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Disaster Risk Reduction: Effect of Disasters On One's Life

1. The document discusses the effects of natural disasters on human life and societies from different perspectives including physical, psychological, socio-cultural, economic, political, and biological. 2. It outlines several impacts such as displaced populations, health risks, food scarcity, and emotional aftershocks. Disasters can also cause lasting psychological damage in children. 3. The document provides ways to reduce disaster risks such as preparing emergency kits, identifying safe places, and educating communities on preparedness. Understanding disasters from multiple views can help form more effective response and recovery strategies.

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Mary
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974 views

Disaster Risk Reduction: Effect of Disasters On One's Life

1. The document discusses the effects of natural disasters on human life and societies from different perspectives including physical, psychological, socio-cultural, economic, political, and biological. 2. It outlines several impacts such as displaced populations, health risks, food scarcity, and emotional aftershocks. Disasters can also cause lasting psychological damage in children. 3. The document provides ways to reduce disaster risks such as preparing emergency kits, identifying safe places, and educating communities on preparedness. Understanding disasters from multiple views can help form more effective response and recovery strategies.

Uploaded by

Mary
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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02.20.

23 (MON)
Disaster Risk Reduction
Objectives:
After going through this module, you are expected to:
1. Identify the effects of disasters to human and to society.
2. Determine ways to lessen the impact of a disaster.
3. Cite personal values that can help one overcome the effects of disasters.
4. Help the community in reducing the effects of Natural and Human-made disasters

Effect of Disasters on One's Life

A natural disaster can bring about many devastating effects. Among these are deaths, destruction of infrastructures,
loss of livelihood and services and other physical and nonphysical effects.

What is the difference between hazard and disaster?


 A hazard is a dangerous situation or event that carries a threat to human. A disaster is an event that harms
humans and disrupts the operations of society. Hazards can only be considered disaster once it affected
humans. If a disaster happened in an unpopulated area. It is still a hazard.

The Human Effect of Natural Disasters

1. Displaced Populations - one of the most immediate effects of natural disasters is population displacement when
countries are ravaged by earthquakes or other powerful forces of nature, many people need to abandon their home and
seek shelter in other regions. A large influx of refugees can disrupt accessibility of health care and education, as well
as food supplies and clean water.

2. Health Risks - aside from obvious immediate danger that natural disaster present, the secondary effect can be just
as damaging. Severe flooding can result in stagnant water that allows breeding of waterborne bacteria and malaria-
carrying mosquitoes. Without emergency relief from international aid organizations and others, death tolls can rise
even after the immediate danger has passed.

3. Food Scarcity - the aftermath of natural disasters affects the food supplies. Thousands of people around the world
are hungry because of destroyed crops and loss of agricultural supplies, whether it happens suddenly in a storm or
gradually in drought. As a result, food prices rise reducing families' purchasing power and increasing the risk of severe
malnutrition or worse. The impacts of hunger following an earthquake, typhoon or hurricane can be tremendous
causing lifelong damaged to children's development.

4. Emotional Aftershocks - Natural disasters can be particularly traumatic for young children. Confronted with
scenes of destruction and deaths of friends and loved ones, many children develop post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), a serious psychological condition resulting from extreme trauma. Left untreated, children suffering from
PTSD can be prone to lasting psychological damage and emotional distress.

Great damage caused by disaster can be reduced if everyone will take responsibility in anticipating its effects.
Here are some ways on how to plan ahead of a disaster:
1. Check for hazards at home
2. Identify safe place indoors and outdoors.
3. Educate yourself and family members.
4. Have Disaster kits/supplies on hand
5. Develop an emergency communication plan.
6. Help your community get ready.
7. Practice the Disaster Preparedness Cycle
The Different Perspectives of Disaster

1. Physical perspective - Calamities are phenomena that cause great physical damage in a community infrastructure,
its people and their properties. E.g. houses and environmental sources of living. These cited effects of disaster can be
easily measured and the most common.

2. Psychological Perspective - Victims of disasters may suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and
other serious mental health conditions, which are not being given much attention by the authorities or even by the
victims, themselves.

3. Socio-cultural Perspective - Filipinos are generally known as "matiisin", resourceful, helpful, optimistic and
prayerful. These characteristics are manifested in the country's recent fight against COVID19. Due to the National
Health Emergency, Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) prevailed in the whole country. A lot of people
temporarily lost their jobs, some people stranded in different quarantine facilities in Metro Manila, and all people were
restricted to go out of their homes for months. As a result, most Filipino families would rely on government's help for
them to get by. However, limited resources and aids from the government make people find possible ways to survive
amid the pandemic.

4. Economic perspective - Disaster affects the economic condition of a community because they reduce local and
international trade. It can also partially or totally paralyze a country's transportation system, just like what happened in
the COVID19 pandemic, 22 implementation of a partial and total shut down of local business operations result to a lot
of people losing means of living.

5. Political perspective - Natural disaster are commonly thought to be less politically argumentative than armed
conflicts, yet a closer look show that both the effects of natural disaster and the resulting distribution of humanitarian
aid are profoundly linked to politics.

6. Biological perspective - the disturbing effects caused by a prevalent kind of diseases or virus in an epidemic or
pandemic level is known as biological disaster.
(a) Epidemic Level - Biological disaster affects large number of people within a given community or area (Ex.
Dengue)
(b) Pandemic Level - Biological disaster affect a large region, sometime spanning entire continents or the globe.

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