Disaster
WHO defines Disaster as
"any occurrence that causes damage, ecological disruption, loss of human life,
deterioration of health and health services, on a scale sufficient to warrant
an extraordinary response from outside the affected community or area."
A disaster can be defined as
an occurrence either nature or man-made that causes human suffering and creates
human needs that victims cannot alleviate without assistance. - American Red
Cross (ARC)
Basic definitions
DISASTER:
combination of two words: 'des' meaning evil and 'astre' meaning star it means
evil star.
A complete definition of
disaster provided by Turner in 1976- 'an event, concentrated in time and space,
which threatens a society or a sub-division of a society with major unwanted
consequences as a result of the collapse of precautions which had hitherto been
culturally accepted as adequate'
'DISASTER' alphabetically means:
D - destructions
I - Incidents
S - Sufferings
A – administrative, Financial
Failures.
S- Sentiments
T- Tragedies
E - Eruption of Communicable
diseases.
R - Research programme and its
implementation
Causes
and types of disaster : NATURAL AND MANMADE
Natural-
·
Tornadoes
·
Volcanic eruptions
·
Earthquakes
·
Tsunami
·
Draught
·
Floods
·
Forest fires
·
Hail
·
Epidemics
·
Blizzards
·
Cyclones/typhoons
·
Hurricanes etc.
Manmade-
·
Fire
·
Violence
·
Explosion
·
Terrorism : Biochemical/war
·
Accidents
·
Tornado
Ø A
tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the
surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus clouds or in rare cases, the base of a
cumulus cloud.
Ø Tsunami
: Is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a
body of water, generally an ocean or a large lake
Ø Forest
fire : "Forest fire" means a fire burning uncontrolled on lands
covered wholly or in-part by timber, bush, grass, grain, or other flammable
vegetation.
Ø Floods
: An overflow of a large amount of water beyond its normal limits, especially
over what is normally dry land.
Ø Volcanic
Eruption: A volcano is a rupture on the crust of a planetary mass object, such
as the Earth, which allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a
magma chamber below the surface
Ø Earth
quake : An earthquake (also as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the result of a
sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates waves.
Ø Cyclone/
typhoon/hurricane : A cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion
rotating in the same direction as the Earth
Ø Typhoon
is a mature tropical cyclone
Ø Hurricane
- deadliest and most destructive
Ø Blizzards
: A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained of at
least 56 km/h (35 mph) and lasting for a prolonged period of time — typically
three hours or more
Ø Mudslides/
landslide/ rockslides: A mudslide is the most rapid (up to 80 or 50 mph) and
fluid type of downhill mass wasting-lt is a rapid movement of a large mass of
mud formed from loose dirt and water.
Ø Draugh/Famine:A
famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including
crop failure, population unbalance, or governmental policies.this
phenomenon is usually accompanied or
followed by regional malnutrition, epidemic, and increased mortality. Drought
is an extended period when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply whether surface or
undergound .
Ø Hail:
Pellets of frozen rain which fall in showers
Man
made disasters : Engineering Failures Bridges, Buildings,
Dams
Transportation: Planes,
Trains, Automobiles, Shipping
Environmental:
·
Oil spills, pollution, waste runoff
·
Violence
·
Explosion
·
Terrorism
·
War-Biochemical/ nuclear attack
·
Industrial explosion
COMMENTS