This document defines and describes different types of natural and man-made disasters. It discusses natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts and tornadoes. It also covers man-made disasters and technological hazards that can result in accidents and damage. The document emphasizes that while hazards occur naturally, it is the combination of hazards and human vulnerability through factors like poor planning and construction that turn hazards into disasters, especially in developing countries that face greater losses and casualties from disasters proportional to their GDP.

1. disaster

2. TYPES OF DISASTER
Natural
disaster
Man made disaster
Avalanches
Earthquake
Volcano eruptions
Hydrological disaster
Floods
Limnic eruptions
Tsunami
Droughts
Tornado

3. DISASTER
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 theenvironment. 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.

5. NATURAL DISASTER
A natural disaster is a consequence when a natural hazard affects humans
and/or the built environment. Human vulnerability, and lack of
appropriate emergency management, leads to financial, environmental, or
human impact. The resulting loss depends on the capacity of the
population to support or resist the disaster: their resilience. This
understanding is concentrated in the formulation: "disasters occur when
hazards meet vulnerability". A natural hazard will hence never result in a
natural disaster in areas without vulnerability.
Various phenomena like earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions,
floods and cyclones are all natural hazards that kill thousands of people
and destroy billions of dollars of habitat and property each year.
However, natural hazards can strike in unpopulated areas and never
develop into disasters. However, the rapid growth of the world's
population and its increased concentration often in hazardous
environments has escalated both the frequency and severity of natural
disasters. With the tropical climate and unstable land forms, coupled with
deforestation, unplanned growth proliferation, non-engineered
constructions which make the disaster-prone areas more vulnerable,
tardy communication, poor or no budgetary allocation for disaster
prevention, developing countries suffer more or less chronically by
natural disasters. Asia tops the list of casualties due to natural disasters.

7. MAN-MADE DISASTERS
Man-made disasters are the consequence of
technological or human hazards. Examples
include stampedes, fires, transport accidents,
industrial accidents, oil spills and nuclear
explosions/radiation. War and deliberate attacks
may also be put in this category. As with natural
hazards, man-made hazards are events that have not
happened, for instance terrorism. Man-made
disasters are examples of specific cases where manmade hazards have become reality in an event.

9. AVALANCHES
During World War I, an estimated
40,000 to 80,000 soldiers died as a
result of avalanches during the
mountain campaign in the Alps at
the Austrian-Italian front, many of
which were caused by artillery
fire.

11. EARTHQUAKES
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in
the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. At the Earth's surface,
earthquakes manifest themselves by vibration, shaking and
sometimes displacement of the ground. The vibrations may vary in
magnitude. Earthquakes are caused mostly by slippage within
geological faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity,
landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear tests. The underground point of
origin of the earthquake is called the focus. The point directly above
the focus on the surface is called the epicenter. Earthquakes by
themselves rarely kill people or wildlife. It is usually the secondary
events that they trigger, such as building collapse,
fires, tsunamis (seismic sea waves) and volcanoes, that are actually
the human disaster. Many of these could possibly be avoided by
better construction, safety systems, early warning and planning.
Some of the most significant earthquakes in recent times include:
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the third largest earthquake
recorded in history,registering a moment magnitude of 9.1-9.3. The
huge tsunamis triggered by this earthquake killed at least 229,000
people.

13. The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and
tsunami registered a moment magnitude of 9.0. The
death toll from the earthquake and tsunami is over
13,000, and over 12,000 people are still missing.
The 8.8 magnitude February 27, 2010 Chile
earthquake and tsunami cost 525 lives.
The 7.9 magnitude May 12, 2008 Sichuan
earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. Death toll
at over 61,150 as of May 27, 2008.
The 7.7 magnitude July 2006 Java earthquake,
which also triggered tsunamis.
The 6.9 magnitude 2005 Azad Jammu & Kashmir
and KPK province Earthquake, which killed or
injured above 75,000 people in Pakistan.

15. VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
Volcanoes can cause widespread destruction and consequent disaster in several
ways. The effects include the volcanic eruption itself that may cause harm following
the explosion of the volcano or the fall of rock. Second, lava may be produced during
the eruption of a volcano. As it leaves the volcano, the lava destroys many buildings
and plants it encounters. Third, volcanic ash generally meaning the cooled ash may form a cloud, and settle thickly in nearby locations. When mixed with water
this forms a concrete-like material. In sufficient quantity ash may cause roofs to
collapse under its weight but even small quantities will harm humans if inhaled.
Since the ash has the consistency of ground glass it causes abrasion damage to
moving parts such as engines. The main killer of humans in the immediate
surroundings of a volcanic eruption is the pyroclastic flows, which consist of a cloud
of hot volcanic ash which builds up in the air above the volcano and rushes down
the slopes when the eruption no longer supports the lifting of the gases. It is
believed that Pompeii was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow. A lahar is a volcanic
mudflow or landslide. The 1953 Tangiwai disaster was caused by a lahar, as was the
1985 Armero tragedy in which the town of Armero was buried and an estimated
23,000 people were killed .
A specific type of volcano is the supervolcano. According to the Toba catastrophe
theory 75,000 to 80,000 years ago a super volcanic event at Lake Toba reduced the
human population to 10,000 or even 1,000 breeding pairs creating a bottleneck in
human evolution.[8] It also killed three quarters of all plant life in the northern
hemisphere. The main danger from a supervolcano is the immense cloud of ash
which has a disastrous global effect on climate and temperature for many years.

