DISASTER AND DISASTER RISK

THIS PRESENTATION AIMS TO:

• Define and expound disaster and disaster risk;

• Explain disaster from different perspectives;

• Distinguish different types of disaster and its effects;

• Determine the risk factors underlying disasters;

• And To determine how and when an event consider as a disaster.

WHAT IS DISASTER?
Disaster is defined as “a sudden, calamitous event, bringing great
damage, loss, destruction and devastation to life and property” (Asian
Disaster Preparedness Center – ADPC, 2012). Its origin can be natural,
such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes, or of human origin such
as explosions, nuclear accidents and terrorist acts.
 From a socio-cultural perspective, disaster is defined as “a serious
disruption of the functioning of society, causing widespread human,
material or environmental losses, which exceed the ability of the
affected people to cope, using their human resources” (Adelman,
2011).
 WHAT IS DISASTER RISK?
Relative to disaster, a silent factor that needs to be addressed properly is
disaster risk. Disaster risk is defined as the “probability that a community’s
structure or geographic area is to be damaged or disrupted by the impact of a
particular hazard, on account of its nature, construction and proximity to a
hazardous area” (ADPC, 2012). In other words, disaster risk signifies the
possibility of adverse effects in the future. It is derived from the interaction of
social and environmental processes, from the combination of physical hazards
and the vulnerability of exposed elements.
 NATURE OF DISASTER
 Disasters are of two types – “natural” and “human - made”. Based on
the devastation, these are further classified into major or minor
natural disasters and major or minor man-made disasters.
A. Natural Disasters – these originate from the different “forces” of nature
(geological, meteorological, hydro meteorological and biological). Natural disasters
such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons, and cyclones affect many
counties in Asia particularly the Philippines.

B. Human Disasters – these disaster occur due to people’s actions against human,
material and environment. These include transport and industrial accidents, such as,
air and train crashes, chemical spills, and building collapses. Terrorism is also
categorized as human-made disaster.
 TYPES OF DISASTERS

