Disasters, Natural

Throughout history human beings have been confronted by the forces of nature. Natural disasters serve as vivid reminders of just how powerful those forces can be and how vulnerable societies are to them. Volcanic eruptions have buried ancient cities, droughts have devastated entire regions, and tidal waves have inundated small fishing villages and major tourist destinations alike. The tragic and lasting effects of these kinds of events are reflected in folklore, literature, and film and passed on from one generation to the next. In addition to their potential for widespread physical destruction, natural disasters disrupt [Page 371]society's normal functioning, stretch community resources beyond their limits, and often leave sizable death tolls in their wake. Yet, human societies are surprisingly resilient in the face of catastrophe. Survivors find ways to effectively cope with their losses, most communities manage to rebound, and social life continues. Large-scale disasters do, however, pose some major challenges. Social inequality, for example, plays a vital role in shaping people's vulnerability to disasters—that is, some social groups are more likely than others to be negatively impacted by them. Additionally, because they result in mass fatalities, natural disasters have important implications for the systems that exist in every society to handle and process the dead, sometimes leading to temporary changes that violate established cultural practices and exacerbate the suffering of survivors.

Types of Natural Disasters and the Deaths They Cause

The UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction estimates that from 1991 to 2005, nearly 1 million people worldwide died as a result of natural disasters. Based on that estimate, approximately 65,000 lives are lost each year, a number that is certainly not trivial but much lower than other risks present in modern society. In the United States alone, for example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that approximately 45,000 motorists die each year in automobile crashes, and according to the American Cancer Society, more than 500,000 people die each year from cancer. It can be concluded, therefore, that a person's risk of dying in a natural disaster is relatively low compared to other, more common causes of death. However, it should be noted that this risk goes up or down depending on where a person lives in the world and his or her demographic characteristics, including race, social class, gender, and age.

In estimating the fatal impacts of natural disasters, it is common to distinguish between three major categories of events: weather-related phenomena, geological processes, and biological episodes. Weather-related disasters include hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and floods. Geological events include volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis, which are massive waves triggered by seismic activity. Biological disasters include epidemics of rapidly spreading contagious diseases and serious cases of insect infestation. Over the past decade and a half the most commonly occurring disasters have been floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, epidemics, and earthquakes. The most deadly events have been earthquakes and tsunamis, causing almost half of all disaster-related deaths during that time period. This fact is not surprising given that the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which caused approximately 250,000 deaths, occurred during this time frame, as did major devastating earthquakes in Japan, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and other windstorms have caused approximately 25#x0025; of disaster-related deaths in the past 15 years, and the remaining deaths are distributed across the other disaster types.

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