Disaster

A disaster is something bad that happens. Disasters can destroy homes and many kinds of work. Disasters can be of different types, but most are caused by wars or forces of nature.

Natural disasters

These may include avalanches (where snow comes down a mountain), cold (where animals and people freeze), diseases (sicknesses), droughts (when there is no water), earthquakes (where the ground moves), famine (where there is not enough food), fire, flood (where rivers grow and invade land), hail (hard ice falls like rain), heat that lowers the water supply, hurricanes that may destroy homes, landslides and mudslides, sink holes (where a cave falls in), storm surge (where water piles up and then suddenly comes on land), thunderstorms (rain with lightning and thunder), tornadoes (currents of wind that break things), tsunami (where a wall of water comes on land), volcanoes erupting, a waterspout (like a tornado on water), or winter storms (where snow falls so thick you cannot see).

Possibly the worst natural disaster recorded was the earthquake in Shaanxi, China in 1556. It is measured at 9.0 on the Richter scale and 850,000 people are said to have died in the quake.

Human-caused disasters

Disasters caused by humans include wars, aviation (flying) accidents, arson, CBRNs (where a country has a powerful weapon), civil disorder (where people riot or do crimes), power outages (where electricity is interrupted), public relations crises where a company must tell bad news, radiation accidents, disasters in space, a telecommunications outage (not being able to communicate), and terrorism.

Living through a disaster

To live through a disaster, it is important that your family and your city prepare in advance. This may be making a pack of things you need in an emergency, it may be a government sending soldiers to help, or it may be something in between. It is recommended to keep a disaster survival kit with canned goods, in the advent of such a disaster.

Related pages

Other websites

Department of Homeland Security Archived 2006-10-16 at the Wayback Machine
London Prepared Archived 2006-02-25 at the Wayback Machine
Disaster Psychiatry Outreach
Preparing an emergency survival kit
EM-DAT: The International Disasters Database Archived 2006-10-04 at the Wayback Machine includes information on man-made and natural disasters, basic definitions and a database of disasters occurrence and impact from 1900 to today
Disasters factsheet
Assisting Children and Adolescents in Coping with Disasters Archived 2006-03-07 at the Wayback Machine