1.6C - Distaster Context
Contrasting hazard events in developed, emerging and developing countries to show the interaction of physical factors and the significance of context in influencing the scale of disaster.
Developing
Haiti, Port-au-Prince - HDI 0.48
- 160,000 deaths
- 1.5 million homeless
- 250,000 homes destroyed
Decades of corrupt, ineffective and brutal governance left Haitian people hugely vulnerable because of slum housing, ineffectual water supply and endemic poverty. A post-earthquake cholera epidemic has killed more than 10,000 people and infected more than 800,000.
Emerging
Sichuan, 2008, 0.73
- 69,000 deaths
- 375,000 injured
- Economic costs of $140 billion
Economic losses in China were high, reflecting its development progress since 1990, as it destroyed formal homes, businesses and infrastructure. The immediate response was rapid because the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were only months away, so the Communist government mobilised the army and other responders rapidly.
In developed countries major death tolls from tectonic hazards are rare. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan is very much exceptional in terms of impacts. Countries such as Japan, the USA and Chile have:
- advanced and widespread insurance, allowing people to recover from disasters (at least in the long term)
- government-run preparations such as Japan's Disaster Prevention Day on 1st September each year, as well as public education about risk, coping, response and evacuation.
- sophisticated monitoring of volcanoes and, where possible, defences such as tsunami walls
- regulated local planning systems, which use land-use zoning and building codes to ensure buildings can withstand hazards and are not located in areas of unacceptable risk.