Lecture for MS-Development Studies students at Shaheed Zulifkar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) Islamabad taking Disaster Management Course.

1. Views and approaches to
disasters
From ancient period to to-date
Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema
Assistant Professor
SZABIST, Islamabad
March 4, 2013

2. Approaches to disasters
• Exercising of deliberate choices to avoid and
lessen the risk from disasters is not a recent
phenomenon.
• However, the evolution of this thinking, and of
these social choices, views and approaches
have been far from similar in different
societies and within societies at the same
time.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

3. Views and approaches to deal with disasters
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

4. Religious views and approaches
• The original Latin meaning is star. In this context,
disasters have been related with the movement
of stars, in particular, ―ill-starred‖ (Gibson, 2006,
p. 9).
• The story of the Prophet Yusuf (PBUH) in the
Koran (Chapter 12), referred to as Prophet Joseph
in Christian and Jewish scriptures, describes food
rationing and storage to save people from
drought and famine, around 1500 B.C.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

5. Religious views and approaches (contd.)
• Coppola (2007, p. 3) notes the example of two towns in
Italy, Herculaneum and Pompeii, which faced a volcanic
eruption in AD 79 from Mount Vesuvius.
• The leaders of Pompeii coordinated the evacuation of
the residents of the town many hours before
pyroclastic flows approached their town and thus
saved many lives, even though the city was buried in
the ash.
• The inhabitants of Herculaneum, however, could not
survive since the town was at the base of the Mount
and pyroclastic flows overtook the town in no time.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

6. Religious views and approaches (contd.)
• An English clergyman, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–
1834), shared his view of disasters as acts of God while
suggesting that nature would take away the excess
population if human beings did not observe moral
restraint.
• If human beings exceed the availability of food on
earth, nature would balance the proportion of human
beings and food by removing the surplus number of
humans through floods, droughts, diseases, famines
and wars (Malthus, 1958, pp. 5-11).
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

7. Religious views and approaches (contd.)
• In the 18th century a major earthquake struck the
Portuguese city of Lisbon on November 1, 1775,
resulting in widespread destruction (Quarantelli, 2009,
p. 10).
• Voltaire (1694–1778)
Did fallen Lisbon deeper drink of vice
Than London, Paris, or sunlit Madrid?
In these, men dance; at Lisbon yawns the abyss
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

8. Technocratic views and technical approaches
• Technocratic views, from the mid-20th century
until the end of 1970s, treated hazards and
disasters as separate and discrete from the social
domain of human environment and perceived
them only as a result of geophysical processes
(Haque & Etkin, 2007).
• The emphasis in the early 20th century remained
on understanding geographical features such as
location, frequency, intensity and probability of
events.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

9. Technocratic views and technical approaches
(contd.)
• Paradoxically, such measures resulted in an
increase in losses due to a false sense of full
control over disasters.
• Technocrats‘ expertise was trusted blindly in
some cases, as in the example of Saint-Pierre,
Mont Pelée, 30,000 people on the West Indian
Island of Martinique on May 8, 1902.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

10. Technocratic views and technical approaches
(contd.)
• Overall, the central argument in this approach was that
nature could be controlled by understanding its physical
characteristics through scientific inquiry along with
traditional disaster reduction measures such as warnings
insurance and emergency relief.
• Therefore, based on scientific input, the main
responsibility for dealing with natural hazards remained
in the domain of the state.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

11. Holistic views and integrated
approaches
• In the last quarter of the 20th century, the dominant
paradigm, mostly applying scientific solutions, began
to be challenged in disaster studies.
• Inadequate consideration of the full social costs … dams
not only increased the vulnerability of displaced
populations, damaged natural resources, livelihoods and,
habitat…the benefits proved to be short-lived and out-
numbered by losses.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

12. Holistic views and integrated
approaches (contd.)
• Cuny (1983) argued that the rise in disaster-related
losses was strongly related to the vulnerability caused
by human-inspired development.
• Cuny (1983, p. 14) noted that only 48 people were
reported dead during an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude
in San Fernando, California in 1971.
• The city had a population of about seven million. On
the other hand, six thousand people died during an
earthquake of 6.2 magnitude in Managua, Nicaragua,
two years later.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

