disaster
Sign in to savethumb|right|Ruins from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, one of the worst disasters in the history of the United States|300x300pxA disaster is an event that causes such serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment that the affected community cannot manage without external assistance or relief. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines a disaster as "a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the fol
AI overview
A disaster is a serious event—such as an earthquake—that causes so much damage to people, buildings, economies, or the environment that the affected community cannot recover on its own and needs outside help. Disasters matter because they disrupt how communities and societies function, and their severity depends on how hazardous events interact with local conditions like exposure and vulnerability.
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Article
20 sectionsContents
- Definitions
- Types
- Related to natural hazards
- Unrelated to natural hazards
- Others
- Effects
- Health effects
- Economic losses
- Human impacts
- Effects of climate change
- Cultural framings in disaster risk reduction
- Preparedness as governance under uncertainty
- Critical disaster studies
- Prevention and response
- Disaster risk reduction
- Disaster response
- Etymology
- See also
- References
- External links
thumb|right|Ruins from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, one of the worst disasters in the history of the United States|300x300pxA disaster is an event that causes such serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment that the affected community cannot manage without external assistance or relief. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines a disaster as "a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts". Natural disasters like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by natural hazards. Human-made disasters like oil spills, terrorist attacks and power outages are caused by people. It may be difficult to separate natural and human-made disasters because human actions can make natural disasters worse. Climate change also affects how often disasters due to extreme weather hazards happen.
Disasters usually affect people in developing countries more than people in wealthy countries. Over 95% of deaths from disasters happen in low-income countries, and those countries have higher economic losses compared to higher-income countries. For example, the damage from natural disasters is 20 times greater in developing countries than in industrialized countries. This is because low-income countries often do not have well-built buildings or good plans to handle emergencies.