3. What is a Disaster?
 A disaster is a natural or man-made (or
technological) hazard resulting in an event of
substantial extent causing significant physical
damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic
change to the environment. A disaster can be
ostensively defined as any tragic event stemming
from events such as
earthquakes, floods, catastrophic
accidents, fires, or explosions. It is a phenomenon
that disasters can cause damage to life, property
and destroy the economic, social and cultural life
of people.

4. Types of Disasters
There are four types of disasters-
Natural disasters
Environmental emergencies.
Complex emergencies
Pandemic emergencies.

5. Natural disasters
 These disasters include floods, hurricanes,
earthquakes and volcano eruptions that can
have immediate impacts on human health, as
well as secondary impacts causing further
death and suffering from floods causing
landslides, earthquakes resulting in fires,
tsunamis causing widespread flooding and
typhoons sinking ferries

6. Environmental emergencies
 . These emergencies include technological or
industrial accidents, usually involving
hazardous material, and occur where these
materials are produced, used or transported.
Large forest fires are generally included in this
definition because they tend to be caused by
humans

7. Complex emergencies
 These emergencies involve a break-down of
authority, looting and attacks on strategic
installations. Complex emergencies include conflict
situations and war.

8. Pandemic emergencies
These emergencies involve a sudden
onset of a contagious disease that
affects health but also disrupts services
and businesses, bringing economic and
social costs.

9. What is Vulnerability?
 Vulnerability refers to the inability to withstand the
effects of a hostile environment
 In relation to hazards and disasters, vulnerability is
a concept that links the relationship that people
have with their environment to social forces and
institutions and the cultural values that sustain and
contest them.
 It's also the extent to which changes could harm a
system, or to which a community can be affected by
the impact of a hazard.

11. Disaster management
 Disaster management can be defined as the
organization and management of resources
and responsibilities for dealing with all
humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in
particular preparedness, response and
recovery in order to lessen the impact of
disasters.

12. Mitigation Strategies
 A Local Mitigation Strategy (LMS) is a local government
plan in the United States, typically at county level that is
designed to reduce or eliminate risks to people and
property from natural and man-made hazards. Mitigation
strategies are supported by state government and federal
programs, in line with the Disaster Mitigation Act.
 The advantages of developing a LMS program are
numerous including guidance in developing pre and post
mitigation plans; identifying priority projects and
programs for funding; and increasing the likelihood of
State and Federal funding for pre- and post-hazard
mitigation projects.

13. Structural and Non-Structural
Mitigation
 Structural mitigation:-
refers to any physical construction to reduce
or avoid possible impacts of hazards, which include
engineering measures and construction of
hazard-resistant and protective structures and
infrastructure.
 Non-structural mitigation:- refers
to policies, awareness, knowledge development, public
commitment, and methods and operating
practices, including participatory mechanisms and the
provision of information, which can
reduce risk with related impacts.

14. Structural Mitigation
 Structural damage, collapse of buildings or
infrastructure are common consequences of disasters,
including earthquakes, floods, and landslides. Structural
mitigation aims to reduce this damage and eventually
save lives. Structural mitigation is a science that requires
the expertise of civil engineers. It includes both the
design of new buildings, roads, canals, dams, and other
infrastructure and the strengthening and retrofitting of
old structures. An example is seen where riverbeds are
not cleaned of trees and logs: during a flood, such debris
may pile up against a bridge and consequently break it,
thus damaging the neighbouring construction which
would not normally have been affected by the flood.