Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction

Module 1:
Basic Concept of Disaster and Disaster Risk

Definition of Disaster
What makes an event a disaster? The answer lies with how the population is
eventually affected: both the direct effects on the people as well as the indirect effects or
damage to infrastructure. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
(2015) defines disaster as a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society
due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of vulnerability and exposure, leading
to widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts. Disasters
are a type of hazardous event in which there is a significant disruption of the function of all
or part of society. The impact of the disaster is often widespread and could last for a long
period of time. The impact may test or exceed the capacity of a community or society to
cope using its own resources, and therefore may requires assistance from external sources,
which could include neighboring jurisdictions, or national or international levels.

Disaster results from the combination of: the exposure to a hazard; the conditions of
vulnerability that are present; and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce or cope with
the potential negative consequences. Consequences may include injuries, disease and
other negative effects on human physical, mental and social well-being, together with
damage to property, loss of services and environmental degradation.

Although there are many definitions for disaster (Refer to Box 1), there are common
factors. First, there is an event or phenomenon that impacts a population or an
environment. Second, a vulnerable condition or characteristic allows the event to have a
more serious impact. For example, a typhoon will cause much greater damage to life and
structures if it directly strikes an area with poorly constructed dwellings compared to
striking a community of well-built homes with greater structural support. Identifying these
factors has practical implications for communities’ preparedness and provides a basis for
prevention. Third, local resources are often inadequate to cope with the problems created
by the phenomenon or event. Disaster affects communities in multiple ways. Their impact
on the health care infrastructure is also multi-factorial. The disaster event can cause an
unexpected number of deaths. In addition, the large numbers of wounded and sick often
exceed the local community’s health care delivery capacity.

How and when an event becomes a disaster?

An event, either human-made or natural, becomes a disaster when it is sudden or
progressive, causing widespread human, material, or environmental losses. Let’s take an
example, typhoon Yolanda. Typhoon Yolanda is a natural phenomenon. However, it became
a disaster for some factors: its strength (290 km/hr); the storm surge it brought was
sudden and unexpected; and it is devastating to human, material, and environment. More
than 7,000 people perished. The entire City of Tacloban was literally flattened to the
ground.

Our country, the Philippines, is frequently visited by typhoons on the average of 20

every year. Thus, we can consider typhoons as natural events. However, in 2009, Typhoon
Ondoy turned into a disaster because the amount of precipitation brought by its torrential
rains lasted for several days causing floods and flash floods in Metro Manila. Thousands of
houses were submerged in flood water. Hundreds of shelters along riverbanks and esteros
were washed out. Power and water supplies were cut off for several weeks. Hundreds of
lives perished.

Wow Wowie, hosted by Willie Revillame, a popular singer-comedian, became so

popular. Thousands of fans flock to ULTRA (a huge event venue during that time) to watch
the noon time variety show. However, that event turned out to a disastrous tragedy when
there was a human-induced disturbance among the watching crowd that caused a
stampede. Many spectators were hurt and some even died which led to the dissolution of
the said TV program.

Classisfication of Disasters
Disasters can be divided into two large categories:

A. Natural Disasters – a natural phenomenon caused by natural forces, such as

earthquakes, typhoon, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, fires, tornados, and extreme
temperatures. They can be classified as rapid onset disasters and those with
progressive onset, such as droughts that lead to famine. These events, usually
sudden, can have tremendous effects.
B. Man-made Disasters – caused by man in which direct causes are identifiable
intentional or non-intentional human actions.

Three categories of man-made disasters:

1. Technological/industrial disasters – Unregulated industrialization and
inadequate safety standards increase the risk for industrial disasters. Examples:
leaks of hazardous materials; accidental explosions; bridge or road collapses, or
vehicle collisions; power cuts
2. Terrorism/Violence – The threat of terrorism has also increased due to the spread
of technologies involving nuclear, biological, and chemical agents used to develop
weapons of mass destruction.
Examples: bombs or explosions; release of chemical materials; release of
biological agents; release of radioactive agents; multiple or massive shootings;
mutinies
3. Complex humanitarian emergencies – The term complex emergency is usually
used to describe the humanitarian emergency resulting from an international or
civil war. In such situations, large numbers of people are displaced from their
homes due to the lack of personal safety and the disruption of basic
infrastructure including food distribution, water, electricity, and sanitation, or
communities are left stranded and isolated in their own homes unable to access
assistance.
Examples: conflicts or wars and genocide that deliberately kills a large group of
people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.

Risk and Risk Factors

Risk has various connotations within different disciplines. In general, risk is defined
as “the combination of the probability of an event and its negative consequences” (UNISDR,
2009). It is usually associated with the degree to which humans cannot cope (lack of
capacity) with a situation (e.g. natural hazard).

