Castro, Francis J. Student no.

: 012021A15065
STEM 11-Y1-P4
Reflection Paper #1 & #2

Concept of Disaster

The disaster disrupts the function of a certain area or place. It can destruct communities to nation-wide
disasters by certain level. We need to understand the concept of disaster so that we are ready when a disaster hits us.

There are two causes of a disaster, natural and man-made disaster. A natural disaster is a major adverse
event resulting from natural processes of the Earth such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions,
earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, and other geologic process. We cannot stop natural disaster but we can predict some
of it like volcanic eruptions and storms through technology. Therefore, man-made disasters have an element of human
intent, negligence or error involving a failure of a man-made system, as opposed to natural disasters resulting from
natural hazards. Such man-made disasters are crime, arson, civil disorder, terrorism, war, biological / chemical threat,
cyber-attacks, etc. We can predict and stop the man-made disasters unlike natural disasters.

The cycle of disaster is the flow or phases of a disaster. The first one is mitigation or the pre - disaster/before
disaster, this period is for preparing for coming disaster. The examples for preparing to incoming disaster are making
plans, preparing for emergency including food, water, clothes, money, and medicines and being informed as always.
The second one is response or during disaster, in this phase we utilize available resources to survive the disaster.
The examples of response to disaster are evacuating citizens, distribution of relief goods and providing first-aid to those
who injured. The last phase of the cycle of disaster is recovery or post disaster/after disaster phase is the
reconstruction of the damages of the disaster such as rebuilding infrastructures, government giving families financial
support, and helping each of everyone to start again.

The levels of society based on disaster are household, community, and national. A household-based
disaster is only happening in the house premises not including your neighbors nor the community around you. The
examples of this are a sick family member, financial problems and death of a relative. A community-based disaster
involves the household of towns or provinces such as fire, flashflood, earthquake and volcanic eruptions. The local
government is the who is in-charge in a community disaster. The last one is national level disasters, the affected
areas includes some regions of the country or the whole country such as pandemics, terrorism, typhoon and
economical downfall. In a national level disaster, it involves both national and local government.

The effects of a disaster are categorized into three: human, environmental and infrastructural effects. First,
the human effects are experienced by humans like mental breakdown. Second, the environmental effects are cause
to harm the nature like oil spills. Lastly, the infrastructural effects are the destruction of the buildings and properties
caused by disasters including private properties.

How we prevent a disaster? The answer is to risk to anticipate or assume that a specific event will be led to
disaster. We are preparing to lessen the effects of the disaster.

To sum up, knowing the basic concept of disaster can help us to prevent undesired events that might happen.
We should always be attentive and prepared because a disaster is unavoidable, thus it is a way to challenge every
each one of us to make us stronger.
Castro, Francis J. Student no.: 012021A15065
STEM 11-Y1-P4
Reflection Paper #1 & #2

Risk Assessment

Risk is to anticipate; assume that a specific event will be led to disaster that prepares us to lessen the effect
of the disaster. There are 4 basic principles when determining risks namely: hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and
capacity. These 4 are substantial to predict the risk of becoming a disaster.

The first one is hazard; it is anything or something that could cause damage or disaster. The examples of
hazards are wet floors, knife, wielding, bullying, and detergents. And, hazards have 6 types: accidental, biological,
chemical, environmental, geological, and hydro-meteorological hazard that will be discuss in next reflection.

Another principle is exposure; it is anything or something that makes a disaster possible. Exposure is the
location, attributes, and value of assets that are important to communities (people, buildings, factories, farmland, etc.)
and that could be affected by a hazard. The examples of exposures are hospital due to COVID - 19, radioactive power
plants like Chernobyl, mining sites and etc.

The third principle is vulnerability; it is anything or something that can aggravate the effect of the disaster.
There are many factors that can make us vulnerable to disasters like the age (minors and senior citizens), gender
(female), physical (person with disabilities or PWDs), social status (poverty-stricken), place (squatter areas, coastal
areas), and lack of education. Eradicating the risk of being vulnerable to disaster can lessen the risk a disaster might
happen.

The last basic principle of risk assessment is capacity; it is anything or something that could lessen the effect
of a disaster. Having capacity means we can not to worry about disasters. Capacity is something like weapons to fight
the ferocity of a disaster. The examples of capacity in certain situation are: when there is fire (fire exit and fire
extinguishers), diseases (medicines and vitamins), air pollution (face mask), driving (seat belt and helmet), wielding
(face shields), noise pollution (headphones and earphones), swimming (life jackets) and many more.

No people want a disaster to happen in his/her life. Knowing the risk might help to ease of being endanger. It
is better to be prepared than never because we never know what might come when a disaster hits so we should do
our best to protect ourselves. Pass your limits and push off being a disaster doggo. I hope each of every one of us to
have a bright world to live in from present to our future.
Castro, Francis J. Student no.: 012021A15065
STEM 11-Y1-P4
Reflection Paper #1 & #2

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