UNIT –III

DISASTER IMPACTS

A disaster can be defined as “A serious disruption in the functioning of a community or

a society causing wide spread material, economic, social or environmental losses which
exceed the ability of the affected society to cope using its own resources”.
Or
The Disaster Management Act, 2005 defines disaster as “a catastrophe, mishap, calamity
or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or manmade causes, or by accident
or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to,
and destruction of, property or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and is of
such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the
affected area”. Or
The United Nations defines disaster as “the occurrence of sudden or major misfortune
which disrupts the basic fabric and normal functioning of the society or community”.
A disaster is a result from the combination of hazard, vulnerability and insufficient
capacity or measures to reduce the potential chances of risk. A disaster happens when a
hazard impacts on the vulnerable population and causes damage, casualties and
disruption. Or
For a better illustration of disaster is any hazard – flood, earthquake or cyclone which is
a triggering event along with greater vulnerability (inadequate access to resources, sick
and old people, lack of awareness etc) would lead to disaster causing greater loss to life
and property.

For example: an earthquake in an uninhabited desert cannot be considered a disaster, no

matter how strong the intensities produced.

Types of Disaster:
Generally, disasters are of two types – natural and manmade. Based on the
devastation, these are further classified into major/minor natural disaster and
major/minor manmade disasters.
Some of the disasters are listed in Table below.

Major natural disasters Minor natural disasters

 Cold wave
 Flood
 Thunderstorms
 Cyclone
 Heat waves
 Drought
 Mud slides
 Earthquake
 Storm
 Major manmade disaster Minor manmade disaster

 Setting of fires  Road / train accidents, riots

 Epidemic  Food poisoning

 Deforestation  Industrial disaster/ crisis

 Pollution due to prawn  Environmental pollution

cultivation

 Chemical pollution.

 Wars

Disaster impact:
Disaster impact is the total effect, including negative effects (e.g., economic losses) and
positive effects (e.g., economic gains), of a hazardous event or a disaster.

Types of Disaster Impacts:

 IMPACTS OF DISASTER ON VARIOUS CATOGERIES

Impact of Disaster on Socio, Economic and Psychological conditions

Disasters know no boundaries. Man-made or natural, technological or chemical it can
strike at any moment anywhere, paving destruction in the present as well as in the
future. There is no doubt that hazards are integral aspects of our environment. For
centuries man considered disasters as the work of the evil spirits and tried to please them
with magic and other rituals but later he started manipulating nature. Paradoxically this
attempt to control nature has exposed the humanity to new threats.
Disasters may be result of natural or human induced processes of events with the
potential to create loss but exposure to a hazard need not necessarily mean disaster. It is
the level of vulnerability of those exposed to the hazard that increases risk and the
likelihood of the disastrous occurrence. As disasters are said to be boundary less the
meaning attached to them also varies according to geo-sectors, geological and social
settings in which they are located, and every new disaster adds dimension to human
sufferings.
Disaster Impacts -Environmental:
Pollutants from flooded industrial sites caused hazardous chemicals to enter untreated
into project sites, groundwater, watersheds and the oceans. Other disasters such as
wildfires, floods, and tornadoes can completely defoliate forests and cause other types of
structural changes to ecosystems.
 Not only human being but also animal at large die or get displaced. Destruction
of trees, plants, flower and fauna lead to air pollution.
 Change in climatic condition. Water get contaminated
 Agricultural land gets damaged by salinity, infected by pest attack.
 Water logging leads to environmental pollution.
 Environment gets polluted due to carcass disposal, open defecation and bacterial
contamination.

Disaster Impacts –Physical:

 Damages caused to buildings, structures, roads, electrical lines, water supply
lines, underground cables.
 Damages caused to bridges, dams, levees.
 Damages caused to canals, reservoirs, tanks.