Relative to disaster, a salient factor that needs to be addressed properly is disaster

risk. Disaster risk is the potential loss of life, injury, or destroyed or damaged assets which
could occur to a system, society or a community in a specific period of time, determined
probabilistically as a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity (UNDRR,
2019). From the definition, disaster risk is widely recognized as the consequence of the
interaction between a hazard and the characteristics that make people and places
vulnerable and exposed.

Risk = Hazard x Exposure x Vulnerability

As we can see from the mathematical equation of risk, disaster risk has three
important elements:

1. Exposure – the elements at risk from a natural or man-made hazard event (Quebral,
2016))
2. Hazard – a potentially dangerous physical occurrence, phenomenon or human
activity that may result in loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic
disruption, or environmental degradation
3. Vulnerability – the conditions determined by physical, social, economic, and
environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual,
a community, assets or systems to the impacts of hazards (UNDRR, 2019).
Disaster risk has many characteristics. In order to understand disaster risk, it is
essential to understand that it is:

• Forward looking the likelihood of loss of life, destruction, and damage in a given
period of time

• Dynamic: it can increase or decrease according to our ability to reduce

vulnerability

• Invisible: it is comprised of not only the threat of high-impact events, but also the
frequent, low-impact events that are often hidden

• Unevenly distributed around the earth: hazards affect different areas, but the
pattern of disaster risk reflects the social construction of exposure and vulnerability
in different countries

• Emergent and complex: many processes, including climate change and globalized
economic development, are creating new, interconnected risks

The following are taken into consideration when risk factors underlying disaster are
involved (ADPC, 2012):

a. Severity of exposure. The amount of exposure to the disaster is highly related to

risk of future mental problems. At highest risk are those that go through the
disaster themselves. Next are those in close contact with victims. At lower risk are
those who only had indirect exposure, such as news of the severe damage. Injury
and life threat are the factors that lead most often to mental health problems.
b. Gender and family. Women or girls suffer more negative effects than do men or
boys. Disaster recovery is more stressful when children are present in the home.
Women with spouses also experience more distress during recovery. Having a
family member in the home who is extremely distressed is related to more stress
for everyone. Marital stress has been found to increase after disasters. Also,
 conflicts between family members or lack of support in the home make it harder
to recover from disasters.
c. Age. Adults who are in the age range of 40–60 are likely to be more distressed
after disasters. The thinking is that if one is in that age range, he/she has more
demands from job and family.
d. Developing countries. Disasters in developing countries, like the Philippines, have
more severe mental health impact than do disasters in developed countries. This
is true even with less serious disasters. For
example, natural disasters are generally thought to be less serious than human-
caused. In developing countries, however, natural disasters have more severe
effects than do human-caused disasters in developed countries.
e. Low or negative social support. Social support can weaken after disasters. This
may be due to stress and the need for members of the support network to get on
with their own lives. Sometimes the responses from other disaster victims rely on
for support are negative. For example, someone may play down their problems,
needs, or pain, or expect them to recover more quickly than is realistic.

Factors which underlie disasters

1. Climate Change – can increase disaster risk in a variety of ways – by altering the
frequency and intensity of hazards events, affecting vulnerability to hazards, and
changing exposure patterns. For most people, the expression “climate change”
means the alteration of the world’s climate that we humans are causing such as
burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other practices that increase the carbon
footprint and concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
2. Environmental Degradation – changes to the environment can influence the
frequency and intensity of hazards, as well as our exposure and vulnerability to
these hazards. For instance, deforestation of slopes often leads to an increase in
landslide hazard and removal of mangroves can increase the damage caused by
storm surges (UNISDR, 2009). It is considered both a driver and consequence of
disasters, reducing the capacity of the environment to meet social and ecological
needs. Over consumption of natural resources results in environmental degradation,
reducing the effectiveness of essential ecosystem services, such as the mitigation of
floods and landslides. This leads to increased risk from disasters, and in turn,
natural hazards can further degrade the environment.
3. Globalized Economic Development – it results in an increased polarization between
the rich and poor on a global scale. Currently increasing the exposure of assets in
hazard prone areas, globalized economic development provides an opportunity to
build resilience, if effectively managed. By participating in risk sensitive development
strategies such as investing in protective structure, environmental management, and
upgrading informal settlements, risk can be reduced. Dominance and increase of
wealth in certain regions and cities are expected to have increased hazard exposure.
4. Poverty and Inequality – impoverished people are more likely to live in hazard
exposed areas and are less able to invest in risk-reducing measures. The lack of
access to insurance and social protection means that people in poverty are often
forced to use their already limited assets to buffer disaster losses, which drives them
into further poverty. Poverty is therefore both a cause and consequence of disaster
risk, particularly extensive risk, with drought being the hazard most closely
associated with poverty. The impact of disasters on the poor can, in addition to loss
of life, injury and damage, cause a total loss of livelihoods, displacement, poor
health, food insecurity, among other consequences. Vulnerability is not simply about
poverty, but extensive research over the past 30 years has revealed that is generally
the poor who tend to suffer worst from disasters.
5. Poorly planned and Managed Urban Development – a new wave of urbanization is
unfolding in hazard-exposed countries and with it, new opportunities for resilient
investment emerge. People, poverty, and disaster
 risk are increasingly concentrated in cities. The growing rate of urbanization and the
increase in population density (in cities) can lead to creation of risk, especially when
urbanization is rapid, poorly planned and occurring in a context of widespread
poverty. Growing concentrations of people and economic activities in many cities are
seen to overlap with areas of high-risk exposure.
6. Weak Governance – weak governance zones are investment environments in which
public sector actors are unable or unwilling to assume their roles and
responsibilities in protecting rights, providing basic services and public services.
Disaster risk is disproportionately concentrated in lower-income countries with weak
governance. Disaster risk governance refers to the specific arrangements that
societies put in place to manage their disaster risk within a broader context of risk
governance. This reflects how risk is valued against a backdrop of broader social and
economic concerns.

