BANGKOK, Thailand—Contrary to what most government agencies would like people to believe, natural disasters are not triggered by natural events alone. Most are initiated and aggravated by man’s abuse, overuse and mismanagement of natural resources.
The Swedish Red Cross (SRC) said that throughout the world, disasters are on the rise in terms of number and people affected, citing the latest in the Philippines, where mining and quarrying activities allowed Typhoon Ompong (international code name Mangkhut) to loosen soil and bury more than a hundred people in two provinces.
Asia is the continent most prone to natural disasters, while Africa and Latin America are roughly equal, and North America and Europe are squaring off. Australasia has the least number of natural disasters on a yearly ratio basis, SRC bared.
In the order of their importance on their effects on humans, disasters rank as follows—storms/hurricanes, floods, drought, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires and earthquake-triggered or generated tsunami.
Climate-change refugees
These disasters are also creating a new wave of refugees called “climate-change refugees.”
Thousands of people deprived of food, water, livelihood and raw materials for existence are crossing country boundaries in search for survival means, especially in Africa.
According to the international environment and development information agency Earthscan, is based in London, poor people in poor countries are the most vulnerable to disasters. There are 3,000 to 5,000 deaths per disaster per year on the average in low-income countries, compared to 800 to 1,200 in high-income countries. However, while many developed nations are becoming prone to disasters, like the United States, not too many people hit by the disasters die.
Both Japan and Bangladesh are hit yearly by natural disasters every year. But the Japanese are more technologically prepared, disciplined and equipped to deal with disasters.
Poor regard for environment
The Philippines is hit with 20 typhoons on the average each year, so are Taiwan, China and Japan. But deaths are always more on the Philippine side because environmental laws are lax, agencies implementing the laws are tainted with corruption and the general population, particularly leaders, have a poor regard and respect for the environment.
There exists a universal tenet that as we are stewards of creation, all must care and respect the environment, something that is missing in most societies.
While environmental advocacies are gaining ground, those in developed countries—reforestation, land care, solid-waste management, anti-mining and logging—without doubt are evidently in effect more than in developing nations.
The Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam have the infamy of contributing most trash—particularly plastics—in the Asian seas, that is totally in disregard of the environment.
On the other hand, Japan, Taiwan and China strictly enforce environmental laws, building codes and zoning regulations and have advanced training and communication.
Poor suffering the most
In many Asian cities, the poor live on areas prone to floods, storms, landslides and earthquakes. They live in self-built shelters unable to stand up to strong wind, rain or tremors. They are not taught or advised how to protect themselves from natural disasters.
Many of Asia’s poorest live in floodplains. Much of the expansion in Delhi has been onto the floodplains of Yamuna River. Many of the 10 million squatters plus 2 million living in unauthorized subdivisions and another million living essentially in campsites, are vulnerable to flooding—as are wealthy people who occupy their land legally.
Of Bangkok’s more than 10 million people, at least 3 million live in slums and illegal settlements. The same with 2 million informal settlers in Manila. Many of these are on swampy lands, riversides and canal-lines that are prone to flooding that make them homeless.
Other Asian and Pacific cities with flood-prone shantytowns include Calcutta, Dhaka and Port Moresby.
People to blame
In most cases, people are to blame for natural disasters. Droughts are due to deforestation caused by logging, mining and quarrying. Abused tropical forests erode easily, retaining insufficient water to recharge the water table.
Deforestation also worsens flooding, landslide, soil erosion and mudflows. It creates disequilibrium of the natural water cycle, reduces rainfall, thus, triggering droughts.
Human pressure—unsafe agriculture, settlements and landscape change—all are primary causes of natural disasters.
In the Himalayas and China’s Xing Zhou region, Cameroon and Genting Highlands of Malaysia, as well as the Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, deforestation contribute immensely to floods.
In the Philippines, overlogging and mining are not only to blame for deforestation that cause floods. There is also tree cutting to accommodate expansion of roads, construction of subdivisions, hotels, malls, golf courses and tourism sites.
While many Asian countries are convinced that reforestation can prevent landslides and flooding, not many have embarked on action to concretize their ambitious goals.
The efforts of Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand pale in comparison to South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and Bhutan.
China has the proven ability to organize its population for forestation. In Sichuan, it doubled its forest cover in 30 years. Bhutan in 2016 planted almost a billion trees following the King’s order.
When aid is not aid
Against the background of pain and suffering caused by natural disasters, it may seem cruel to question international relief efforts. Unfortunately, disaster relief is a mess of incorrect assumptions and mixed political and economic motives.
Often disaster aid from rich nations tends to conform to the donor country’s foreign policy rather than to the recipient country’s need. Such relief is merely the export of surplus food and materials, oftenly, inappropriate for disaster conditions.
When the surplus of the donor country dries up, so does the aid. Biases in disaster relief dictate that sudden, dramatic newsworthy catastrophes receive more aid than disasters that grind people down slowly.
Stories abound in the relief field of completely inappropriate aid—expired medicines, corn grain where disaster area is without firewood, thick winter clothes sent in hot humid countries, tea, tissues, tampax, or tins of chicken cooked in pork fat for Muslim countries, etc.
Effective disaster prevention and mitigation depends on long-term planning for development toward a more sustained and less disaster vulnerable society.
Furthermore, disaster prevention and the elimination of poverty are closely linked, as are poverty and environmental degradation. It is likely that relief agencies will increasingly move away from relief after the disaster, toward disaster prevention integrated with development.
Above all, the common view of natural disasters being caused solely by natural events, is due for a radical change.
1 comment
Thanks for these crucial information