International Journal for Mass Emergencies and Disasters
Article Index
- Authors
- Antonio L Fernandez, Teruhiko Yoshimura, Yujiro Ogawa
- Issue
- August 2005
- Description
- Town Watching As A Tool For Citizen Participation In Developing Countries: Applications In Disaster Training\r\nAuthor(s): Yujiro Ogawa, Antonio L. Fernandez, Teruhiko Yoshimura\r\nPages: 5-36
- Authors
- Cigdem Kagitcibasi
- Issue
- March 1983
- Description
- Though disasters, especially earthquakes, floods and landslides, are common in Turkey, policy making, planning, and even research have ignored their social -psychological aspects. In this paper an attempt is made to build a hypothetical model for conceptualizing disaster-related coping behavior in traditional society. It is based on individual, familial and social behavior and values, derived from research conducted in Turkey. In this model it is proposed that belief in external control, in fitting with the objective conditions, results in resignation and in the conception of disaster as inevitable. Close-knit family and community ties provide further relief and security in the face of disaster. This primary group solidarity also provides the mechanisms necessary for coping with disaster in the context of underdevelopment where formal social welfare organizations are inadequate.
- Authors
- Jean-Christophe Gaillard
- Issue
- March 2006
- Description
- This article explores the response of traditional societies in the face of natural hazards through the lens of the concept of resilience. Resilient societies are those able to overcome the damages brought by the occurrence of natural hazards, either through maintaining their pre-disaster social fabric, or through accepting marginal or larger change in order to survive. Citing the case of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines and its impact on the Aeta communities who have been living on the slopes of the volcano for centuries, it suggests that the capacity of resilience of traditional societies and the concurrent degree of cultural change rely on four factors, namely: the nature of the hazard, the pre-disaster sociocultural context and capacity of resilience of the community, the geographical setting, and the rehabilitation policy set up by the authorities. These factors significantly vary in time and space, from one disaster to another. It is important to perceive their local variations to better anticipate the capability of traditional societies to overcome the damage brought by the occurrence of natural hazards and therefore predict eventual cultural change.
- Authors
- Robert A. Olson, Richard Stuart Olson
- Issue
- March 1994
- Description
- Utah faces serious earthquake risk from the alignment of its major population centers with the historically active Wasatch fault. This paper identifies the origins and traces the life history of the Utah Seismic Safety Advisory Council, paying special attention to the partisan political shift which contributed to its 1981 legislative failures and organizational demise.
- Authors
- Dan Nimmo
- Issue
- March 1984
- Description
- Nightly network news coverage of the accident at Three Mile Island raised questions about the nature of TV news as well as the capacity of the three major networks to inform viewers during disasters. A key emphasis in TV news is story-telling, especially the weaving of fables. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the content of network news coverage of TMI reveals differences between networks in techniques of newsgathering and reporting, but even more so in stories told: CBS narrated a tale of responsible political and technological elites, ABC a nightmare of common folk victimized by elites, ABC a nightmare of common folk victimized by elites, and NBC a story of resignation and demystification. Coverage of TMI, when compared to network coverage of other crises, suggests that in reporting disasters CBS, ABC, and NBC respectively and consistently construct rhetorical visions of reassurance, threat, and primal assurance.
- Authors
- Neil R. Britton
- Issue
- August 1992
- Description
- Effective emergency management requires a close fit between state of risk and state of hazard management. If these components get out of phase, a marked increase in societal vulnerability is likely to prevail. Recognizing that the major burden for developed societies has shifted from risks associated with natural processes to those arising from technological development and application, disaster-relevant organizational networks have adopted a Comprehensive Emergency Management \\"all-hazards\\" approach.
- Authors
- R. Denise Blanchard Boehm
- Issue
- November 1998
- Description
- For the past four decades researchers in the field of natural hazards have studies extensively how people “hear” warning messages of potential natural disasters and then, eventually, how they “respond” by way of adopting preparation and mitigation measures. Until the 1980s, a single framework did not exist for understanding risk communication as an integrated process. Much of the early research on risk communication was piecemeal and descriptive, and consisted of exploring the details of communicating risk within the events of a particular disaster. The proliferation of research on risk communication over several decades, though, has resulted in the evolution of a general model of hazards risk management. This model presupposes that the process of risk communication in one whereby individuals: (1) hear a warning message; (2) understand its content; (3) internalize or believe the salience of its message; (4) confirm one’s interpretation with others; and (5) act or respond to its message to save one’s life and property. This paper applies the risk communication framework and its principles to a case study where probabilities were increased in 1990 of future earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area. Following the scientific community’s announcement, a low-key warning was issued to approximately two million residents through a large-scale information campaign. This study demonstrates that the risk communication model is an invaluable tool for helping us to understand the behavior of individuals who must learn of and act upon warning information that could save their lives and property. Further, researchers are urged to find ways to adapt this risk communication model to other types of natural and human-made hazards.
- Authors
- David King
- Issue
- March 2004
- Description
- Globally there is an increase in the social and economic impacts of all natural hazards, and especially those that are generated by weather systems. Climate change is a part of this process, but it is most likely that long-term climate change will first become evident as an increase in natural disasters, especially flooding and drought. However, a major cause of increasing nautral disasters is the growth and relocation of population, concentrating into complex urban settlements that proliferate infrastructure and property in vulnerable floodplains and the coastal fringe. While Australia has experienced a decline in the loss of life from natural hazards, the loss to business, agriculture and the economy in general has increased exponentially. Weather generated natural disasters dominate the total disaster bill. Vulnerability to natural hazards may be reduced through hazard education and effective warnings. \r\nThe communication of weather information is inevitably a top down process. Understanding of information and in particular, warning s about hazardous events involves a public safety transfer of knowledge from highly specialized scientists through emergency managers, local politicians and the media, to every member of society. Research shows that selection, interpretation and expression of information and warnings occurs at institutional and societal levels. Both the media and the general public select, re-interpret, and weigh up information about weather and hazards, applying a complex set of attitudes, perceptions experience and misinformation to the initial message. An understanding of how people interpret the message is essential to the accuracy and safety of warnings and forecasts. Examples and case studies from post-disaster and behavioural research carried out by the Centre for Disaster Studies, and hazard events illustrate the issues of understanding the message.\r\n
- Authors
- David McEntire, Abdul-Akeem Sadiq and Kailash Gupta
- Issue
- November 2012
- Description
- The following paper examines the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti as a case study to better understand what happens to unidentified bodies in mass-fatality management. The paper explores the literature on mass-fatality management, discusses the context of Haiti and the impact of the earthquake in this country, mentions the methods undertaken for this study, and then outlines the key findings from this particular disaster. The paper compares preliminary conclusions in Haiti to other incidents in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and concludes with a discussion of implications for research and practice.
- Authors
- A. Cooper Drury, Richard Stuart Olson
- Issue
- August 1997
- Description
- A recurring question in the study of disaster effects involves political instability. A relationship has been posited between disasters and various forms of political unrest, and case evidence exists to support the contention. Statistical testing, however, has been lacking. A pilot study, this paper integrates a worldwide-disaster database with a political-instability database and reports time-series cross-section (pooled time-series) findings for 12 countries struck by rapid-onset natural disaster between 1966 and 1980. The regression results, both strong and significant, indicate a positive relationship between disaster severity and political unrest. The unrest, however, can be dampened if not eliminated by governmental repression, the implications of which are most disturbing.