Disaster 015
Disaster 015 :
"....a disaster may be seen as 'the realization of hazard', although there is no universally agreed definition of the scale on which loss has to occur in order to qualify as a disaster" (Smith 1996, 5). "Natural disasters...result from the conflict of geophysical processes with people. This interpretation gives humans a central role. First, through location, because it is only when people, their possessions and what they value get in the way of natural processes that a risk of disaster exists. Second, through perception, because humans place subjective judgments on natural processes as part of a general environmental appraisal whenever they settle and use land" (Smith 1996, 10). "...a disaster generally results from the interaction, in time and space, between the physical exposure to a hazardous process and a vulnerable human population" (Smith 1996, 22)
