Tag: natural disasters and hazards

A disaster is defined as a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society, causing widespread human, material, economic, or environmental losses.

A community refers to a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common, often sharing a way of life.

A hazard is a dangerous phenomenon, substance, human activity, or condition that may cause loss of life, injury, or other health impacts, property damage, or economic disruption.

The four phases of disaster: 

1. mitigation 
2. preparedness
3. response
4. recovery.

Disaster management is a comprehensive process that includes planning, organizing, coordinating, and implementing measures to reduce the impact of disasters.

Manmade disasters: These can be divided into different categories and they include technological hazards, sociological hazards and transportation hazards among others.

Some types of manmade disasters which are just as catastrophic include chemical spill, oil spill, arson and terrorism. There are also some technological hazards which include power outages structural collapse, industrial hazards and fire. In cases of the last example, thousands of kilometers of land can be destroyed and anything else that is in the wake of the fires path.

A volcanic eruption is a geological process and a classic example of a natural disaster, unlike the other options which are industrial or human-caused.

A. Due to its geological set up.

India, due to its, physio-graphic and climatic conditions is one of the most disaster prone areas of the world. It is vulnerable to windstorms from both the Arabian Seaand Bay of Bengal. There are active crustal movements in the Himalaya leading to earthquakes. About 58.7 % of the toatal land mass is prone to earthquake of moderate to very high intensity. Floods brought about by heavy rain and drought in arid and semi arid areas. About 12 % of the o f the total land mass is flood prone and 68 % of the arable land is vulnerable to drought. The Western region of the country is represented by the Thar Desert and the central India by the Deccan Plateau face recurring droughts due to acute shortage of rainfall. India has increasingly become vulnerable to Tsunamis since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. India has a coastline running 7600 km long.

The World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction was held in Yokohama, Japan, in 1994. It resulted in the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World.

Floods, tsunamis, and limnic eruptions are related to water or water bodies, making them hydrological or hydro-meteorological disasters. A volcanic eruption is a geological disaster caused by tectonic or magmatic activity.