Disaster

For other uses, see Disaster (disambiguation).

A disaster (from Middle French désastre, from Old Italian disastro, from Latin pejorative prefix dis- bad + astrum star) is the impact of a natural or human-made hazard that negatively affects society or environment. The word disaster's root is from astrology: this implies that when the stars are in a bad position a bad event will happen. Disasters occur when hazards strike in vulnerable areas. Hazards that occur in areas with low vulnerability do not result in a disaster; as is the case in uninhabited regions. It is often argued that all disasters are human-made, because human actions before the strike of the hazard can prevent it developing into a disaster. Hazards are routinely divided into natural or human-made, although complex disasters, where there is no single root cause, are more common in developing countries. A specific disaster may spawn a secondary disaster that increases the impact. A classic example is an earthquake that causes a tsunami, resulting in coastal flooding.

Disaster management

Main articles: Emergency management and Business continuity planning

The probability of avoiding a disaster is greatly improved when those potentially affected by them implement mitigative action and develop emergency preparedness plans. The science of disaster management deals with this issue. Although the term disaster is subjective, it is often used in the developed world to refer to situations where local emergency management resources are inadequate to counteract the negative effects of the event (Quarantelli 1998). Business continuity planning focus on the particular application of disaster management in the commercial domain.

Natural hazards

Main article: Natural hazard

A natural hazard may cause a natural disaster. Appearing to arise without direct human involvement, natural disasters are sometimes called acts of God. A natural disaster is the result of inappropriate human action in an area exposed to a hazard.

Human-made hazards

Main article: Human-made hazard

Disasters having an element of human intent, negligence, error or involving a failure of a system are called human-made disasters. Human-made hazards are in turn categorised as technological or sociological. Technological hazards has an aspect of failure of technology, such as engineering failures, transport accidents or environmental disasters. Sociological hazards has a strong human aspect, such as crime, stampedes, riots and war.

See also

• Catastrophe
• Civil protection
• Data recovery
• Disaster film
• Disaster convergence
• End of civilization
• Risk
  • Existential risk
• Hypothetical disaster
• Sociology of disaster
• Lists
  • List of disasters
  • List of natural disasters by death toll
  • List of songs about disasters

References

• Barton A.H. (1969). Communities in Disaster. A Sociological Analysis of Collective Stress Situations. SI: Ward Lock
• Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster. Susanna M. Hoffman and Anthony Oliver-Smith, Eds.. Santa Fe NM: School of American Research Press, 2002
• Quarantelli E.L. (1998). Where We Have Been and Where We Might Go. In: Quarantelli E.L. (ed). What Is A Disaster? London: Routledge. pp146-159
• Word Detective

External links

United States

• FEMA Designated hazards
• Citizen Corps Guide
• DisasterHelp.gov United States Egov reference
• Ready.gov United States Ready Egov reference
• The Disaster Center Internet source for disaster information

Other

• EM-DAT database of human-made and natural disasters
• HAVARIA Emergency and Disaster Information Service An up-to-the-minute world wide map showing current disasters.
• Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System A United Nations and European Commission sponsored website for disaster information.