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A Review of Disaster and Crisis

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 Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal
A review of disaster and crisis
Ibrahim M. ShalufFakharu’l-razi AhmadunAini Mat Said
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To cite this document:
Ibrahim M. ShalufFakharu’l-razi AhmadunAini Mat Said, (2003),"A review of disaster and crisis", Disaster Prevention and
Management: An International Journal, Vol. 12 Iss 1 pp. 24 - 32
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A review of disaster
and crisis
Ibrahim M. Shaluf
Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and
Aini Mat Said
The authors
Ibrahim M. Shaluf is at the Department of Chemical and
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Environmental Engineering, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun is
Head of the Department of Chemical and Environmental
Engineering, Aini Mat Said is at the Faculty of Human
Ecology, all at University Putra Malaysia, Selangor,
Malaysia.
Keywords
Disasters, Crisis, Model
Abstract
A disaster and a crisis are two different, and related
events. The two terms are sometimes used
interchangeably. Man-made disaster that occurs at an
industrial organization, may develop into an industrial
crisis. Crisis can happen to any organization. It has been
noted that there were no universally accepted definitions
yet developed for disaster and crisis. There is also no
universally available criteria, to define the disaster in
terms of the consequences, such as the casualties and the
cost of damage. This paper reviews the definitions, types,
characteristics, criteria and models of disaster and crisis.
Also the types of crisis were rearranged and the
differences between the disasters and crises have been
summarized.
Electronic access
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is
available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0965-3562.htm
Disaster Prevention and Management
Volume 12 . Number 1 . 2003 . pp. 24-32
# MCB UP Limited . ISSN 0965-3562
DOI 10.1108/09653560310463829
24
Introduction
A ``disaster'' is not a ``crisis'' in the traditional
meaning of the word ± a situation in which
important decisions involving threat and
opportunity have to be made in a particular
short time ± rather, disasters involve
management procedures that must be
maintained and management problems coped
with under conditions of major technical
emergency involving threats of injury and loss
of life (Turner and Pedgeon, 1997;
Richardson, 1994).
No definition of disaster is accepted
universally (Turner and Pedgeon, 1997; PDM,
2002), this is because of the disaster's definition
dependent upon the discipline using the term.
Different terms have been used to describe the
disaster as shown in Table I. Scientists,
governments, public, journalists, victims,
legalists, social activists refereed to the event
with different names, e.g. Union Carbide in its
technical report refereed to Bhopal as an
``incident'', the government of India in its report
called it an ``accident'', the injured victims
called it a ``disaster'' and the social activities
called it a ``tragedy'', ``massacre'' and even
``industrial genocide'' (Shrivistava, 1992).
Also there are different terms are used to
describe the crisis, see Table I. It has been
argued (Davies and Walters, 1998) that the
crisis if not attended may develop into a
disaster. However, it was described (Shrivistava
et al., 1988) that the disaster is an agent of the
crisis. The differences between the socio-
technical disaster crisis and business crisis have
been summarized by Richardson (1994).
Although a disaster is different from a crisis
in number of ways, summarized in
Table II, however, there is some interference
between these two events. The industrial
disaster is known as a crisis-related
phenomenon and may develop to a crisis,
then called industrial crisis. Crisis may
develop from political, economic issues as
well as from disasters (see Figure 1).
This paper presents a review of the
definitions, types, characteristics and the
models of disaster, and crisis. The paper also
rearranges the types of crisis and summarizes
the differences between disaster and crisis.
Disaster definitions
There are many definitions of a disaster, some
of which have been provided by Turner and
Pedgeon (1997), PDM (2002), Denis (1995),
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Table I Differences between disaster and crisis
Disaster
1. Terminology Industrial accident, normal accident, major accident, major industrial accident, large scale
accident, large scale system accident, catastrophic accident, catastrophe, calamity,
disaster, man-made disaster, socio-technical disaster, major disaster, technological
