Disaster

Introduction
A disaster can be defined as an emergency of such severity and magnitude that the resultant combination of deaths, injuries, illness, and property damage cannot be effectively managed with routine procedures or resources. These events can be caused by nature, equipment malfunction, human error, or biological hazards and disease. Public health agencies must be concerned about the universal risk for disaster, the increase in natural disasters across the United States, the negative impact of disasters on public health, and the likely increase of actual and potential effects of manmade disasters. A significant proportion of Americans are at risk from only three classes of natural disasters: floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes. Twenty five to 50 million people live in floodplains that have been highly developed as living and working environments. Another 110 million people live in coastal areas of the United States, including the Great Lakes region. By the year 2010, 60 percent of the US population may be living within 50 miles of the East or West Coast. A category 4 hurricane has an 80 percent chance of hitting the coastal area from Maine to Texas. Disasters pose a number of unique problems not encountered in the routine practice of emergency health care. Examples include the need for warning and evacuation, widespread urban search and rescue, triage and casualty distribution, and coordination among multiple jurisdictions, government offices, and private sector organizations. The effective management of these concerns requires special expertise. However, hospitals and other health care agencies must be able to address these situations quickly and effectively to meet the standards of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the regulations of the Occupational and Safety Health Administration.

Types of Disaster
a) Natural disaster
Natural Disaster leads to financial, environmental or human losses. The resulting loss depends on the vulnerability of the affected population to resist the hazard, also called theirresilience.This understanding is concentrated in the formulation: "disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability Thus a natural hazard will not result in a natural disaster in areas without

vulnerability, e.g. strong earthquakes in uninhabited areas.The term natural has consequently been disputed because the events simply are not hazards or disasters without human involvement. A concrete example of the division between a natural hazard and a natural disaster is that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was a disaster, whereas earthquakes are a hazard. This article gives an introduction to notable natural disasters, refer to the list of natural disasters for a comprehensive listing.

Earthquakes Volcanos Floods Tornadoes, Typhoons, Cyclones

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by vibration, shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground. The vibrations may vary in magnitude. Earthquakes are caused mostly by slippage within geological faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, andnuclear tests. The underground point of origin of the earthquake is called the focus. The point directly above the focus on the surface is called the epicenter. Earthquakes by themselves rarely kill people or wildlife. It is usually the secondary events that they trigger, such as building collapse, fires, tsunamis(seismic sea waves) and volcanoes, that are actually the human disaster. Many of these could possibly be avoided by better construction, safety systems, early warning and evacuation planning. Some of the most significant earthquakes in recent times include:

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the third largest earthquake in recorded history,

registering a moment of 9.1-9.3. The huge tsunamis triggered by this earthquake cost the lives of at least 229,000 people.

The 2011 Thoku earthquake and tsunami registered a moment magnitude of 9.0. The

death toll from the earthquake and tsunami is over 13,000, and over 12,000 people are still missing.

The 8.8 magnitude February 27, 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami cost 525 lives. The 7.9 magnitude May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. Death The 7.7 magnitude July 2006 Java earthquake, which also triggered tsunamis. The 7.6-7.7 magnitude 2005 Kashmir earthquake, which cost 79,000 lives in Pakistan.

toll at over 61,150 as of May 27, 2008.

Volcanic eruptions
Volcanoes can cause widespread destruction and consequent disaster through several ways. The effects include the volcanic eruption itself that may cause harm following the explosion of the volcano or the fall of rock. Second, lava may be produced during the eruption of a volcano. As it leaves the volcano, the lava destroys many buildings and plants it encounters. Third, volcanic ashgenerally meaning the cooled ash - may form a cloud, and settle thickly in nearby locations. When mixed with water this forms a concrete-like material. In sufficient quantity ash may cause roofs to collapse under its weight but even small quantities will harm humans if inhaled. Since the ash has the consistency of ground glass it causes abrasion damage to moving parts such as engines. The main killer of humans in the immediate surroundings of a volcanic eruption is the pyroclastic flows, which consist of a cloud of hot volcanic ash which builds up in the air above the volcano and rushes down the slopes when the eruption no longer supports the lifting of the gases. It is believed that Pompeii was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow. A lahar is a volcanic mudflow or landslide. The 1953 Tangiwai disaster was caused by a lahar, as was the 1985 Armero tragedy in which the town of Armero was buried and an estimated 23,000 people were killed. A specific type of volcano is the supervolcano. According to the Toba catastrophe theory 70 to 75 thousand years ago a super volcanic event at Lake Toba reduced the human population to 10,000 or even 1,000 breeding pairs creating a bottleneck in human evolution.It also killed three quarters of all plant life in the northern hemisphere. The main danger from a supervolcano is the immense cloud of ash which has a disastrous global effect on climate and temperature for many years.

Floods
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land.The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water.In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees, with the result that some of the water escapes its usual boundaries.While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in

precipitation and snow melt, it is not a significant flood unless such escapes of water endanger land areas used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area. Some of the most notable floods include:

The Huang He (Yellow River) in China floods particularly often. The Great Flood of The Great Flood of 1993 was one of the most costly floods in United States history. The 1998 Yangtze River Floods, in China, left 14 million people homeless. The 2000 Mozambique flood covered much of the country for three weeks, resulting in The 2005 Mumbai floods which destroyed 1094 people. The 2010 Pakistan floods, damaged crops and infrastructure, claiming many lives.

1931 caused between 800,000 and 4,000,000 deaths.

thousands of deaths, and leaving the country devastated for years afterward.