 DISASTERS CAN TAKE MANY DIFFERENT FORMS AND THE

DURATION CAN RANGE FROM AN HOUR TO DAYS OR WEEKS OF
ONGOING DESTRUCTION. BELOW IS A LIST OF THE VARIOUS TYPES
OF DISASTERS, BOTH NATURAL AND HUMAN-MADE OR
TECHNOLOGICAL IN NATURE THAT CAN IMPACT A COMMUNITY.
(HEWITH AND BURTON, 1971).
 NATURAL TYPES OF DISASTERS:
• Agricultural diseases and pests • Tsunamis
• Storm surge • Wildfires
• Drought and water shortage – El Niñ o
• Sinkholes
• Earthquakes
• Emergency diseases (pandemic influenza)
• Hurricanes and tropical storms
• Extreme heat
• Landslide and debris flow
• Floods and flash floods
• Thunderstorms and lightning
• Tornadoes • La Niñ a
 HUMAN – MADE AND TECHNOLOGICAL
TYPES OF DISASTERS
• Hazardous materials
• Power service disruption and blackout
• Nuclear power plant and nuclear blast
• Radiological emergencies
• Chemical threat and biological weapons
• Cyber attacks
• Explosion
• Civil unrest
RISK FACTORS UNDERLYING
DISASTERS
SEVERITY OF EXPOSURE
The amount of exposure to the disaster is highly related to risk of
future mental problems. At highest risk are those that go through the
disaster themselves. Next are those in close contact with victims. At
lower risk of lasting impact are those who only had indirect exposure,
such as news of the severe damage. Injury and life threat are the
factors that lead most often to mental health problems. Studies have
looked at severe natural disasters, such as the 1990 earthquake in
Baguio, Mt. Pinatubo eruption in 1991, mudslides in Ormoc City, and
the 2013 devastating Super Typhoon Yolanda in Tacloban. The
findings show that at least half of the survivors suffer from distress or
mental health problems that need clinical care.
GENDER AND FAMILY
 Almost always, women or girls suffer more negative effects than do
men or boys. Disaster recovery is more stressful when children are
present in the home. Women with spouses also experience more
distress during recovery. Having a family member in the home who is
extremely distressed is related to more stress for everyone. Martial
stress has been found to increase after disasters. Also, conflicts
between family members or lack of support in the home make it
harder to recover from disasters.
AGE
Adults who are in the age range of 40-60 are likely to be more
distressed after disasters. The thinking is that if one is in that age
range, he/she has more demands from job and family. Research on
how children react to natural disasters is still limited at this point in
time. In general, children show more severe distress after disasters
than do adults. Higher stress in the parents is related to worse
recovery in children.
 OTHER FACTORS SPECIFIC TO THE SURVIVOR
Several factors related to a survivor’s background and resources are
important for recovery from disaster. Recovery is worse if survivors:
• Were not functioning well before the disaster
• Have/had no experience dealing with disasters
• Must deal with other stressors after the disasters
• Have poor self-esteem
• Think they are uncured for by others
• Think they have little control over what happens to them
• Lack the capacity to manage stress
 OTHER FACTORS HAVE ALSO BEEN FOUND TO
PREDICT WORSE OUTCOMES:
• Bereavement (death of someone close)
• Injury to self or another family member
• Life threat
• Panic, horror, or feelings like that during the disaster
• Being separated from family (especially among youth)
• Great loss of property
• Displacement (being forced to leave home)
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
There is a strong body of evidence that these risk factors can be made
worse if the disaster occurs in a developing country. Disasters in
developing countries, like Philippines, have more severe mental health
impact than do disasters in developed countries. This is true even
with less serious disasters. For example, natural disasters are
generally thought to be less serious than human-caused. In developing
countries, however, natural disasters have more severe effects than do
human-caused disasters in developing countries.
LOW OR NEGATIVE SOCIAL SUPPORT
The support of others can be both a risk and a resilience factor. Social
support can weaken after disasters. This may be due to stress and the
need for members of the support network to get on with their own
lives. Sometimes the responses from other disaster victims rely on for
support are negative. For example, someone may play down their
problems, needs, or pain, or expect them to recover more quickly than
realistic. This is strongly linked to long-term distress in trauma
survivors.
EFFECTS OF NATURAL DISASTER
ON HUMAN LIFE
DISPLACED POPULATIONS
One of the most immediate effects of natural disasters is population
displacement. When countries are ravaged by earthquakes or other
powerful forces of nature like floods and super typhoons, many people
have to abandon their homes and seek shelter in other regions. A large
influx of refugees can disrupt accessibility of health care and
education, as well as food supplies and clean water. When Mt.
Pinatubo erupted in 1991, thousands of families in Zambales and
Pampanga were displaced. Their communities were ravaged by lahar
flow that turned these communities into “wilderness”. Several
resettlement areas were established to accommodate those who were
displaced. These resettlement areas which started as tent cities for
those affected by volcanic eruption became permanent communities.
HEALTH RISKS
Aside from the obvious immediate danger that natural disasters
present, the secondary effects can be just as damaging. Severe
flooding can result in stagnant water that allows breeding of
waterborne bacteria and malaria-carrying mosquitos. Without
emergency relief from international aid organizations and others,
death tolls can rise even after the immediate danger has passed.
FOOD SCARCITY
After natural disasters, food often becomes scarce. Thousands of
people around the world go hungry as a result of destroyed crops and
loss of agricultural supplies, whether it happens suddenly in a storm
or gradually in a drought. As a result, food prices rise, reducing
families’ purchasing power and increasing the risk of severe
malnutrition or worse. The impacts of hunger following an
earthquake, typhoon or hurricane can be tremendous, causing lifelong
damage to children’s development.
EMOTIONAL AFTERSHOCKS
Natural disasters can be particularly traumatic for young children.
Confronted with scenes of destruction and the deaths of friends and
loved ones, many children develop post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), a serious psychological condition resulting from extreme
trauma. Left untreated, children suffering from PTSD can be prone to
lasting psychological damage and emotional distress.
HOW AND WHEN AN EVENT
BECOMES A DISASTER?
• An event, whether natural or human-made, becomes a disaster it is sudden or
progressive, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses. A
typhoon like Yolanda is a natural phenomenon. It became a disaster due to several
factors: its strength (290 km. /hr.); the storm surge it brought was sudden and
unexpected; and its devastating effect to human, material and environment. More
than 7,000 people perished. The entire City of Tacloban was literally flattened to
the ground.
AREAS OR LOCATIONS
EXPOSED TO HAZARDS
EXPOSED TO NATURAL HAZARDS
Areas/ Locations Exposed to:

Coastal areas Storm surge, tsunami or tidal waves

Reclaimed areas Flooding, sinkhole

Near fault lines Earthquake

On food of denuded mountains Mudslide/ landslide

Near volcanoes (danger zones) Volcanic eruption- pyroclastic materials, lahar flow, lava flow and ash fall

Riverbanks and steros Flooding, flash floods

Open fields Thunderstorm, hailstorm, blizzard

 EXPOSED TO MAN-MADE HAZARD
Areas/ Locations Exposed to:

Near oil depots Oil spill, pollution

Near Mining Projects Toxic waste- heavy metal, lead, mercury, nitric acid, etc.

Near Chemical Plants Chemical fumes, chemical waste

Near Nuclear Plants Nuclear waste, possible technical failure, leaks, or worse accidental
explosion

