Natural disaster

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mount Pinatubo eruption, 1991
Mount Pinatubo eruption, 1991

A natural disaster is the consequence of the combination of a natural hazard (a physical event like a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, a landslide) and human activities.

Only if humans are there where the hazard happens and if they have no sufficient emergency management, there will be human losses. Therefore one can say: "disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability" [1]. A natural hazard will therefore have no natural disaster as a result in areas without vulnerability, that means if for example a strong earthquake is in uninhabited areas.

[edit] References

  1. B. Wisner, P. Blaikie, T. Cannon, and I. Davis (2004). At Risk - Natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters, Wiltshire: Routledge.

[edit] External links