Disaster Impacts –Physical (Health aspects):

Disaster Impacts - Social:

Increased mental health issues, alcohol misuse, domestic violence, chronic disease and
short-term unemployment have resulted from extreme weather events such as bushfires,
severe storms, cyclones, floods and earthquakes
Emergency situations can be an incredibly stressful, disruptive and traumatic time for
those affected. Whole communities can be uprooted, friends and family divided, homes,
livelihoods and, of course, lives can be lost. In the aftermath of such a disaster, people
may experience a range of physical, psychological, emotional or behavioral reactions
that, while perfectly natural, can significantly impact their ability to cope with the
situation.
People may experience shock and disbelief, fear and apprehension, anger, and shame
and guilt in the early days after an event, and over the longer term. Trauma and grief will
put personal, family and community relationships under pressure. The mental health
impacts of disasters can lead to an increase in problematic alcohol and drug use, self-
harm, violence and abuse – which may well act as early warning signs. Whether or not
they have experienced direct losses, the disaster may trigger post-traumatic stress for
people who have experienced previous trauma, including war service, previous bushfires
or house fires, and family loss.
The estimated social costs associated with the Black Saturday Bushfires were larger than
the financial costs – at least $3.9b in social impacts and $3.1b in direct financial impacts.
Life events not related to the disaster, such as relationship breakdown, bereavement or
losing a job, can compound the grief and trauma of the disaster. Many people suffer
vicarious trauma because of their involvement with impacted households and
communities through business, services, sport, schools and social connections. The
impact of exposure to emergency events on an individual’s emotional and social
wellbeing or mental health can be mild or severe; short term or long lasting. There is
consistent evidence that anywhere between 5–40 per cent of people involved in an
emergency event are at risk of sustaining severe and protracted psychological injury.
While recovery is positive for most there remains a group of people that are struggling
with their recovery. Many of these will take a number of years more to regain their
previous state of health, welfare and happiness and to fully re-engage with their lives,
while many will not recover at all.
In addition, the ability of a community to recover from a disaster reflects its underlying
functioning. Communities that function well in everyday life, with strong social
connections and plentiful resources will often be most resilient when facing a crisis.
People and communities with pre-existing vulnerabilities or who are disadvantaged are
more at risk of the immediate, medium and long-term effects of disasters, such as loss,
injury, and social and economic hardship.

Disaster Impacts - Social:

 Rebuilding a home takes a long time and a lot of money.
 Get displaced from each other.
 Get disconnected from social net work.
 Women, Children and adolescent girls are exposed to various types ofexploitation.
 Women and children are exposed to various types of threatsFormal education of
the children come to stand still.
 Increase of distress migration due to breakdown of livelihood system.
 Severe food crisis leading to starvation and death.
 Daily transportation of food items etc. from all parts of the country/Regions get
dangerously interrupted.
Resilience is best built well before and far beyond the management of disasters and
emergency risks. As well as promoting the wellbeing of people and communities in
emergencies, its broader benefits include increasing the social and economic wellbeing of
communities.
 A collaborative approach involving government, business, not-for-profits and
community is needed to address the medium- and long-term economic costs of
the social impacts of natural disasters
 Governments, businesses and communities need to further invest in
community resilience programs that drive learning and sustained behaviour
change
 Further research must be done into ways of quantifying the medium- and long-
term costs of the social impacts of natural disasters

Disaster Impacts - Ecological:

The ecological and environmental disasters are almost inter related and the impacts are
same in most of the cases.
As ecosystems are parts of the environment any change in the environment will affect
the ecosystem present at that location during the time of disaster.
Ecological disasters have a predictable pattern of evolving overtime and anticipated
psychological and behavioral problems and community disruptions.
These disasters impact effects beyond the geographic location with certain group of
populations being vulnerable (Coastal communities, Tribal communities, endangered
population of flora and fauna) to the impacts.
So by understanding and use of available data the pattern of the impacts and its effects
can be studied and by which future impacts can be reduced by implementing scientific
interventions and we can reduce distress, improve well being and functioning for affected
areas, individuals and communities.
Disaster Impacts – Economic:

 Physical damage to businesses and industries cause loss of wage and

employment.
 Increase in price of the basic requirement for survival.
 Scarcity in the supply of raw materials for local production. Loss of purchasing
power.
 Increase in unemployment and underemployment Imbalance between demand
and supply due to inflation.
 Lower, and more erratic, yields of crops
 Lower weight gain by livestock
 Distress sales during bad years mean lower prices
 Economic distress means indebtedness at high interest ratesand potentially loss of
land
 Little money for education of children
 Poor diet and health care, under nutrition and poor health reduce working
capacity
 More labour time (usually female) spent seeking water and fuel
 Fewer environmental amenities and goods with which to provide supplementary,
non-farm income

Disaster Impacts – Economic cost:

The response by an economy to an initial change (direct effect) that occurs through re-
spending of income received by a component of value added.
The Economic Cost of the social impact of natural disasters states that a greater effort
should be invested in the preparedness of individuals, in particular long-term psycho-
social recovery, including community development programs and support for areas such
as health and wellbeing, employment and education.
The Economic Cost of the social impact of natural disasters makes a number of
recommendations to Government and to the non-government sector about how to make
communities more resilient to extreme weather events:
 Pre- and post-disaster funding should better reflect the long-term nature of
social impacts.
 A collaborative approach involving government, business, not-for-profits and
community is needed to address the medium- and long-term economic costs of
the social impacts of natural disasters.
 Governments, businesses and communities need to further invest in
community resilience programs that drive learning and sustained behaviour
change.
 Further research must be done into ways of quantifying the medium- and long-
term costs of the social impacts of natural disasters.
Disaster effect on Economy of a Community:
The economic damage caused by disasters varies on type of disaster. Capital assets and
infrastructure such as housing, schools, factories and equipment, roads, dams and
bridges are lost. Human capital is depleted due to the loss of life, the loss of skilled
workers and the destruction of education infrastructure that disrupts schooling.
Disaster Impacts - Political:
 The system of local governance gets failed.
 Lack of people participation in planning and coordination of developmental
activities.
 Dissolution of power of government at state and national level. Increase in
political crisis, conflict, party politics etc.

Disaster Impacts – Health Issues:

 Women and children get affected by multiple health hazards.

 Young and adolescent girls get exposed to physical, psychological and
sexual exploitation.
 Reproductive health of women is at risk.
 Women and adolescent girls take multiple risks being engaged in various
household level activities from dawn to dusk.
 The emotional toll on the people affected is quite devastating. While
possessions can be replaced eventually through insurance, the emotional
damage can take a long while to heal
 People lose loved ones in natural disasters; deaths of people and precious
pets.
 Serious injury and people missing all add up to severe emotional trauma.
 Increase in chronic health conditions such as diabetes and congestive heart
failure (CHF) and leading to depression.

Disaster Impacts – Psycho-social Issues:

 Communities get displaced meaning separation from family and friends.
 Victims face stress, trauma, anxiety and depression as a result of natural disasters.
Disaster impact in terms of Gender, Age, Caste, Class, Location, Disability:

Gender
 Women, children, widow, destitute and adolescent girls are most vulnerable and
threat to various types of health hazards.
 Young women, adolescent girls and young widows are exposed to sexual
violence. Elderly persons are both women and men are neglected in all respect
and aspect.

Age
 Youngest and oldest people are mostly impacted destructively during any
disasters for that matter.

Caste
 Scheduled Caste people are inhabited at low land areas Housing condition of
these people are precarious and risk
 During flood they have no space to take shelter, neither the higher caste people
allow them to take temporary shelter in their pakka houses.
 Sheer poverty and disaster make them worse.
 Lacks of information about a possible occurrence of disaster make threat to their
lives and livelihood.
 Bonded labor increases.
 Scheduled Tribe people inhabited at the foot of the hills and mountain and flash
flood wash them away.

Special needs (Disability): The different types of special needy people at the time of
disaster strike who need more attention and help are
 Visually challenged
 Hearing impaired
 Physically disabled
 Mentally challenged
These all category people fall under special needs the impact of disaster on these groups
will be vulnerable as they
 Unable to hear the danger signals and alarms etc.,
 Difficult in evacuating and protecting them (as they cannot walk).
 Difficult in getting access to relief and compensation measures.
 Difficult in locating avenues of escape.
 Have to face the shock of losing all that they had attained in life.
 Other factors include losing home, family and security.

