SAFETY DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER 1: The Fundamentals of Disaster and Disaster Risk

What is Disaster?

Disaster - A disaster is a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community
or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the
community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources. Though often caused by nature, disasters
can have human origins. source: https://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/disaster-management/about-
disasters/what-is-a-disaster/

A disaster is a serious disruption occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread
human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or
society to cope using its own resources. source: https://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/disaster-
management/about-disasters/what-is-a-disaster/

The Equation of Disaster

(VULNERABILITY+ HAZARD ) / CAPACITY   =  DISASTER

A disaster occurs when a hazard impacts on vulnerable people.

The combination of hazards, vulnerability and inability to reduce the potential negative consequences of
risk results in disaster. source: https://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/disaster-management/about-disasters/
what-is-a-disaster/

UNISDR - The United Nations International for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), the body mandated by the
United Nations General Assembly to serve as the focal point in the United Nations system for the
coordination of disaster reduction and to ensure synergies among the disaster reduction activities of the
United Nations system and regional organizations and activities in socio-economic and humanitarian field.

Meanwhile, the Centre fr Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster, an independent collaborating center of
World Health Organization (WHO) since 1980 defines a disaster as " an unforeseen event that causes
great damage, destruction and human suffering, which overwhelms local capacity, necessitating a national
or international level assistance."
Several important elements can be culled out from the definition above.

1. Serious disruption - Disaster disturb the normal processes in a society - from the individual up to the
community and society in general. Therefore, if phenomena such as meteorites strikes in an unpopulated,
remote island in the Philippines, that is a shock but is not a disaster.

Since no person was affected. This is in contrast to a chemical leak from a battery factory near city, which
is certainly a disaster. in the end, a disaster is the result of the hazard's impact to the community.

2. Widespread losses, great damage, and destruction - Disasters result in a magnitude of losses - from the
lives of people to the physical properties and environmental damages.

3. Exceeds the ability to cope, overwhelms local capacity - The phenomenon is classified as a disaster
when affected community cannot fully, efficient, and effectively handle the consequences of the
phenomena. It means that they were vulnerable to the said phenomena, making it a disaster.

Human Responses to Disaster

For years, humans have been reactive to disasters. Therefore, the bulk of attention and funding went to
disaster response and recovery. R. Kent in 1997 even stated that disasters are "reflections of the ways
society structure themselves and allocate their resources". However, the entry of the new millennium
shifted the dominant paradigm from response and rehabilitation and recovery to preparedness and
prevention and mitigation.

How do disasters happen?

Disasters occur when hazards impact human settlements and the built environment. Specifically, disasters
happen because of the interaction of the following variables:

1. Exposure to hazards

2. Vulnerability

3. Coping capacity

When hazards, be it natural or human-induced, strike a vulnerable community whose capacity to cope with
the impact of the said hazard is insufficient or lacking, the phenomena becomes a disaster for the said
community.

Evolution of the Perception and Belief on Disaster

In the early times, disasters were viewed as acts of God to punish mankind because of their wrongdoings,
or because of the impurity of their leaders. Disasters were perceived as bad luck and were usually signals
for people to repent or to call for a change of their leaders.
Gradually, the understanding of the term evolved to mean " a sudden overwhelming and unforeseen
event". It can mean illness, death, misfortune, destruction of livelihood, and other phenomena such as
epidemics, floods, fires, earthquakes, and typhoons This perception and belief extended until after the First
World War. It was only after the second World War, from the 1950' onwards, that the scientific study of
disaster and risk commenced. Early theories approached the concept of disaster from a social science as
well as a natural/physical perspectives. For the social science perspective, three overarching paradigms
ruled the scientific study of disaster back then - that the content research, chronological deveopment and
lastly, cleavages. Dewald can Niekerk in 2011 traced the evolution of scientific study of disasters - both
from the perspectives of social science and natural science. According to him, the "content research"
paradigm viewed disaster as a duplication of war - an external agent which requires communities to react
globally against the "aggression". This placed disaster as one that can be identified.

Meanwhile, the "chronological development" paradigm looks at the disaster as an expression of social
vulnerability - therefore, a result of the underlying community logic or social processes.

Lastly, the paradigm "cleavages" states that disasters are states of uncertainty - the impossibility of
identifying and defining (real or perceived) dangers Van Niekerk concludes that this paradigm is an attack
on our perception and known reality.

On the other hand, the natural science perspective emphasized hazard components, unlike the social
science perspective that concentrated on socio-economic factors. The natural science perspective
classified hazard components in terms of hydro-meteorological, geo-dynamic and
technological/anthropogenic phenomena such as earthquakes, flood, mudslides. cyclones, industrial
accidents and nuclear fallout.

Types of Hazards

Natural hazards are naturally occurring physical phenomena caused either by rapid or slow onset events
which can be;

1. Geophysical (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis and volcanic activity)

2. Hydrological (avalanches and floods) 

3. Climatological (extreme temperatures, drought and wildfires), meteorological (cyclones and storms/wave

surges)

4.  Biological (disease epidemics and insect/animal plagues).

Technological or man-made hazards (complex emergencies/conflicts, famine, displaced

populations, industrial accidents and transport accidents) are events that are caused by humans and occur
in or close to human settlements. This can include environmental degradation, pollution and accidents.
Technological or man-made hazards (complex emergencies/conflicts, famine, displaced populations,
industrial accidents and transport accidents)
There are a range of challenges, such as climate change, unplanned-
urbanization, under-development/poverty as well as the threat of pandemics, that will shape humanitarian
assistance in the future. These aggravating factors will result in increased frequency, complexity and
severity of disasters. source: https://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/disaster-management/about-
disasters/definition-of-hazard/

Point to Ponder

1. A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving wide spread
human, material or environmental losses an impacts which exceed the ability of the affected community to
cope using only its own resources.

2. Disasters happen because of the interaction of exposure to hazards, vulnerability, and coping capacity.

3. For years, humans have been reactive to disasters. However, this has been changing due o the gradual
acceptance of DRRM, which places emphasis on preparedness, prevention, and mitigation, as opposed to
the current emphasis on response, rehabilitation, and recovery.

4. The onset of disasters negatively impacts development, because of destroyed lives, properties,
livelihood, and environment. The sectors most affected by disasters are the poor and marginalized while
the industry, most affected by disasters is agriculture.