A disaster is a natural or man-made (or technological) hazard resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment. A disaster can be ostensively defined as any tragic event stemming from events such as earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires, or explosions. It is a phenomenon that can cause damage to life and property and destroy the economic, social and cultural life of people.
In contemporary academia, disasters are seen as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk. These risks are the product of a combination of both hazard/s and vulnerability. Hazards that strike in areas with low vulnerability will never become disasters, as is the case in uninhabited regions.
Developing countries suffer the greatest costs when a disaster hits – more than 95 percent of all deaths caused by disasters occur in developing countries, and losses due to natural disasters are 20 times greater (as a percentage of GDP) in developing countries than in industrialized countries.
Read more about Disaster: Etymology, Classifications
Other articles related to "disaster, disasters":
... An accident on the Singapore Cable Car system occurred at about 6 p.m ... on 29 January 1983, when the derrick of the Eniwetok, a Panamanian-registered oil rig, passed under the aerial ropeway and struck the cable that stretched over the waterway between the Jardine Steps Station and the Sentosa Station ...
... the Federal response to aviation disaster victims and their families ... of Family Affairs, later renamed the Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance ... DMORTs to handle large scale transportation disasters ...
... The Nyamiha disaster was a deadly human crush that took place at Nyamiha metro station in Minsk, Belarus. 1876 Brooklyn Theater Fire 1883 Victoria Hall disaster 1896 Khodynka Tragedy 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire 1908 Barnsley Public Hall disaster 1913 Italian Hall disaster 1927 ...
... The Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006 (H.R.5013, S.2599) was a bill introduced March 28, 2006 by Republican Congressman Bobby Jindal in the House and on April 7, 2006 by Republican Senator. 5441), to prohibit the confiscation of a firearm during an emergency or major disaster if the possession of such firearm is not prohibited under Federal or State law ... modified to contain the provisions of the Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006 ...
... Man-made disasters are the consequence of technological or human hazards ... Man-made disasters are examples of specific cases where man-made hazards have become reality in an event ...
Famous quotes containing the word disaster:
“The disaster ... is not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect—this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they’re not critical to a culture’s existence.”
—Twyla Tharp (b. 1941)
“It was so long since I’d seen masses of young men that I’d forgotten how much pleasanter men of between twenty and thirty were to be around with than older men. It isnt so true of women. When I was in my twenties I thought the grown adults I ran into were a disaster and now I know I was right.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“From disaster good fortune comes, and in good fortune lurks disaster.”
—Chinese proverb.