Disaster effect on Development:

Disasters have a devastating impact on development. Families lose homes, livelihoods
and loved ones, communities lose businesses, jobs and services, children and particularly
girls miss school and are at risk of early marriage – the list of impacts goes on. Disasters
can cancel progress on poverty reduction.

Disaster Impacts –Short Term Effects:

Short-Term Effects include Victims, Selective Mortality, and Population Recovery

Mortality is one obvious short-term consequence of hazards and shocks, although it
could also have very significant knock-on consequences in the long term, depending on
the scale and nature of death. Mortality has for a long time been a common indicator for
measuring the impact of disasters – both for contemporary and for historical societies –
but, as we come to see in this section, we still lack solid empirical information on
mortality characteristics from many disasters.

Land Loss and Capital Destruction:

The second-most-important measure of a disaster is capital destruction and how
much land is lost or affected. Images of eroding cliffs, mudslides, and inundated
coastal estates are often used to show the effects of global warming, as are
interactive maps of coastal zones that will be flooded if there is a rise in sea level.
This indicator is important not only because loss of land is often traumatic for the
affected communities, but also because many disasters cause only minimal human
casualties but large amounts of physical destruction.
Economic Crisis:
A final measure of the short-run material effect of disasters is the economic impact.
Disasters can trigger a temporary decline in GDP levels leading to economic crisis:
Hurricane Maria reduced Puerto Rico’s economy by 3 percent in 2018.The pleas to
invest more resources to halt climate change are often based on predictions of dropping
economic performance levels and high social and economic costs. Impact on GDP,
however, is not always straightforward to measure or analyze. If the destruction is
followed by (international) relief, the rebuilding of houses, and the repair and possibly
improvement of the damaged infrastructure, the effect may be positive rather than
negative.
Disaster Impacts –Long Term Effects:
The focus in mainly on the mitigation strategies and short-term effects and recovery, but
as historians we also need to draw attention to long-term effects that are either frequently
overlooked or impossible to foresee or measure for very recent disasters. The immediate
step is not always that clear, and other societal/society factors can interfere as well.
Nevertheless, these slower processes and long-term effects are critical, especially in cases
of recurrent or repetitive shocks. In general three outcomes are possible: recovery,
stagnation, or decline. Currently much of the focus lies on societies that adapt after a
hazard or shock and therefore are able to recover in the long run, but alternative
scenarios are possible too.

Hazard locations -Natural:

The 5 countries that are most vulnerable to natural disasters are China, the United
States, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India as the five countries most frequently hit by
natural disasters. For years now these same countries have regularly featured at the top
of this list.
Countries with the most natural disasters in 2021

Country Number of disasters

United States 43

Indonesia 28

India 19

China 17

Philippines 16

Locations
 People living in the low lying area, river side and side of the river embankment,
sea coast lines are most prone to be affected by the natural calamities.
 Places often prone to ethnic or communal violence.
 Places more prone to earthquake.
 Hilly areas which are prone to mud slides, landslides.

Hazard locations –Man made:

The most hazardous locations are industrial units were the fire safety and fire explosion
plays a key role in the workplace safety apart from above electrical equipment locations,
presence of flammable, ignitable gases cylinder locations, heavy machinery operating
locations, liquid or vapour adjustable valves of the equipments/machinery. So always a
proper care and trained personal should be present during the time the operation to
avoid any kind of disaster at the work place and reducing of accidents can be achieved by
conducting mock drills, awareness programs.

Disaster Trends:
Disaster trends are indicators. They provide us with clues about our risk and help
emergency personal and others with decisions related to emergency planning, analysis,
and prioritization of mitigation and preparedness activities. Population growth and
infrastructures the world's exposure to natural hazards is inevitably increasing. This is
particularly true as the strongest population growth is located in coastal areas (with
greater exposure to floods, cyclones and tidal waves).

