasters.[35] This means DRR can make risky events fewer and less severe.Climate change can increaseclimate hazards. So development efforts often consider DRR andclimate change adaptation together.[36]
It is possible to include DRR in almost all areas of development andhumanitarian work. People from local communities, agencies or federal governments can all propose DRR strategies. DRR policies aim to "define goals and objectives across different timescales and with concrete targets, indicators and time frames."[35]: 16
Disaster response refers to the actions taken directly before, during, or immediately after a disaster. The objective is to save lives, ensure health and safety, and meet the subsistence needs of the people affected.[37]: 16 It includes warning and evacuation,search and rescue, providing immediate assistance, assessing damage, continuing assistance, and the immediate restoration or construction ofinfrastructure. An example of this would be building provisionalstorm drains ordiversion dams. Emergency response aims to provide immediate help to keep people alive, improve their health and support their morale. It can involve specific but limited aid, such as helpingrefugees with transport, temporary shelter, and food, or it can involve establishing semi-permanent settlements in camps and other locations. It may also involve initial repairs to damage to infrastructure, or diverting it.
The response phase focuses on keeping people safe, preventing the next disasters and meeting people's basic needs until more permanent and sustainable solutions are available. The governments where the disaster has happened have the main responsibility for addressing these needs.Humanitarian organisations are often present in this phase of the disaster management cycle. This is especially true in places where the government does not have the resources for a full response.
The worddisaster is derived fromMiddle Frenchdésastre which comes fromOld Italiandisastro. This in turn comes from theAncient Greek pejorative prefixδυσ- (dus-) "bad"[38] andἀστήρ (aster), "star".[39] So the worddisaster ("bad star" in Greek) comes from anastrological sense of a calamity blamed on the position of planets.[40]
^"What is a disaster?".www.ifrc.org. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Retrieved21 June 2017.
^"Disasters & Emergencies: Definitions"(PDF). Addis Ababa: Emergency Humanitarian Action. March 2002.Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 November 2015. Retrieved26 November 2017 – via World Health Organization International.
^Zibulewsky, Joseph (April 14, 2001). "Defining disaster: the emergency department perspective".National Library of Medicine. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
^abcCRED.2023 Disasters in Numbers: Climate in Action. (2024).EM-DAT Report.
^Smith 1996 quoted inKraas, Frauke (2008)."Megacities as Global Risk Areas". In Marzluff, John (ed.).Urban Ecology: An International Perspective on the Interaction Between Humans and Nature (illustrated ed.). Springer Science & Business Media. p. 588.ISBN9780387734125. Retrieved23 August 2017.
^abcSmith, Keith (1992).Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster. Routledge Physical Environment Series (first ed.). Routledge.ISBN9780415012171.
^Blaikie, Piers, Terry Cannon, Ian Davis & Ben Wisner.At Risk – Natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters, Wiltshire: Routledge, 2003,ISBN0-415-25216-4
^"Famine".education.nationalgeographic.org. Retrieved7 January 2024.
^L. Bull-Kamanga; K. Diagne; A. Lavell; E. Leon; F. Lerise; H. MacGregor; A. Maskrey; M. Meshack; M. Pelling (1 April 2003). "From everyday hazards to disasters: the accumulation of risk in urban areas".Environment and Urbanization.15 (1):193–204.Bibcode:2003EnUrb..15..193B.doi:10.1177/095624780301500109.ISSN0956-2478.S2CID17439273.
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