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A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.
Disasters are routinely divided into either "
natural disasters
A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econo ...
" caused by
natural hazards
A natural hazard is a natural phenomenon that might have a negative effect on humans and other animals, or the environment. Natural hazard events can be classified into two broad categories: geophysical and biological.
An example of the distinct ...
or "human-instigated disasters" caused from
anthropogenic hazards. However, in modern times, the divide between natural, human-made and human-accelerated disasters is difficult to draw.
Examples of natural hazards include
avalanches
An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain.
Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and earth ...
,
flooding
A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrolog ...
,
cold waves
A cold wave (known in some regions as a cold snap, cold spell or Arctic Snap) is a weather phenomenon that is distinguished by a cooling of the air. Specifically, as used by the U.S. National Weather Service, a cold wave is a rapid fall in tem ...
and
heat waves
A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...
,
droughts
A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
,
earthquakes
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
,
cyclones
In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...
,
landslides
Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environments, ...
,
lightning
Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...
,
tsunamis
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater expl ...
,
volcanic activity
Volcanism, vulcanism or volcanicity is the phenomenon of eruption of molten rock (magma) onto the surface of the Earth or a solid-surface planet or moon, where lava, pyroclastics, and volcanic gases erupt through a break in the surface called a ...
,
wildfires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
, and
winter precipitation.
Examples of anthropogenic hazards include
criminality
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
,
civil disorder
Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, or social unrest is a situation arising from a mass act of civil disobedience (such as a demonstration, riot, strike, or unlawful assembly) in which law enforcement has difficulty ...
,
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
,
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
, industrial hazards, engineering hazards,
power outages
A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.
There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...
,
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...
, hazards caused by
transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...
, and
environmental hazards
An environmental hazard is a substance, state or event which has the potential to threaten the surrounding natural environment or adversely affect people's health, including pollution and natural disasters such as storms and earthquakes. It can ...
.
Developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
suffer the greatest costs when a disaster hits – more than 95% of all deaths caused by hazards occur in developing countries, and losses due to natural hazards are 20 times greater (as a percentage of
gross domestic product
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...
) in developing countries than in
industrialized countries
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
.
Etymology
The word ''disaster'' is derived from
Middle French
Middle French (french: moyen français) is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from t ...
' and that from
Old Italian
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...
', which in turn comes from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
pejorative prefix - (''-'') "bad" and ('), "star". The root of the word ''disaster'' ("bad star" in Greek) comes from an
astrological
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...
sense of a calamity blamed on the position of planets.
Classification
![Turun palo 1827](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Turun_palo_1827.jpg)
Disasters are routinely divided into natural or human-made. However, in modern times, the divide between natural, man-made and man-accelerated disasters is quite difficult to draw.
Complex disasters, where there is no single root cause, are more common in
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
. A specific disaster may spawn a secondary disaster that increases the impact. A classic example is an
earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
that causes a
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...
, resulting in
coastal flooding
Coastal flooding normally occurs when dry and low-lying land is submerged by seawater. The range of a coastal flooding is a result of the elevation of floodwater that penetrates the inland which is controlled by the topography of the coastal land ...
, resulting in damage to a
nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
plant (such as the
Fukushima nuclear disaster
The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...
). Some manufactured disasters have been wrongly ascribed to nature, such as
smog
Smog, or smoke fog, is a type of intense air pollution. The word "smog" was coined in the early 20th century, and is a portmanteau of the words ''smoke'' and '' fog'' to refer to smoky fog due to its opacity, and odor. The word was then inte ...
and
acid rain
Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid ...
.
Some researchers also differentiate between recurring events, such as seasonal flooding, and those considered unpredictable.