Near Factories Factory waste, pollution

Unsafe building structures Fire

Public Places in Mega Cities Terrorism

DISASTER FROM DIFFERENT
PERSPECTIVE
• A disaster is a result of a cast ecological breakdown in the relation
between humans and their environment; a serious event on such a
scale that the stricken community needs extraordinary efforts to
cope with it, often with outside help or international aid.
 PHYSICAL PERSPECTIVE
 Disaster is a phenomenon that can cause damage to physical elements such as buildings,
infrastructures, including people and their properties, e.g. houses & environmental sources of
living. Physical effects are the most visible and quantifiable effects of a disaster. In assessing the
aftermath of a disaster, physical damages are essentially considered in data recording.
Assessment of disaster is focused on the following common questions:
• How many families are affected? (displacement, injury, death)
• How many houses are damaged or washed out? (in case of super typhoon)
• How many building collapsed or are damaged? (in case of an earthquake)
• How many roads, bridges, dams and other infrastructures are damaged? (in case of floods, lahar
flows and earthquakes)
• What is the extent of damage in agricultural industry? (crop losses, damaged fish cages, washed
out rice fields, etc.)
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
• Disasters can cause serious mental health consequences for the victims, which can
take the form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a variety of other
disorder and symptoms which have been less investigated. The more stress, defined
in a variety of ways, within the disaster, the more likely there are to be emotional
consequences.
• In psychological context, a disaster is regarded as an occurrence involving an
unexpected or uncontrollable event rather than a long-term experience. In other
words, a disaster is something that could happen within a hazard rather than the
hazard itself. Hence, one every important component of the recovery phase, aside
from relief service is debriefing or psychological support system.
OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF A DISASTER ARE THE
FOLLOWING:

• Emotional effects: shock, terror, irritability, blame, anger, sadness, numbing,

helplessness, grief loss of pleasure derived from familiar activities, difficulty feeling
happy, difficulty of feeling love.
• Cognitive effects: impaired concentration, impaired decision-making ability,
memory impairment, nightmares, self-blame, disbelief, decreased self-esteem,
confusion, decreased self-efficacy, intrusive thoughts, memories, dissociation (e.g.,
tunnel vision, dreamlike or ‘spacy’ feeling).
• Physical effects: fatigue, exhaustion, insomnia, cardiovascular strain, hyper arousal,
reduced immune system, headaches, startle response.
• Interpersonal effects: social withdrawal, alienation, impaired work performance,
distrust, feeling abandoned.
 SOCIO-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
• What the people living at risk know and do about natural hazards and disaster risks
is mediated by a range of factors including social conditions (such as age, gender,
wealth, ethnicity) and cultural settings (language, beliefs, traditions, customs). In
most places people are also more or less exposed by information and ideas coming
from the “outside” – the world outside their own cultural setting. At the same time,
the field of natural hazards and disasters has developed its own debates,
framework, and notions such as vulnerability, resilience, and ‘risk’. But communities
may have different priorities and notions of natural hazards and disasters risks.
People’s socio-cultural background may affect their response to disasters at the
different stages of disaster management.
• Hence, from the socio-cultural point of view, a disaster is analyzed based on how
people respond having as parameter their social conditions and cultural settings.
These two factors are important determinants of the degree of risk, resilience and
vulnerability of those affected. That is why some ethnic groups can easily cope with
disasters compared to other groups.
 ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE

• From an economic perspective, a natural disaster can be defined as a natural event

that causes a perturbation to the functioning of the economic system, with a
significant negative impact on assets, production factors, output, employment and
consumption. One salient component of disaster impact from this view is defining
direct economic cost and indirect losses.
• Direct economic cost is the value of what has been damaged or destroyed by the
disaster. This should be seriously considered in disaster risk management and
assessment. However, to get whole picture indirect losses is crucial in assessing
disaster seriousness. This is done by evaluating the main indirect consequences of a
disaster. One example is when a head of family losses a job due to isolation or the
workplace itself is affected. The value of losses is measured vis-à -vis time period
and salary including perks and allowances.
 POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE

• From this view, natural disasters are commonly thought to be less politically
contentious than armed conflicts. Yet, a closer look reveals that politics are deeply
wedded to both the impact of a natural disaster and the subsequent delivery of
humanitarian assistance. Political considerations before, during, and after natural
disaster can determine who is most at risk, who can intervene, what actions will be
taken, and who will benefit from those actions. Some case studies demonstrate that
economic, social, and political factors can significantly amplify the devastating
impact of a natural disaster. Governmentality or deliverance of government services
to constituents can be a plus or minus factor in disaster risk reduction and
management. Government interventions should be a present in following Disaster
Risk Reduction and Management: 1) Prevention, 2) Mitigation, 3) Preparedness and
4) Recovery. Failure to do so adversely affects the capacity and opportunities of
those affected cope with and recover from the impacts of disaster.
 ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

• Disasters are not random and do not occur by accident. They are the
convergence of hazards and vulnerable conditions. Disasters not only reveal
underlying social, economic, political and environmental problems, but
unfortunately contribute to worsening them. Such events pose serious
challenges to development, as they erode hard-earned gains in terms of political,
social and educational progress, as well as infrastructure and technological
development. The Millennium Declaration recognizes the risk to development
stemming from disasters and calls on the global community to “intensify our
collective efforts to reduce the number and effects of natural hazards and man-
made disasters”. Several studies have recently highlighted the fact that
investments in development are in jeopardy unless precautionary action is
taken toward reducing disaster risk. Yet, few development organizations adopt a
precautionary approach in the design and management of projects and fewer
still recognize the role of environmental management in reducing disaster risk.