13. Holistic views and integrated
approaches (contd.)
• The term ―natural disasters‖ was strongly
opposed (Twigg, 2004). It was argued that only
natural hazards exist, not natural disasters, and a
disaster occurred when a group of people were
struck by a hazard of such magnitude that it was
beyond their capability to cope (Twigg, 2004).
• The alternative view of disasters guided by the
vulnerability perspective view criticised the
dominant paradigm for ignoring the role of
vulnerability.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

14. Holistic views and integrated
approaches (contd.)
• Comparing the 1976 earthquake of Guatemala with
that of Hurricane Katrina, similar patterns of
vulnerability appear. In the Guatemala earthquake,
90,000 people became homeless and as the majority of
victims were slum residents, it was called a class
earthquake (Twigg, 2004, p. 16).
• In both cases, economic pressures had left people with
no choice except to settle in cheap but risky areas. It
becomes evident that vulnerability is often a
compulsion rather than a choice.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

15. Holistic views and integrated
approaches (contd.)
• Disaster risk was not viewed only as the result of
purely geophysical and natural processes but as a
compound function of hazards and vulnerability.
• The new conceptualisation of ―disaster risk
articulated that risk was a product of hazard and
vulnerability (Wisner et al., 2004, p. 49)
Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

16. Holistic views and integrated
approaches (contd.)
• Another way of looking at reduction of
vulnerability to hazards is by increasing the
capacity or capability and resilience of people.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

17. Explanation of the terms vulnerability, capacity and resilience
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

18. International Trends
towards Disaster
Risk Reduction
Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST,
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Islamabad

19. International Trends
• At the international level, concerted efforts to
reduce disaster losses were highlighted when
the UN designated the 1990s as the United
Nations International Decade for Natural
Disaster Risk Reduction
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

20. International Trends
• Mid-term review in 1994
• Yokohama strategy for disaster reduction was
adopted at a world conference, and the
human dimension of disasters was
incorporated, at least theoretically.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad

21. References
• Anderson, B., & Woodrow, P. (1989). Rising from the ashes: Development strategies in times of disaster. Boulder: Westview
Press.
• Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., & Wisner, B. (1994). At risk: Natural hazards, peoples' vulnerabilities and disasters (Ist ed.).
London: Rutledge.
• Cutter, S. L., Boruff, B. J., & Shirley, W. L. (2003). Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 84(2),
242-261.
• Cutter, S. (2006, June 11). The geography of social vulnerability: Race, class, and catastrophe. Social Science Research
Council. Retrieved October 28, 2011, from http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Cutter/
• Gaillard, J. C. (2010). Vulnerability, capacity and resilience: Perspectives for climate and development policy. Journal of
International Development, 22(2), 218-232.
• Haque, C., & Etkin, D. (2007). People and community as constituent parts of hazards: the significance of societal dimensions
in hazards analysis. Natural Hazards, 41(2), 271-282.
• Haque, C. E. (2003). Perspectives of natural disasters in East and South Asia, and the Pacific Island states: Socio-economic
correlates and needs assessment. Natural Hazards, 29(3), 465-483.
• Hewitt, K. (1983). The idea of calamity in a technocratic age. In K. Hewitt (Ed.), Interpretations of calamity (pp. 3-32, 123-
139). Boston: Allen & Unwin Inc.
• Pasteur, K. (2011). From vulnerability to resilience: A framework for analysis and action to build community resilience.
Warwickshire: Practical Action.
• Pooley, J. A., Cohen, L., & O'Connor, M. (2006). Links between community and individual resilience: Evidence from cyclone
affected communities in North West Australia. In D. Paton & D. Johnston (Eds.), Disater resilience: An integrated approach
(pp. 161-173). Illionois: Charles C Thomas.
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Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema, SZABIST, Islamabad