Natural Disasters

The term disaster refers to the enormous human and material losses caused by events or phenomena as earthquakes, floods, landslides, deforestation, pollution and others.

Disasters are not natural, but the phenomena that produce them. This term is different in two: "natural phenomena" and "natural disaster". Where nature is in a continuous process of movement and transformation, which manifests itself in different ways, through some regularity phenomena like rain in a few months of the year in mountainous areas, and extraordinary appearance, such as tremors earth, volcanoes or natural wear of soil erosion occurs.

Other disasters may be caused by human activities that alter the normal environment. Some of these are: environmental pollution, erroneous and irrational exploitation of renewable natural resources such as forests and soil and non-renewable like minerals, housing and buildings in high risk areas.

Natural phenomena such as rain or wind, become natural disaster when they exceed a limit of normal, usually measured through a parameter. This varies depending on the type of phenomenon (Richter scale for earthquakes, Saphir-Simpson scale for hurricanes, etc.)..

The effects of a natural disaster may be amplified due to poor planning of human settlements, lack of safety measures, emergency plans and warning systems and man becomes a bit blurred.

To institutional capacities to reduce disaster risk group, they can trigger other events that will reduce the chance of surviving it because of gaps in planning and security measures. A classic example is earthquakes, buildings and houses to collapse, trapping people in rubble and broken gas lines that can catch fire and burn injuries in the ruins.

Human activity in areas with high probability of natural disaster known as high risk. High-risk areas without instrumentation or appropriate steps to respond to natural disasters or reduce their negative effects are known as areas of high vulnerability.