Showing papers on "Natural disaster published in 1989"

Disaster mitigation: a community based approach

Abstract: More people die as a result of natural disasters now than in the past. The reason for this is that more people are living in vulnerable situations. Disaster Mitigation first examines the underlying causes for this increased vulnerability and looks at why poor people suffer most when disaster strikes. The major part of the book is concerned with mitigating disaster. The author argues that when mitigation measures are carried out by community organisations they are not only more effective, but can also lead to a permanent reduction in vulnerability. Based on experiences, in the Rimac Valley, Peru, where innovative projects for disaster mitigation planning and implementation were carried out by people's own organisations, the book also provides an overview of selected case studies of vulnerability and disaster mitigation work in other parts of the world. The conclusions reached in Disaster Mitigation have important implications for all who work with people facing the threat of natural disasters. The book makes a powerful case for aid agencies and governments with responsibility for disaster relief and mitigation to focus more on the empowerment of community groups.

Psychosocial aspects of disaster

Abstract: Part 1 Foundations for the study of community disaster: the social and community contexts of disaster a classification scheme for disasters. Part 2 Types of disaster: natural disasters human responses and treatment needs in airline disasters the nature and effects of technological failures crime, violence, and terrorism. Part 3 Approaches to intervention: factors influencing help-seeking for mental health problems after disasters mental health and disaster: preventative approaches to intervention clinical responses to disaster: assessment, management and treatment planning and integrating disaster response. Part 4 Other issues: legal issues and public policy in the psychology of disasters evaluation and research issues in assessing disaster's effects. Epilogue: rebuilding and strengthening communities.

Coordinated Emergency Management: The Challenge of the Chronic Technological Disaster

Abstract: Providing effective emergency response and mitigating the impact of disaster requires the ability to act and knowledge of what to do. Chronic technological disasters present a special challenge to emergency management because authority to act on this type of disaster agent is diffuse and often lodged within a variety of agencies operating at different levels of government. Moreover, knowledge of the likely chain of events for technological disaster is still in its infancy when compared to the rich research base that exists for natural disaster. The authors argue that the emerging literature on chronic technological disaster reveals systematic and important differences between the reality of this type of disaster and what conventional wisdom based on natural disaster experience says about technological disaster. This study addresses characteristics of chronic technological disasters and examines how the nature of technological disaster affects the practice of emergency management.

A Case Study of Social Behaviour in a Natural Disaster: The Olivares Landslide (Spain)

Abstract: The modern sociological literature on disasters highlights the fact that many of the ideas about human behaviour in disasters which were long considered as valid, are wrong. The main discovery is based on the fact that situations of crisis increase people's moral principles and capability of response. This paper illustrates some of these ideas, in a case study of a village which was struck by a natural disaster in the north of Granada (Spain) in 1986. The population's attitude revealed a huge potential of resources that were underestimated by professionals of disaster management. The analysis shows that it is necessary to bring civil protection systems and the population's capability of response into close harmony.

Consideration of Natural Disasters in the Economic Analysis of Agricultural Development Projects

Abstract: Nearly 90 percent of the world's natural disasters occur in 1DCs. Agricultural sectors are particularly prone to economic damage from natural disaster, yet, economic analyses of agricultural development projects seldom recognize the potential impacts of natural disasters on project net benefits. Several methods are available for incorporating natural disaster information into benefit-oost analysis. Using data from a development project in SL Lucia, a stochastic simulation approach is applied to assess the feasibility of the project with and without a disaster mitigation practice. The mitigation practice is the use of nematicides to reduce wind damage to newly established banana plantings. Mitigatioo is foond to lower the project's expected intemai rate of return and to lower the riskiness of the project. This type of informatioo could be useful to project planners for evaluating disaster mitigation measures and for selecting among ccmpeting projects.

Organization of Medical Services in Disaster Areas

Abstract: Disasters may be defined as a disruption of the human ecology, which the affected community cannot overcome with its own resources. Medically, it creates a temporary situation in which the demands for health services exceed the available supply of manpower, knowledge and resources. Some disasters cause severe damage to the infrastructure in the affected area, thus disrupting transportation, communication, electricity, water supply and health services. Such occurs in wars, earthquakes, avalanches, floodings and severe storms. Other disasters may cause increased morbidity and mortality in the affected population, without damage to the infrastructure, e.g. industrial and nuclear disasters, famine and communicable disases.

Liturgical Responses to (Natural) Disaster in Seventeenth-Century England

Abstract: The Reformation began a new era in the religious history of England as in its political history. But if there was much that changed, there was also much that remained the same. War and the threat of war, without and within, disaster and disease continued. An earthquake in 1580 did relatively little damage in London but was taken very seriously indeed as a warning of worse things impending. The Great Fire of London, nearly a century later, did enormous damage, destroying upwards of 12,000 dwellings and over 85 parish churches as well as St. Paul's Cathedral on which vast sums of money had already been spent earlier in the century; the Fire, too, was taken as a warning of worse yet. The Fire was important, however, not only because of the extent of the destruction that it wrought, nor yet for the opportunity that it gave for Christopher Wren (1632-1723) to leave his mark all over the City; it coincided with the end of the last and greatest epidemic of bubonic plague in London. The epidemic had begun late in 1664; there were relatively few deaths during what was a particularly severe winter, but by May 1665 numbers were beginning to rise. In June they amounted to 590, in July 6,137, in August 17,036, and in September 31,159. From then mortality steadily declined, but the first eight months of 1666 added a further 2,000. Undoubtedly the actual number of deaths from plague was higher than the number recorded in the bills of mortality, which totalled 68,596: C. F. Mullett estimates that the real number is likely to have been 50% higher.f Credit is often given to the Fire for the end of the epidemic. Certainly the Fire, which raged for four days from 2nd September 1666, saw a dramatic end to the epidemic there were sporadic deaths until 1679, but from then on no further deaths at all as the disease began its retreat eastwards. Neither the causes nor the cure of bubonic plague were known, though theories aboundedr' and there was no shortage of quacks willing to exploit the gullibility of the desperate." The most common theories blamed the disease on atmospheric conditions, a diagnosis that was closer to being