Natural disasters (caused by natural hazards)
Human-instigated disasters (caused by anthropogenic hazards)
![UA Flight 175 hits WTC south tower 9-11 edit](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/UA_Flight_175_hits_WTC_south_tower_9-11_edit.jpeg)
Human-instigated disasters are the consequence of technological or human hazards. Examples include
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
,
social unrest
Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, or social unrest is a situation arising from a mass act of civil disobedience (such as a demonstration, riot, strike, or unlawful assembly) in which law enforcement has difficulty ...
,
stampede
A stampede () is a situation in which a group of large animals suddenly start running in the same direction, especially because they are excited or frightened. Non-human species associated with stampede behavior include zebras, cattle, elephants ...
s,
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...
s,
transport accidents A transport accident is any accident (or incident) that occurs during any type of transportation, including accidents occurring during road transport, rail transport, marine transport and air transport. It can refer to:
*a road traffic accident ...
,
industrial accident
A work accident, workplace accident, occupational accident, or accident at work is a "discrete occurrence in the course of work" leading to physical or mental occupational injury. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), more tha ...
s, conflicts,
oil spills
An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...
,
terrorist attacks
The following is a list of terrorist incidents that have not been carried out by a state or its forces (see state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism). Assassinations are listed at List of assassinated people.
Definitions of terrori ...
, and
nuclear explosion
A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, t ...
s/
nuclear radiation
Ionizing radiation (or ionising radiation), including nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have sufficient energy to ionize atoms or molecules by detaching electrons from them. Some particles can travel ...
.
Other types of induced disasters include the more cosmic scenarios of catastrophic
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
,
nuclear war
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear w ...
, and
bioterrorism
Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, insects, fungi, and/or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form, in much the same ...
.
One opinion argues that all disasters can be seen as human-made, due to human failure to introduce appropriate
emergency management
Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...
measures.
[Blaikie, Piers, Terry Cannon, Ian Davis & Ben Wisner. ''At Risk – Natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters'', Wiltshire: Routledge, 2003, ]
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...
s may be caused locally by drought, flood, fire, or pestilence, but in modern times there is plenty of food globally, and sustained localized shortages are generally due to government mismanagement, violent conflict, or an economic system that does not distribute food where needed. Earthquakes are mainly hazardous because of human-created buildings and
dams
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, ...
; avoiding earthquake-generated tsunamis and landslides is largely a matter of location.
Responses
The following table categorizes some disasters and notes first response initiatives.
''Business Continuity Planning (BCP): Sample Plan For Nonprofit Organizations.''
Pages 11-12. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
See also
* Act of God
In legal usage in the English-speaking world, an act of God is a natural hazard outside human control, such as an earthquake or tsunami, for which no person can be held responsible. An act of God may amount to an exception to liability in con ...
* Catastrophic failure
A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure. The term is most commonly used for structural failures, but has often been extended to many oth ...
* Disaster convergence
* Disaster medicine
Disaster medicine is the area of medical specialization serving the dual areas of providing health care to disaster survivors and providing medically related disaster preparation, disaster planning, disaster response and disaster recovery lead ...
* Disaster recovery
* Disaster recovery and business continuity auditing
Given organizations' increasing dependency on information technology to run their operations, Business continuity planning covers the entire organization, and Disaster recovery focuses on ''IT''.
Auditing of documents covering an organization's '' ...
* Disaster recovery plan
Given organizations' increasing dependency on information technology to run their operations, Business continuity planning covers the entire organization, and Disaster recovery focuses on ''IT''.
Auditing of documents covering an organization's ' ...
* Disaster research
* Disaster response
Disaster response is the second phase of the disaster management cycle. It consists of a number of elements, for example; warning/evacuation, search and rescue, providing immediate assistance, assessing damage, continuing assistance and the imme ...
* Emergency management
Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...
* Environmental emergency
An environmental emergency is defined as a "sudden-onset disaster or accident resulting from natural, technological or human-induced factors, or a combination of these, that causes or threatens to cause severe environmental damage as well as loss ...
* Human extinction
Human extinction, also known as omnicide, is the hypothetical end of the human species due to either natural causes such as population decline from sub-replacement fertility, an asteroid impact, or large-scale volcanism, or to anthropogenic ...