disaster, industrial crisis, toxicological disaster, medical disaster, creeping disaster, slow
disaster, natural disaster, unnatural disaster, purely social disaster, hybrid disaster.
2. Definition No definition is accepted universally yet.
The definition is dependent upon the discipline using the term.
3. Criteria 1 Quantitative
2 A major accident has a potential to kill three or more people.
3 It was considered that the meaning of ``major'' is more than 50 people died.
4 UNEP-APELL presents disasters database, for a disaster to be entered into a database at
least one of the following criteria has to be fulfilled: 25 or more fatalities; 125 or more
25
injuries; 10,000 or more persons evacuated; 10,000 or more persons deprived of water, or
US$10 million or more in damage to their parties.
5 The Bradford disaster scale (BDS). BDS magnitudes are defined by taking the logarithms
(base 10) of the number of fatalities and cost in US$ million to compare one disaster with
another in terms of lives or money lost in a disaster.
6 The following disaster criteria has been proposed: five or more fatalities; damage cost
exceeds US$1 million; 50 or more people evacuated; ten or more injuries.
7 CRED presents international disasters database, for a technological disaster to be
entered into the database at least one of the following criteria has to be fulfilled: 10 or
more people reported killed; 100 people reported affected; a call for international
assistance; declaration of a state of emergency.
4. Types 1 Natural disaster.
2 Man-made disaster ''socio-technical disaster''.
3 Hybrid disaster.
Crisis
The term ``crisis'' varies from one organization to another. Some firms prefer to replace
the word ``crisis'' with the word ``issue''.
Business failure crisis, creeping crisis, political crisis, environmental crisis, industrial crisis,
community crisis, non-community kind of disaster crisis, corporate crises.
No definition is accepted universally yet.
Review of disaster and crisis
Shrivistava and Mitroff (1987) proposed a set of evaluative criteria for corporate crisis
summarized as follows:
Intentionally of harm (high, moderate, low); spatial reach of harm (square miles or radius
around facility); concentration of releasable energy (catastrophic, high . . . low);
Ibrahim M. Shaluf, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and Aini Mat Said
persistence of harmful effects (days, weeks . . . years); mean time between failures (days,
weeks . . . years), population at risk (number, demographic characteristics); delay time
between exposure and harm (minutes, hours, days); human mortality caused by the
technology (average and maximum); non-human mortality caused by the technology; and
transgenerational risk (percentage affected in the next generation).
1 Community crisis: (a) natural crisis; (b) industrial crisis is man-made disaster (e.g.
Disaster Prevention and Management
Volume 12 . Number 1 . 2003 . 24-32
Bhopal, TMI, Chernobyl); (c) non-industrial crisis (i) conflict type crisis, internal crisis,
external crisis; (ii) non-conflict type crisis, (a) economic crisis, financial crisis (East Asia
Crisis), non-financial crisis (e.g. UK's BSC crisis, UK's foot-and-mouth crisis), (b) non-
economic crisis (social crisis).
2 Non-community crisis such as most transportation accidents, which do not impact the
functioning of the community.
3 Corporate crisis covers the crises and disasters.
(continued)
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Table I
Disaster
5. Characteristics 1 Disaster can be a natural or man-made event, or both: (i) natural disaster is unplanned
and socially disruptive event with sudden and severe disruptive effects; (ii) natural
disaster is a single event over which no human has control; (iii) the impact of natural
disaster is localized to geographical region and specific time period; (iv) the consequences
of natural disaster are felt at the place and time of occurrence; (v) man-made disaster
(MMD) occurs due to interaction between (HOT) factors and (RIP) factors; (vi) It arises
suddenly, when the disaster occurred it ``shook''; (vii) MMD is a complex system of
interdependent impacts; (viii) The impacts of MMD sometimes transcend geographical
Crisis
1 Crisis is a man-made event.
2 Crisis has positive and negative sides.
3 Crisis has an anatomy.
4 Crisis is resulted from the economic and political issues as well as from disasters; the
prodormal signs of a business failure crisis might have been around for some time; all
types of managerial crises might be viewed as being due to the influence of combinations
of psychological, political, social, economic, technological and cultural systems; business
failure situations damage the quality of personnel, social and work life.
Review of disaster and crisis

