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Thought of the month ...

January 2011: Is there anything like a natural disaster? Earth is a rather dynamic planet, with a dense-enough atmosphere to create powerful storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, and blizzards; a wast ocean with storm surges, tsunamis, and rapid changes of its levels moving coast lines permanently; a crust that is broken up into pieces moving around and causing earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and landslides. Yes, a planet with abundant natural hazards. But do these hazards inevitably have to result into natural disasters? Let's look at Haiti, where the 2010 earthquake resulted in a disaster unparallelled in that region: In previous earthquakes, including the 1770 earthquake, a much lower number of people were killed in Port-aux-Price by the earthquake because much less were living there. Former storm surges in New Orleans had much lower impacts or did not kill anybody at all, because nobody was living there or people were better prepared.

Yes, the ~1700 tsunami that hit the western coast of North America did kill many people living at the coast. This event certainly qualifies as a natural disaster because it hit people who had no knowledge that could have indicated to them the existence of the tsunami hazard. But most of what we today denote as a natural disaster does not qualify as such: We are aware of the natural hazards, and we decide to live in harm's way but do not adapt to the hazards appropriately. Thus, while the hazard is natural, the disaster is most often man-made.


If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.