17. HYDROLOGICAL DISASTERS
It is a violent, sudden and
destructive change either in
quality of earth's water or in
distribution or movement of
water on land below the
surface or in atmosphere.

19. FLOODS
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that
submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as
a temporary covering by water of land not normally
covered by water. In the sense of "flowing water", the word
may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may
result from the volume of water within a body of water,
such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees,
with the result that some of the water escapes its usual
boundaries.While the size of a lake or other body of water
will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow
melt, it is not a significant flood unless the water covers
land used by man like a village, city or other inhabited
area, roads, expanses of farmland, etc.

21. Some of the most notable floods include:
The Johnstown Flood of 1889 where over 2200 people lost their lives
when the South Fork Dam holding back Lake Conemaugh broke.
The Huang He (Yellow River) in China floods particularly often.
The Great Flood of 1931 caused between 800,000 and 4,000,000 deaths.
The Great Flood of 1993 was one of the most costly floods in United
States history.
The North Sea flood of 1953 which killed 2251 people in
the Netherlands and eastern England
The 1998 Yangtze River Floods, in China, left 14 million people
homeless.
The 2000 Mozambique flood covered much of the country for three
weeks, resulting in thousands of deaths, and leaving the country
devastated for years afterward.
The 2005 Mumbai floods which killed 1094 people.
The 2010 Pakistan floods, damaged crops and infrastructure, claiming
many lives.
Tropical cyclones can result in extensive flooding and storm surge, as
happened with:
Bhola Cyclone, which struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1970,
Typhoon Nina, which struck China in 1975,
Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005, and
Cyclone Yasi, which struck Australia in 2011

22. LIMNIC ERUPTIONS
A limnic eruption occurs when a gas, usually CO2, suddenly
erupts from deep lake water, posing the threat of suffocating
wildlife, livestock and humans. Such an eruption may also
cause tsunamis in the lake as the rising gas displaces water.
Scientists believe landslides, volcanic activity, or explosions can
trigger such an eruption. To date, only two limnic eruptions
have been observed and recorded:
In 1984, in Cameroon, a limnic eruption in Lake Monoun caused
the deaths of 37 nearby residents.
At nearby Lake Nyos in 1986 a much larger eruption killed
between 1,700 and 1,800 people by asphyxiation.

24. TSUNAMI
Tsunamis can be caused by undersea earthquakes
as the one caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean
Earthquake, or by landslides such as the one
which occurred at Lituya Bay, Alaska.
The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake created
the Boxing Day Tsunami.
On March 11, 2011, a tsunami occurred near
Fukushima, Japan and spread through the
Pacific.

26. DROUGHTS
Drought is unusual dryness of soil, resulting in crop failure and shortage of water for other
uses, caused by significantly lower rainfall than average over a prolonged period. Hot dry
winds, high temperatures and consequent evaporation of moisture from the ground can
contribute to conditions of drought.
Well-known historical droughts include:
1900 India killing between 250,000 to 3.25 million.
1921-22 Soviet Union in which over 5 million perished from starvation due to drought
1928-30 Northwest China resulting in over 3 million deaths by famine.
1936 and 1941 Sichuan Province China resulting in 5 million and 2.5 million deaths
respectively.
In 2006, states of Australia including South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales,
Northern Territory and Queensland had been under drought conditions for five to ten years.
The drought is beginning to affect urban area populations for the first time. With the majority
of the country under water restrictions.
In 2006, Sichuan Province China experienced its worst drought in modern times with nearly 8
million people and over 7 million cattle facing water shortages.
12-year drought that was devastating southwest Western Australia, southeast South Australia,
Victoria and northern Tasmania was "very severe and without historical precedent".
In 2011, the State of Texas lived under a drought emergency declaration for the entire calendar
year. The drought caused the Bastrop fires.

28. TORNADOS
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact
with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare
cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is also referred to as a twister or
a cyclone,[12]although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider
sense, to refer to any closed low pressure circulation. Tornadoes come in
many shapes and sizes, but are typically in the form of a visible condensation
funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud
of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per
hour (177 km/h), are approximately 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few
miles (several kilometers) before dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes
can attain wind speeds of more than 300 mph (480 km/h), stretch more than
two miles (3 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (perhaps
more than 100 km).[13][14][15]
Well-known historical tornadoes include:
The Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which killed over 600 people in the United
States;
The Daulatpur-Saturia Tornado of 1989, which killed roughly 1,300 people in
Bangladesh.

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