boundaries and can even have trans-generational effects (TMI, Bhopal, and Chernobyl);
(ix) the MMD does not always have its worst consequences at the point of occurrence,
the worst effects occur long after the event and its causes have been identified; and (x)
socio-technical disaster is characterized by a low probability/high consequences event.
5 Crisis is a situation in which a decision has to be made in a short time.
6 Organization: crisis-prepared and crisis-prone organizations; crisis can occur with little or
no warning, anywhere, any time. It can happen to any business firm, large or small,
national or international. However it is not necessarily bad news (Darling, 1994); each
Ibrahim M. Shaluf, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and Aini Mat Said

1 Disaster could be of (i) a sudden impact disaster (e.g. air/road/rail accident) is usually of crisis is unique, and managers adjust and respond differently to each situation. In addition

26
short duration and has a limited direct effect on local community; (ii) a high-impact the same situation may be a crisis at one time but not at another. A crisis should have
disaster (e.g. flood) has a greater direct effect on community over a longer period. ``some or all'' of the following features: severe disruption of operations; negative public
2 Disaster has only negative effects. perception of the company; financial strain; unproductive use of management time; and
3 Most disasters arise not because of a single factor but due to accumulated unnoticed loss of employee moral and support.
events.
4 Disaster involves management procedures, which must be maintained, and management
problems coped with under conditions of major technical emergency, involving threats of
injury and loss of life.
5 Disaster causes large scale damage to human life.
6 Disaster causes large scale damage to physical environment.
7 Disaster has large economic cost.
8 Disaster has large social cost.
Disaster Prevention and Management
Volume 12 . Number 1 . 2003 . 24-32

9 An inquiry report is required.

10 Organization ± tight coupling organization. Perrow has suggested (cited from Turner
and Pedgeon, 1997) that some contemporary technical installations are so complex and so
closely meshed that accidents are inherent in their design: such systems generate what he
calls ``normal accidents''. Systems of this kind display both a high degree of complexity
and a very tight degree of coupling.
(continued)
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Table I
Disaster
6 Models HOT-RIP model: the complex set of human, organizational, and technological (HOT)
factors leading to triggering event. These in turn, interact with regulatory, infrastructure
and preparedness (RIP) combining to bring about an accident.
The sequence of events associated with the development of disaster is described by
Turner and later used by Toff and Reynolds as ``SFCRM''. The SFCRM consists of three
separate but interrelated parts. The first part includes incubation period and events prior
to disaster; the second part includes the triggering event and the disaster itself; the third
part includes the learning process investigation, inquiry and production of reports and
recommendations.
A statistical model has been proposed for the prediction of a disaster with major
consequences and return periods.
27
A theoretical two-dimensional model has been developed based on investigations of what
people are prepared to do in the way of disaster preparation, and examines how these
assessments may be related to personnel factors and attitudes. The model identifies
societal level, individual level and the interplay between the individual and societal levels
(Larson and Enander, 1997).
Myers (1993) recommended that in order for an organization to prepare the business
contingency plan (e.g. for computer breakdown), it is helpful to understand the different
phases of a disaster. It was summarized that the disaster life cycle has four periods as
follow: (i) normal operations; (ii) emergency response; (iii) Interim processing; and (iv)
restoration.
Crisis
Crisis in international business can consist of four stages: prodormal crisis stage, acute
crisis stage, chronic crisis stage, and the crisis resolution stage.
The Mitroff crisis model consist of five steps: early warnings, preparation/prevention
mechanism, containment/limitation mechanism, recovery mechanism, and learning
mechanism.
Review of disaster and crisis
Shrivistava and Mitrof model: crisis can be divided into those caused by internal forces
and those caused by external influences. The nature of the crisis can be divided into
either technical/economic failures, or failures in the human/organizational/social processes.
The types of triggering events of corporate crisis represented by four cells: (i) cell 1 ±
Ibrahim M. Shaluf, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and Aini Mat Said
includes technical or economic failure in the internal environment; (ii) cell 2 ± also covers
technical or economic failure but this time in the external environment; (iii) cell 3 ±
involves what could be termed human error in the organization. Often these problems
stem from poor communication or imprudent decisions; (iv) cell 4 ± covers adverse
reaction to the organization from forces outside it. The onion model attempts to explain
the profile of a disaster-prone organization versus a disaster-prepared organization. The
four consequent layers progress from the more tangible issues of plans and policies to the
unconscious organizational beliefs, anxieties and defensive mechanism.
McMullan proposed a model for the situation to develop into crisis. There must be three
elements: (i) a triggering event causing significant change or having the potential to
cause significant change. Once this trigger is percieved by those in the organization it will
cause a crisis if; (ii) management feel they are unable to cope with the change that has
taken place; and (iii) the trigger is so significant as to pose a threat to the survival of the
organization.
Disaster Prevention and Management
Volume 12 . Number 1 . 2003 . 24-32
 Review of disaster and crisis Disaster Prevention and Management
Ibrahim M. Shaluf, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and Aini Mat Said Volume 12 . Number 1 . 2003 . 24-32

