“What is a disaster anyway? In social science usage as well as in everyday speech…it is a sharp and furious eruption of some kind that splinters the silence for one terrible moment and then goes away. A Disaster is an ‘event’ with a distinct beginning and a distinct end, and it is by definition extraordinary - a freak of nature, a perversion of the natural processes of life…the two distinguishing properties of a disaster are, first, that it does a good deal of harm, and, second, that it is sudden, unexpected, acute”. (Erikson 1976, 253) “…instead of classifying a condition as a trauma because it was induced by a disaster, we would classify an event as disaster if it had the property of bringing about traumatic reactions. According to the terms of this rule, any event or condition that could be shown to produce trauma on a large scale would have earned a place on the current roster of ‘disasters’”. (Erikson 1976, 254)