Global Disasters – Scenario:

 Disasters ‐ natural or human‐made are common throughout the world. Disasters

continue to occur without warning and are perceived to be on an increase in their
magnitude, complexity, frequency and economic impact.
 Hazards pose threats to people and assume serious proportions in the under
developed countries with dense population. During the second half of the 20th
century, more than 200 worst natural disasters occurred in the different parts of
the world and claimed lives of around 1.4 million people.
 Losses due to natural disasters are 20 times greater (as % of GDP) in the
developing countries than in industrialized one. Asia tops the list of casualties due
to natural disasters.

Figure shows the Regional distribution of disasters by type, as prepared by

Centre for Research on Epidemiology of Disaster.
National Disasters – Scenario:

India due to its geo‐climatic and socio‐economic condition is prone to various disasters.
During the last thirty years’ time span the country has been hit by 431 major disasters
resulting into enormous loss to life and property. According to the Prevention Web
statistics, 143039 people were killed and about 150 crores were affected by various
disasters in the country during these three decades.
The most severe disasters in the country and their impact in term of people affected,
lives lost and economic damage is given in India are given below.

 The cyclone which occurred on 25th November, 1839 had a death toll of three
lakhs people.
 The Bhuj earthquake of 2001 in Gujarat
 The Super Cyclone of Orissa on 29th October, 1999.
 The most recent natural disaster of a cloud burst resulting in flash floods and
mudflow in Leh and surrounding areas in the early hours of 6th August, 2010,
caused severe damage in terms of human lives as well as property. There was a
reported death toll of 196 persons, 65 missing persons, 3,661 damaged houses and
27,350 hectares of affected crop area.
Floods, earthquakes, cyclones, hailstorms, etc. are the most frequently occurring
disasters in India.

Climate Change:
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These
shifts may be natural, but since the 1800s, human activities have been the main cause of
climate change mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels (like coal, oil, and gas), which
produces heat-trapping gases. As climate change worsens, dangerous weather events are
becoming more frequent or severe.
Effects due to climate change are:
 More frequent and intense drought, storms, heat waves
 Rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans can directly harm animals,
destroy the places they live, and wreak havoc on people's livelihoods and
communities.
 Climate change may aggravate speed up erosion, decline in organic matter,
salinization, Soil biodiversity loss, landslides, desertification and flooding.
 The effect of climate change on soil carbon storage can be related to changing
atmospheric CO2 concentrations, increased temperatures and changing
precipitation patterns.

Climate Change: This is evident from the increase in the global average air and ocean
temperatures, precipitation and extreme rainfall, widespread melting of snow and ice,
storms/ storm surges/coastal flooding and rising global mean sea level, as recorded in
the fourth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Figure: Climate change is expected to increase the

Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans
since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century,
Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about
two- thirds of the increase occurring since 1980.

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90 certain
that it is primarily caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by
human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

These findings are recognized by the national science academies of all major
industrialized nations The effects of an increase in global temperature include arise in
sea levels and a change in the amount and pattern of precipitation, as well a probable
expansion of subtropical deserts.
Warming is expected to be strongest in the Arctic and would be associated with the
continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Other likely effects of the warming
include a more frequent occurrence of extreme- weather events including heat waves,
droughts and heavy rainfall, ocean acidification and species extinctions due to shifting
temperature regimes. Effects significant to humans include the threat to food security
from decreasing crop yields and the loss of habit from industrialized nations

Urban Disasters:
When disasters affect cities or urban areas (non rural contexts) they are referred to as
urban disasters. The lack of adequate infrastructure and services, unsafe housing,
inadequate and poor health services can turn natural hazard into a disaster.

For example,

 Poor solid waste management can cause blockage to storm water and sewage
networks that can lead to water logging and flooding.
 Urban flooding: Urban floods are a great disturbance of daily life in the city.
Roads can be blocked; people can't go to work or to schools. The economic
damages are high but the number of casualties is usually very limited.
 The major health problems resulting from urbanization include poor nutrition,
pollution-related health conditions and communicable diseases, poor sanitation
and housing conditions, and related health conditions all the above cumulatively
can create a more disaster effect on the urban area.

Are urban areas more vulnerable to disasters?

Urban areas are not disaster prone by nature; rather the socio-economic structural
processes that accelerate rapid urbanization, population movement and population
concentrations substantially increase disaster vulnerability, particularly of low-income
urban dwellers.