Table II Types of crisis

Community crisis Non-community crisis
(a) natural crisis that results from natural disasters; Is the transportation accidents, which do not impact the
(b) industrial crisis that results from socio-technical functioning of the community (Quarantelli, 1988).
disasters; and (c) non-industrial crisis that results from
the conflict type ``political'' crisis and non-conflict type
crisis (Quarantelli, 1988).

Conflict type situation may include

External crisis: (i) war (includes all kind of wars); (ii) threats; (iii) relation breakdown; (iv) embargoes; (v) blockades;
and (vi) terrorism.
Internal crisis: (i) political systems (dictatorships); (ii) internal conflicts (ethnic, religion, etc.); (iii) terrorist attacks e.g.
11 September attack (Sauers, 2002); (iv) strikes; (v) demonstrations civil disturbances; (vi) sabotage; (vii) riots;
(viii) executive kidnappings; and (ix) hostile takeovers.

Non-conflict types of crisis

Economic crisis: (i) financial crisis. e.g. East Asia financial crisis, Liao (2001); and (ii) non-financial crisis, e.g. UK's
BSC crisis, and UK's foot-and-mouth crisis CNN.com (2001).
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Social crisis that may include the following: (i) on-site sabotage/product tampering; (ii) offsite sabotage/product
tampering; (iii) counterfeiting; (iv) false rumors, malicious slander; (v) bibery, price fixing; (vi) sexual harassment;
(vii) poor or faulty training; (viii) copycat threats; (ix) recalls; (x) boycotts; (xi) loss of proprietary information;
(xii) misinformation/miscommunication; (xiii) blackmail; (xiv) racism; (xv) discriminations (gender, religion, etc.);
(xvi) cheating; (xvii) corruption's; and (xviii) other problems (hooligans, etc.).