* List of accidents and disasters by death toll
This is a list of accidents and disasters by death toll. It shows the number of fatalities associated with various explosions, structural fires, flood disasters, coal mine disasters, and other notable accidents caused by the effects of negli ...
* Lists of disasters
The following are lists of disasters.
Natural disasters
A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the earth.
These lists are of disasters caused by forces of nature.
* List of avalanches
* List of ...
** List of man-made disasters in South Korea
* Opportunism
Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances – with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term ...
* Sociology of disaster
References
Further reading
* Barton, Allen H. ''Communities in Disaster: A Sociological Analysis of Collective Stress Situations'', Doubleday, 1st edition 1969, ASIN: B0006BVVOW
* Susanna M. Hoffman, Susanna M. & Anthony Oliver-Smith, authors & editors. ''Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster'', School of American Research Press, 1st edition 2002,
* Bankoff, Greg, Georg Frerks, Dorothea Hilhorst. ''Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People'', Routledge, 2004,
* Alexander, David. ''Principles of Emergency planning and Management'', Oxford University Press, 1 edition 2002,
* Quarantelli, E. L. (2008). "Conventional Beliefs and Counterintuitive Realities". Conventional Beliefs and Counterintuitive Realities in Social Research: an international Quarterly of the social Sciences, Vol. 75 (3): 873–904.
* Paul, B. K et al. (2003). "Public Response to Tornado Warnings: a comparative Study of the 4 May 2003 Tornadoes in Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee". Quick Response Research Report, no 165, Natural Hazard Center, Universidad of Colorado
* Kahneman, D. y Tversky, A. (1984). "Choices, Values and frames". American Psychologist 39 (4): 341–350.
* Beck, U. (2006). Risk Society, towards a new modernity. Buenos Aires, Paidos
* Aguirre, B. E & Quarantelli, E. H. (2008). "Phenomenology of Death Counts in Disasters: the invisible dead in the 9/11 WTC attack". International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. Vol. 26 (1): 19–39.
* Wilson, H. (2010). "Divine Sovereignty and The Global Climate Change debate". Essays in Philosophy. Vol. 11 (1): 1–7
* Uscher-Pines, L. (2009). "Health effects of Relocation following disasters: a systematic review of literature". Disasters. Vol. 33 (1): 1–22.
* Scheper-Hughes, N. (2005). "Katrina: the disaster and its doubles". Anthropology Today. Vol. 21 (6).
* Phillips, B. D. (2005). "Disaster as a Discipline: The Status of Emergency Management Education in the US". International Journal of Mass-Emergencies and Disasters. Vol. 23 (1): 111–140.
* Mileti, D. and Fitzpatrick, C. (1992). "The causal sequence of Risk communication in the Parkfield Earthquake Prediction experiment". Risk Analysis. Vol. 12: 393–400.
* Perkins, Jamey
"The Calamity of Disaster – Recognizing the possibilities, planning for the event, managing crisis and coping with the effects"
Public Safety Degrees
External links
List of Disasters at ReliefWeb
of the
The Disaster Roundtable
of the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
EM-DAT International Disaster Database
of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) is a research unit of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain). It is part of the School of Public Health located on the UCLouvain Brussels Woluwe campus, in Brussels, Belgium.
CRED has ...
Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System
– The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System
The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) is a joint initiative of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the European Commission that serves to consolidate and improve the dissemination of ...
is a joint initiative of the (OCHA) and the European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
UN-SPIDER
– UN-SPIDER
UN-SPIDER ("United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response") is a platform which facilitates the use of space-based technologies for disaster management and emergency response. It is a programme ...
, the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response], a project of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs
The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is an office of the U.N. Secretariat that promotes and facilitates peaceful international cooperation in outer space. It works to establish or strengthen the legal and regulatory framew ...
(UNOOSA)
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