Tropical cyclones can result in extensive flooding and storm surge, as happened with:

Bhola Cyclone, which struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1970, Typhoon Nina, which struck China in 1975, Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005, and Cyclone Yasi, which struck Australia in 2011

Tornadoes
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone,although the wordcyclone is used in meteorology in a wider sense, to name any closed low pressure circulation. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (177 km/h), are approximately 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 mph (480 km/h), stretch more than two miles (3 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km).

b) Man Made
These are mostly caused due to certain human activities. The disasters themselves could be unintentional, but, are caused due to some intentional activity. Most of these (barring coordinated terrorist activities) are due to certain accidents which could have been prevented if sufficient precautionary measures were put in place.

Nuclear Leaks Chemical Leaks/Spill over Terrorist Activities Structural Collapse

Nuclear Leaks
These days, nuclear technology is used in several applications. Some of these include: medicinal, power and of-course military. Out of these, nuclear energy based power is getting popular. In any case, because of growth in applications, based on nuclear technology, there are several nuclear installations being found at industrial scale. In general, nuclear installations are highly sophisticated, and, have lots of control measures in place to prevent any major hazard. Still, its a fact, that inspite of all these sophistications etc. accidents could still occur. The problem with nuclear accidents is though, less frequent (due to high degree of sophistication and control measures), but, once an accident occurs, the impact is severe. Some of the worst known nuclear accidents have been at: A. Three Mile Island, near H Harrisburg Pennsylvania, USA in 1979 B. Chernobyl (in current Ukraine), in (then) USSR, in 1986 Besides, once in a while, smaller incidents of minor amounts of leaks get reported from around the world. You should be prepared for nuclear accidents/disasters, if you stay in an area, which has some nuclear reactor/setup around it. The problem with accidents/leaks with nuclear installation is that radioactive material might get discharged into the environment. This radioactive material could then enter human bodies. The primary ways for these radioactive materials to enter human-bodies is: a. through breathing of contaminated air b. through eating of contaminated food (including livestock animals which might have inhaled/eaten contaminated air/food) including milk from a cow which has grazed on contaminated grass!! c. through drinking of contaminated water d. through pores of skin etc which might be in contact with contaminated air or water. This is very small small enough to be considered as negligible.

Chemical Leaks/Spill Over

As the world is making rapid advancements in the field of industrialization, there are huge chemicals plants dealing with all kinds of chemicals. Some of these chemical plants deal with seemingly simple (non-hazardous) chemicals, while, some other chemicals could be dealing with hazardous materials. Risks associated with chemicals and chemical industries include:

Risks due to blast of certain equipments involved in large chemical plants, e.g. boiler etc. Risks due to leakage of chemicals wherever they are stored/transported/used in small quantities etc.

Sometimes, seemingly harmless chemicals can also turn out to be hazardous, after they come in contact with other chemicals. Depending upon the toxicity of the material involved, the most common kinds of problems that might be caused due to a chemical leak/plant accident might include: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. Blast and explosion Irritation to eyes, throats etc. Pollution and/or poisoning of air, water-bodies etc. Impact on vegetation and animals (including fishes in water-bodies) Difficulty in breathing etc. Fumes Heat and/or fire etc.

Usually, chemical plants employ certain bare minimum safety measures. The amount of safety measures employed by chemical plants is a function of: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Risk and hazard associated with the specific chemical plants Local laws and regulations Vigilance level of local community Technical competence of the plant managers The companys own standard of ethics vs- short-term profitability decisions etc.

However, the places where there are practically no safety measures include:

While transportation. More often than not, most truck drivers have no knowledge of what they might be carrying, the detailed chemical property of the material they are carrying, the reactivity of their cargo with other elements etc. Hence, if an untoward incident happens during the transportation of chemicals, there might not be anybody with a good knowledge of what is to be done. Places where the chemicals might be stored, e.g. trading godowns etc. Again, in such cases, it is quite likely that the traders dealing in these chemicals might not be aware of the reactivity of these chemicals with other agents.

Thus, if an accident involving chemicals occurs during transportation etc., its best to stay away unless, you are very clear as to what is the material involved, and, its specific properties as well as how to mitigate the situatio

Terrorist Activities
Terrorist activities were traditionally not considered as disasters. However, during the last few years, terrorist activities have become more sophisticated in terms of the amount of detonating power on one side, and, the degree of coordination through which these are done, e.g. Several explosions are done almost simultaneously thereby leaving the law-enforcement agencies and rescue operations in total confusion and disarray. Further, terrorist activities are now using explosive powers of their victims themselves to create more powerful blasts. e.g. Detonation of bombs kept in vehicles. These vehicles along with their fuels then act as still more powerful bombs. Similarly, in one incident, airplanes were made to collide against buildings. These airplanes with a very high velocity and large amounts of highly combustible fuels acted as a very dangerous combination. Generally, large scale terrorist activities can be prevented only through timely collection and analysis of intelligence data. The only precaution that general population can take is to remain observant of their surroundings, and, report any suspicious activity to the law-enforcement agency. Generally, the following should be considered as signs of suspicion. For example

Some body not dressed appropriately for the occasion, e.g. somebody coming to be on a long-drive but wearing heavy clothing, e.g. jackets etc. Oklahama Bomb Blast (1995) culprit was caught due to this an outsider, but, trying to mix in etc.

Structural collapse
Structural collapses are often caused by engineering failures. Bridge failures may be caused in several ways, such as under-design (as in the Tay Bridge disaster), by corrosion attack (such as in the Silver Bridge collapse), or by aerodynamic flutter of the deck (as in Galloping Gertie, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge). Failure of dams was not infrequent during the Victorian era, such as the Dale Dyke dam failure in Sheffield, England in the 1860s, causing the Great Sheffield Flood. Other failures include balcony or building collapses such as that of the World