Figure 1 Types of crisis

Keller and Al-madhari (1996), Aini
et al. (2001). The definition used seems
dependent upon the discipline using the term.
Turner and Pedgeon (1997) pointed out that
no definition of ``disaster'' is accepted
28
universally. Parker (1992) reviewed the
concept of disaster. He suggested that the
preferred definition of disaster is ``an unusual
natural or man-made event, including an
event caused by failure of technological
 Review of disaster and crisis
Ibrahim M. Shaluf, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and Aini Mat Said
systems, which temporarily overwhelms the
response capacity of human communities,
groups of individuals or natural environments
and which causes massive damage, economic
loss, disruption, injury, and/or loss of life.
This definition encompasses medical
accidents and disasters such as those that
affect whooping cough vaccine, Opren and
HIV/AIDS haemophiliac cases''.
Hood and Jackson (1992) classified the
disaster into three types. Turner and Pedgeon
(1997) classified the natural and man-made
disasters. Richardson (1994) summarized the
socio-technical disaster. The types of disasters
are summarized in Table II. The
characteristics of disasters are given by Baum
(1988), Shrivistava et al. (1988), Shrivistava
(1992) and are summarized in Table II.
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Disaster criteria
Several criteria have been proposed to define
a man-made disaster in terms of the
consequences (Keller and Al-madhari, 1996;
Keller et al., 1997; Mitroff, 1988; De Sousa
Jr, 2000). Also, The UN environmental
program (UNEP-APELL, 2002) and the
Center for Research on the Epidemiology of
Disasters (CRED, 2002) have proposed
criteria defined disasters to be entered into
databases. The disaster criteria have been
summarized in Table II.
Disaster models
Turner and Pedgeon (1997) have reviewed
the development of research on the disasters
since 1920. They pointed out that most of the
work was carried out by social scientists and
very few offered any degree of assistance to
the study of the nature, origins, and
preconditions of disaster, rather than to the
outcomes of disaster. Turner (1976)
described the sequence of events associated
with the development of a disaster. Turner's
model was modified to the system failure
cultural readjustment model (Toft and
Reynolds, 1994). A model for industrial crisis
has been described by Shrivastava et al.
(1988) and summarized by Shrivistava
(1992). Keller and Al-madhari (1996), and
Keller et al. (1997) proposed a methodology
for the probabilistic prediction of a disaster's
enormous consequences and return periods.
29
Disaster Prevention and Management
Volume 12 . Number 1 . 2003 . 24-32
Crisis definitions
A crisis is an abnormal situation which
presents some extraordinary, high risk to
business and which will develop into a
business unless carefully managed.The
original meaning of the word ``crisis'' as a
situation in which important decisions have to
be made in a short time, rather than as a
disaster where management procedures must
be maintained and management problems
coped with under conditions of major
technical emergency involving threats of
injury and loss of life were discussed (Turner
and Pedgeon, 1997). Darling (1994) pointed
out that what defined a crisis in international
business depends on a number of variables:
the nature of the event, importance of the
issue to foreign and local governments,
impact on other firms and industries, etc. He
defined the crisis as a feeling of panic, fear,
danger or shock. The two Chinese characters
wei-ji are used to express the word ``crisis''
meaning ``danger'' and ``opportunity''
(Turner and Pedgeon, 1997; McMullan,
1997; Darling, 1994). The more literal
transition is ``from danger comes
opportunity'' (Stranks, 1994). Crisis has been
defined as ``turning point for better or worse'',
``decisive moments'' or ``crucial time'', i.e. a
situation that has reached a critical phase
(Davies and Walters, 1998; Darling, 1994).
While the notion of a positive outcome from a
crisis situation is emerging from literature, the
idea of crisis,as a negative situation is still the
most prevailing interpretation; Darling
(1994) has summarized an example of the
positive side of the crisis. Howard (1993)
described the crisis as follows: (i) a major
failure in the company's system, serious
accident or dangerous occurrence creating
hazards and threats to people, property and/or
the environment; (ii) a sudden and
unforeseen event involving extensive damage
and loss of control requiring urgent action to
restore safe and efficient operations; and
(iii) something that could seriously affect the
company's image, undermine its commitment
to social responsibility and its right to operate
and affect its earnings and therefore its
financial well-being. Darling (1994) pointed
out that the term ``crisis'' varies from one firm
to another. Some organizations prefer to
replace the word ``crisis'' with word ``issue''.
Mitroff et al. (1996) highlighted that there is
no single, universally accepted definition of
 Review of disaster and crisis
Ibrahim M. Shaluf, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and Aini Mat Said
crisis, although there is general agreement
that a crisis is an event that can destroy or
affect an entire organization. Accordingly, if
something affects merely a part or one unit of
an organization, it may or may not be, or lead
to, a crisis. McMullan (1997) has reviewed
the meanings of crisis since 1972 in an
attempt to bridge the gap in knowledge. She
examined the various meanings, which have
been proposed by authors in the field of crisis
management. She came to a conclusion that a