Certain factors are related to a survivor’s background and recovery is hampered if

survivors were not functioning well before the disaster, have no experience dealing with
disasters, must deal with other stressors after the disaster, have low self- esteem, feel
uncared for by others, think they exercise little control over what happens to them, and
unable to many stresses.
More factors contributory to worse outcomes are death of someone close, injury to self
or family member, life threat, panic, horror, or similar feelings, separation from family,
massive loss of property and displacement.
Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction
Module 2: Understanding the Effects of Disasters
Effects of Disasters on One’s Life
The following are the common effects of disaster identified by some studies on disaster
risk and management:
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 like flood and super typhoons, many people have to abandon their
homes and seek shelter in other regions. A large influx of evacuees can disrupt
accessibility of health care and education, as well as food supplies and clean water.
When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, thousands of families in Zambales and Pampanga
were displaced. Their communities were ravaged by lahar flow that turned these
communities into “wilderness”. Several resettlement areas were established to
accommodate those who were displaced. These resettlement areas which started as tent
cities for those affected by the volcanic eruption became permanent communities.
2. Health Risks. Aside from the obvious immediate danger that natural disasters present,
the secondary effects can be just as damaging. Severe flooding can result in stagnant
water that allows breeding of waterborne bacteria and malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Dengue fever is another serious health problem caused by mosquitoes (Aedis egypti).
Without emergency relief from international aid organizations and others, death tolls can
rise even after the immediate danger has passed.
3. Food Scarcity. After natural disasters, food often becomes scarce. Thousands of people
around the world go hungry as a result of destroyed crops and loss of agricultural
supplies, whether it happens suddenly in a storm or gradually in a drought. As a result,
food prices rise, reducing families’ purchasing power and increasing the risk of severe
malnutrition. The impacts of hunger following an earthquake, typhoon or hurricane can
 be tremendous, causing lifelong damage to children’s development. One of the serious
“aftershocks” of Super Typhoon Yolanda was there’s no food to eat immediately after the
storm surge. This resulted into looting of some stores and supermarkets in Tacloban
City.
4. Emotional Aftershocks. Natural disasters can be particularly traumatic for young
children. Confronted with scenes of destruction and the deaths of friends and loved
ones, many children develop post-traumatic 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.
The Different Perspectives of Disaster
A disaster is a result of a vast ecological breakdown in the relation between humans and
their environment; a serious or sudden event on such a scale that the stricken community
needs extraordinary efforts to cope with it, often with outside help or international aid.
Disaster is analyzed from different perspectives as follows: Physical
Perspective
From this view, disaster is defined as a phenomenon that cause damage to physical
elements such as buildings, infrastructures, including people and their properties, e.g. houses
and environmental sources of living. Physical effects are the most visible and quantifiable
effects of a disaster. In assessing the aftermath of a disaster, physical damages are essentially
considered in data recording. Assessment of disaster is focused on the following common
questions:
How many families are affected? (displacement, injury, death)

How many houses are damaged or washed out? (in case of super typhoons) How many
buildings collapsed or are damaged? (in case of an earthquake)
How many roads, bridges, dams and other infrastructures are damaged? (in case of floods,
lahar flows and earthquakes)
What is the extent of damage in agricultural industry? (crop losses, damaged fish cages,
washed out rice fields, etc.)

Psychological Perspective

Psychological research has shown that disasters can cause serious mental health
consequences for victims. These consequences take the form of Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) and a variety of other disorders and symptoms which have been less investigated. The
more stress, defined in a variety of ways, within the disaster, the more likely there are to be
emotional consequences.
In psychological context a disaster is regarded as an occurrence involving an unexpected
or uncontrollable event rather than a long-term experience. In other words, a disaster is
something that could happen within a hazard rather than the hazard itself. Hence, one very
important component of the recovery phase, aside from relief services is debriefing or
psychological support system.

