Natural Disasters

A natural disaster occurs from a natural event such as a flood, hurricane, volcanic eruption, tornado, landslide, tsunami or earthquake. These natural events can lead into a natural disaster by affecting the environment as well as financial and population stability. Depending on the type of event and the response capacity, the disaster, and the losses, can be minimized. Despite the fact that these events are deemed “natural disasters”, there is no disaster without vulnerability (eg. human involvement). An event occurring in an unpopulated area will not create a disaster and thus, the term “natural disaster” has been disputed.

In this section, we appreciate thoughts on global events that have created these “natural disasters”, such as the Haiti earthquake as well as discussion regarding prevention, protection and clean-up.