universally accepted definition of what a crisis
consists has not yet been developed and it is
unlikely to emerge in the near future.
Types of crisis
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Quarantelli and Dynes (1977) pointed out
that others (Barton, 1970) defined crisis as a
situation where ``. . . many members of social
system fail to receive expected conditions of
life from the system'', in turn, two types of
crisis consensus and dissensus have been
advanced and applied in the research efforts.
Shrivistava and Mitroff (1987) suggested
different types of corporate crises, they
pointed out that each crisis resulted from
organization-environment interactions of
socio-technical factors. Quarantelli (1988)
pointed out that there are community crises
which are generated by natural or
technological agents, ``disasters'' and conflict
type situations such as wars, civil disturbance,
riots etc., and non-community kind of
disaster crises, such as most transportation
accidents that do not impact the functioning
of type community. Mitroff (1988) identified
many types of crisis, which can strike an
organization. Shrivistava (1992) considered
an industrial crisis is man-made disaster
caused by industrial activities. Mitroff et al.
(1996) discussed the factors of the crisis
management. They showed 11 basic types of
crisis. The types of crisis are rearranged,
summarized in Table II, and shown in
Figure 1.
Characteristics of crisis
Crisis has been described as having an
anatomy. Fink (1986) divided the ``anatomy''
of a crisis into four stages: the prodormal
crisis stage, the acute crisis stage, the cornice
crisis stage, and the crisis resolution stage.
30
Disaster Prevention and Management
Volume 12 . Number 1 . 2003 . 24-32
According to Brewton (cited from McMullan
1997), a crisis should have ``some of all'' of
the following features: (i) severe disruption of
operations; (ii) negative public perception of
the company; (iii) financial strain;
(iv) unproductive of management time; and
(v) loss of employee morale and support.
Carley (1991) pointed out that the feature of
a crisis is that it is short. Should the crisis
continue for an extended period, it would not
be a crisis but a general problem. Mitroff et al.
(1989) argued that organizations could be
considered as being ``crisis-prone'' or ``crisis-
prepared''. They developed an ``onion model''
of crisis management which had four layers
moving outwards from the center: core
beliefs, organizational beliefs, organizational
structure and finally, organizational behavior
and plans.
Crisis models
Boots has reviewed the development of
research on the crisis and contingency study
in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He pointed out
that many writers on crisis have taken an
individualistic or case study approach often
based on experience. Others have taken a
more comparative approach (Perrow, 1984).
Some have taken an empirical approach
(Fink, 1986; Pauchant and Mitroff, 1992).
Herman's model (cited from Billing's et al.
1980) highlighted that a crisis consists of
three elements: threat; decision time; and
surprise. Fink (1986) pointed out that a crisis
in an interernatioinal business firm can
consist of as many as four different and
distinctive phases: (i) prodormal crisis;
(ii) acute crisis stage; (iii) chronic crisis stage;
and (iv) crisis resolution stage. Mitroff et al.
(1988) proposed a disaster model ``onion
model'', which tries to explain in depth the
profile of a disaster-prone organization versus
a disaster-prepared organization. The four
consequent layers progress from the more
tangible issues of plans and polices to the
unconscious organizational beliefs, anxieties
and defensive mechanisms: (i) organizational
plans, actions and behavior; (ii) organizational
structures; (iii) organizational assumptions,
beliefs; and (iv) core organizational identity.
McMullan (1997) has reviewed the crisis
since 1972 and she proposed that for situation
to develop into a crisis there must be three
elements present as follows: (i) a triggering
 Review of disaster and crisis
Ibrahim M. Shaluf, Fakharu'l-razi Ahmadun and Aini Mat Said
event causing significant change. Once this
trigger is perceived by those in the
organization it will cause a crisis if: (ii)
management feel that they are unable to cope
with the change that has taken place; and (iii)
the trigger is so significant as to pose a threat
to the survival of the organization.
Comparison between disaster and crisis
Table I summarizes the terminology,
definitions, criteria, types, characteristics, and
models of disaster and crisis.
Conclusions
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(1) Disaster and crisis are two different
events, however, they are related events
where the crisis is more comprehensive
than the disaster.
(2) The technological disaster is a crisis-
related event and it may develop into an
industrial crisis.
(3) The disaster is similar to the crisis in
terms of the developing phases (pre-event
phase, event phase, and recovery phase).
(4) Different terms have been used to
describe the types of disasters, however,
the natural and man-made disasters cover
all types of disasters.
References
Aini, M.S., Fakharu'l-Razi, A. and Daude, M. (2001),
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factors and safety culture in safety management'',
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``Avoiding future Bhopal's'', Environment, Vol. 27
No. 7.
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information in disaster planning: a case study
approach'', Disaster Prevention and Management,
Vol. 6 No. 5, pp. 349-55.
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