Other psychological effects of a disaster are the following:

• Emotional effects: Shock, terror, irritability, blame, anger, guilt, grief or sadness,
 numbing, helplessness, loss of pleasure derived from familiar activities, difficulty feeling happy,
difficulty feeling loved.
Cognitive effects: Impaired concentration, impaired decision-making ability, memory
impairment, disbelief, confusion, nightmares, decreased self-esteem, decreased self-efficacy,
self-blame, intrusive thoughts, memories, dissociation
• Physical effects: Fatigue, exhaustion, insomnia, cardiovascular strain, startle
response, hyper arousal, increased physical pain, reduced immune response, headaches,
gastrointestinal upset, decreased appetite, decreased libido, vulnerability to illness.
• Interpersonal effects: Increased relational conflict social withdrawal, reduced
relational intimacy, alienation, impaired work performance, decreased satisfaction, distrust,
externalization of blame, externalization of vulnerability, feeling abandoned.
Socio-Cultural Perspective

What the people living at risk know and do about natural hazards and disaster risks is
mediated by a range of factors including social conditions (such as age, gender, wealth,
ethnicity) and cultural settings (language, beliefs, traditions, customs). In most places people
are also more or less exposed by information and ideas coming from the “outside” – the world
outside their own cultural setting. At the same, the field of natural hazards and disasters has
developed its own debates, framework, and notions such as vulnerability, resilience, and ‘risk’.
But communities may have different priorities and notions of natural hazards and disaster
risks. People’s socio-cultural background may affect their response to disasters at the different
stages of disaster management.
Hence, from the socio-cultural point of view, a disaster is analyzed based on how people
respond having as parameter their social conditions and cultural settings. These two factors are
important determinants of the degree of risk, resilience and vulnerability of those affected. That
is why some ethnic groups can easily cope with disasters compared to other groups.
Economic Perspective
From an economic perspective, a natural disaster can be defined as a natural event that
causes a perturbation to the functioning of the economic system, with a significant negative
impact on assets, production factors, output, employment and consumption. One salient
component of assessing the impact of disaster impact from this view is defining direct economic
cost and indirect losses.
Direct economic cost is the value of what has been damaged or destroyed by the
disaster. This should be seriously considered in disaster risk management and assessment.
However, to get the whole picture indirect losses is crucial in assessing disaster seriousness.
This is done by evaluating the main indirect consequences of a disaster. One example is when a
head of family losses a job due to isolation or the workplace itself is affected. The value of
losses is measured vis-à-vis time period and salary including perks and allowances.
Political Perspective
From this view, natural disasters are commonly thought to be less politically contentious
than armed conflicts. Yet, a closer look reveals that politics are deeply wedded to both the
impact of a natural disaster and the subsequent delivery of humanitarian assistance. Political
considerations before, during, and after a natural disaster can determine who is most at risk,
who can intervene, what actions will be taken, and who will benefit from those actions. Some
case studies demonstrate that
Political Perspective
 From this view, natural disasters are commonly thought to be less politically contentious
than armed conflicts. Yet, a closer look reveals that politics are deeply wedded to both the
impact of a natural disaster and the subsequent delivery of humanitarian assistance. Political
considerations before, during, and after a natural disaster can determine who is most at risk,
who can intervene, what actions will be taken, and who will benefit from those actions. Some
case studies demonstrate that

economic, social, and political factors can significantly amplify the devastating impact of a
natural disaster.
Governmentality or deliverance of government services to constituents can be a plus or
minus factor in disaster risk reduction and management. Government interventions should be
present in following phases of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management: (1) Prevention, (2)
Mitigation, (3) Preparedness, and (4) Recovery. Failure to do so adversely affects the capacity
and opportunities of those affected to cope with and recover from the impacts of disaster.
Environmental Perspective
Disasters are not random and do not occur by accident. They are the convergence of
hazards and vulnerable conditions. Disasters not only reveal underlying social, economic,
political and environmental problems, but unfortunately contribute to worsening them. Such
events pose serious challenges to development, as they erode hard-earned gains in terms of
political, social and educational progress, as well as infrastructure and technological
development. The Millennium Declaration recognizes the risk to development stemming from
disasters and calls on the global community to “intensify our collective efforts to reduce the
number and effects of natural hazards and man-made disasters.” Several studies have recently
highlighted the fact that investments in development are in jeopardy unless precautionary
action is taken toward reducing disaster risk. Yet, few development organizations adopt a
precautionary approach in the design and management of projects and fewer still recognize the
role of environmental management in reducing disaster risk.