Disaster?

This post is related to one of my block topics and to our latest disaster that hit my second home, Yogyakarta that started on 26th of October, 2010 and peaked on 5th of November, 2010. In this post, I would like to give a piece of information that hopefully, will help us understand about the concept of disaster.

Disaster? What is the meaning of disaster actually? If earthquake occur in the island in which there is no people and does not radiate (in term of vibration) to the other uninhabited area, it is considered disaster? Disaster word is originated from old French word, disastre. This word is a combination from the word Dis (bad or evil) and the word aster (star). The meaning of disaster is “A serious disruption in the functioning of the community or a society causing wide spread material, economic, social or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected society to cope using its own resources”.

There are four elements to be mentioned here; hazard, risk, capacity and vulnerability.

The hazards
Hazard is a dangerous condition or event, that threat or has potential of causing injury to life or damage to property or the environment. Hazard can be divided into natural, manmade or combination of both. The natural hazards such as earthquake or volcano eruption occur because of natural phenomenon. The manmade hazards such as wars, civil strikes or pollutions occur due to human negligence. Floods occur due to combination of both. We can take Merapi eruption as an example. If the human does not manage the path of the lava properly, it can lead to flood.

The Vulnerability
Vulnerability is the Extends to which a community, structure, service, or geographic area is likely to be damaged or disrupted by the impact of particular hazards, on account of their nature, construction and proximity to hazardous terrains or a disaster prone area.

Two categories of vulnerability; physical and socio-economic. The physical vulnerability is the related to “who” or “what” questions in term people or things that may be destroyed or damaged by natural disaster. Socio-economic vulnerability is related to the degree to which the population is affected by hazards not only in term of physical but socio-economic status as well. There were many people that were evacuated during Merapi eruption 2010, have been living in depressed state because they are not really strong in term of economy. Most of them who were living nearby Merapi volcano lost their properties such as house and their crops and poultry to which they depend on.

The capacity:
Capacity can be defined as “resources, means and strengths which exist in households and communities and which enable them to cope with, withstand, prepare for, prevent, mitigate or quickly recover from a disaster”.

Capacity can also be divided into two:
a. Physical.
b. socio-economic.

The physical capacity is related to human power to save things from their destroyed houses or from their farms and their ability to live in other area due to the skills or ability they posses to survive.

The socio-economic status is related to recover from disaster. Poor people suffer the most in most of the cases.

The risk:
Risk is a “measure of the expected losses due to a hazard event occurring in a given area over a specific time period.  The level of risk depends on three elements; nature of the hazards, vulnerability of the elements which are affected, and economic value of those elements.

References:
1. Vihar, P. Delhi, 2006.  Natural Hazards and Disaster Management. Introduction to disaster management.
[online accessed on November 19th  2010]

URL:
www.cbse.nic.in/natural%20hazards%20&%20disaster%20management.pdf