Natural Disasters Facts - Your Online Source for Information on Natural Disasters
In terms of unpredictable events such as natural disasters, it’s always good to be prepared. A natural disaster is one in which a disaster occurs when hazards meet vulnerability. In the case of natural disasters, the hazard here is nature and vulnerability applies to the people who are not prepared in anyway, leading to casualties and many unexpected situations.
When we think of nature, we think of its various elements and how they can become a natural disaster in itself. Natural hazards bring about a negative effect to mankind and the environment. Most of the natural hazards that we know of, are related. For example, an earthquake leads to a tsunami. We must remember however that a disaster is different from a hazard. An example of a disaster is the 2004 tsunami, while the tsunami alone is a hazard. Hazards can lead to disasters. We should limit our knowledge to hearsay, natural disaster facts are too important to us, to just ignore them.
Natural disasters are classified according to where they occur. Land movement disasters are earthquakes, avalanches, usually occurring in snow covered areas, lahars, mudflows and landslides and volcanic eruptions. All these are connected to land and are damaging to land, as well.
Water disasters include floods, limnic eruptions, which are defined as an eruption of carbon dioxide from deep lake water resulting to gas emission which can suffocate living things around the premise. Another type of water disaster is the tsunamis which are known to be caused by submarine earthquakes resulting in big waves.
Another type of a natural disaster is that which is provoked by weather. These include blizzards, droughts and hailstorms. We also have heat waves, cyclonic storms and fire. These may lead to hazards on health leading to epidemic and famine. These disasters are clear domino effect of the other. One disaster may lead to another as an aftermath resulting to more and more casualties.
As we can see, with the wide range of natural hazards that may lead to natural disasters humanity is really vulnerable when unprepared. Most of these disasters occur unpredictably. It is best to be prepared, so that we can prevent a hazard from turning into a disaster.
A strong earthquake in the middle of the desert is not a disaster because no one was there. The point is, even if we encounter a very strong earthquake and everyone was prepared and knew what to do in situations, it will never be a disaster. Vulnerability is non-existent if we just know how to deal with the matter.
The right information about natural disasters, combined with the knowledge of what to do when disaster strikes, is a necessity, if we intend to survive a disaster.