WHAT IS DISASTER?

A disaster is a natural or man-made (or technological) hazard resulting in an event of substantial extent
causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment. A
disaster can be ostensibly defined as any tragic events such as earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents,
fires, or explosions. It is a phenomenon that disasters can cause damage to life, property and destroy the
economic, social and cultural life of people.

In contemporary academia, disasters are seen as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk. These
risks are the product of a combination of both hazards and vulnerability. Hazards that strike in areas with
low vulnerability will never become disasters, as is the case in uninhabited regions.

TYPES OF DISASTER

1. Natural Disaster:

A natural disaster is a consequence when a natural hazard affects human and/or the built environment.
Human vulnerability and lack of appropriate emergency management leads to financial, environmental, or
human impact. The resulting loss depends on the capacity of the population to support or resist the
disaster; there resilience. This understanding is concentrated in the formulation; “disasters occur when
hazards meet vulnerability”. A natural hazard will hence never result in a natural disaster in areas without
vulnerability. Various phenomena like earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, floods and cyclones
are all natural hazards that kill thousands of people and destroy billions of dollars of habitat and property
each year.

2. Hurricane:

Hurricanes are dangerous and destructive. It is also known as cyclones and typhoons in other parts of the
world, hurricanes cause high winds, flooding, heavy rain, and storm surges (high hidal waves).

3. Earthquake:

Earthquakes are sudden rolling or shaking events caused by movement under the earth’s surface.
Earthquake happen along cracks in the earth’s surface, called fault lines, and can be felt over large areas,
although they usually last less than one minute.

4. Flood

Floods, big or small, can have devastating effects on your home and your family. You can take steps to
reduce the harm caused, or meteorite.

5. Tsunami

Tsunamis, also known as seismic sea waves (mistakenly called “tidal waves”), are a series of enormous
waves created by an underwater disturbance such as an earthquake, landslide, volcanic eruption, or
meteorite.