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Natural, Man-Made and Imagined Disasters

Nils-Axel Mörner

Our editor from Stockholm, Sweden, morner@pog.nu

An event that gives catastrophic effects on human lives and living conditions is usually

termed a disaster. A disaster or catastrophe usually takes us with surprise, by that increasing

the negative effects. The boxing-day tsunami is a terrible example of a disaster taking us

with total surprise and giving rise to catastrophic effects all around the Indian Ocean. This

was a disaster generated by totally natural forces, and we couldn't have done anything about

it as such. What our human societies had missed, however, was the establishment of an

effective warning system.

We have to learn to live with natural disasters; earthquakes, volcanic eruptions,

avalanches, tsunamis, cyclones, floods, draughts, blizzards, wildfires, etc. They are all parts

of terrestrial system and we cannot change them, but we can prepare for them in terms of

warning systems, evacuation plans, aid organization, etc. We may also avoid habitation at

spots that cannot be protected. This seems less feasible, however, as humans, through

history, have shown to chose even the most dangerous places for their living (like slopes of

active volcanoes, fault zones, foots and slopes of active slides, tops of active coastal cliff

erosion, repeatedly flooded areas, etc.). Sometimes we are able to make precautional work

like coastal protection, dikes against flooding, bypasses for possible mudflows and other

efforts to try to diminish the effects of a potential catastrophe. We also have to make careful

risk assessments. This implies temporal and spatial cover of past events.

Earthquakes often occur with some sort of regular pattern. This opens for better risk

assessments. Sometimes there is a relation between magnitudes and the time interval

between events. Seemingly regular pattern may change over longer time periods, however.

Rare events occurring with long intervals are, of course, very hard or impossible to predict.

Over the time-period of the last glacial–interglacial cycle, regions may pass from a high to a

low seismic activity.

The total number of people killed by the 14 earthquakes with a death toll of above

100,000 persons (Table 1) amounts to 3,037,000 persons, with a death toll of 830,000 at the

Shaanxi event in China in1556.

Table 1. The 14 earthquakes with a death toll >100,000 persons

year event location death toll

2004 the Boxingday tsunami Indian Ocean 230,000

1976 Tangshan earthquake China 255,000

1948 Ashgabat earthquake Turkmenistan 110,000

1923 Great Kanto earthquake Japan 105,000

1920 Haiyuan earthquake China 240,000

1908 Messina earthquake Italy 100,000

1755 Lisbon earthquake Portugal 100,000

1730 Hokkaido earthquake Japan 137,000

1556 Shaanxi earthquake China 830,000

1290 Chihli earthquake China 100,000

1138 Aleppo earthquake Syria 230,000

893 Ardabil earthquake Iran 150,000

856 Damghan earthquake Iran 200,000

526 Antioch earthquake Turkey 250,000

Compared to this, the victims from volcanic eruptions are small; 92,000 at the Tambora

1815 eruption, 36,000 at the Krakatoa explosive eruption in 1883, 29,000 at the Pelée 1902

eruption and 25,000 at the famous Vesuvius AD 79 eruption and ash fall.

In the oceanic regions, it becomes urgent to build up tsunami chronologies in order to be

able to assess recurrence and by that risk assessment. In the Maldives–Laccadives there seem

to be good possibilities top build up a detailed chronology of past tsunami events for the

Indian Ocean region (at present, we have a record of 12 events). The Lisbon earthquake and

tsunami in 1755 is a well-known disaster with 100,000 victims. Today, we need to prepare

for possible recurring events. Still, we lack awareness that such a disaster may very well

occur again; this time with even worse effects because of all present day human activities

along the coasts.

Table 2 lists the 16 most severe natural disasters with respect to the number of people

killed. One can easily see that the worse factors are: floods, cyclones and earthquakes (the 10

worse floods killing 5.9 million people, the 10 worse earthquakes killing 2.5 million people

and the 10 worse cyclones killing 2.1 million people).

Table 2. The 16 most severe natural disasters with respect to death toll

year event location death toll

1931 China floods China 1–4 million

1887 Yellow River flood China 0.9–2 million

1556 Shaanxi earthquake China 830,000

1938 Yellow River flood China 500-700,000

1970 Bhola cyclone Bangladesh 500,000

1839 Indian cyclone India 300,000

1881 Haiphong typhoon Vietnam 300,000

1737 Calcutta cyclone India 300,000

1976 Tangshan earthquake China 242–255,000

526 Antioch earthquake Turkey 250,000

1920 Haiyuan earthquake China 240,000

1975 Banquiao Dam flood China 86-231,000

1138 Aleppo earthquake Syria 230,000

2004 Boxing-day tsunami Indian Ocean 229,866

856 Damghan earthquake Iran 200,000

1876 Great Backerganj cyclone Bangladesh 200,000

The quality of the records of natural disasters decreases with time into the past. In view

of this and the natural variability, there seems to be no traces of any changes in the long-term

trends of the individual natural phenomena.

Man-made disasters are something totally different; In principle, they are avoidable.

There are, of course, no intellectual or humanitarian excuses for all military actions and

terrorism that occur in our human society. The 1945 atomic bombs over Hiroshima and

Nagasaki started a new sad era. Weapons of mass destruction are nothing but terrible man-

made disaster machineries. Huge water dams that collapse with time (often at earthquakes)

may have disastrous effects for humans living downstream (the failure of the Banqiao and

Shimantan reservoir dams in China in 1975 killed at least 171,000 persons, and the immense

new reservoir dam in China is a potential disaster-producer in the future, etc.). Nuclear

power plants are all potential disaster-producers. We already have the sad examples of

Harrisburg in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, and new events are unfortunately, no doubts,

waiting in the future.

This year is the 150 anniversary of Darwin's book "On the origin of species by means of

natural selection". Humans have had the capability to set aside natural selection in favour of

man-made selection. This has made it possible for the human species to increase in number

so that we totally dominate our planet, step by step using up its resources. No doubts, this

will take us into the future via numerous catastrophes and disasters. There is a bad shortage

of potable water (some 25,000 persons are dying every day due to lack of water). Large areas

are in bad need of medicine to fight diseases and pandemics. We can still produce food

enough, but we have not yet learned to chare it in a decent way over the globe. The recent

transformation of food products into energy products has created a shortage, however.

Shortage of energy will become an increasingly urgent issue with time.

The concentration of people into mega-cities opens for future disasters. A mega-city is

an un-natural construction that cannot live by itself but constantly has to be fed from outside.

Any natural catastrophe (earthquake, tsunami, fire, flood, drought, etc.) will affect a mega-

city in disastrous ways. A breakdown in water supply or food supply is bound to give rise to

catastrophic effects. Within itself it is the birthplace of severe poverty, famines, violence and

large epidermis, even pandemics. In fact, a mega-city seems to be a powder-magazine ready

to explode at any time.

Diseases and famines usually are the combined effects of both natural events and man-made

actions. The Antonine Plague of the Roman Empire in AD 165-180 killed ~5 million people.

The Black Death in 1348-1350 killed about 100 million people in Europe. The Spanish Flu

in 1918-1919 killed 50–100 million people. Famines may be caused by climate (affecting the

food supply), politics (controlling the distribution of food) and population density (shortage

of food). The thirteen most severe famines have killed some 145 million people (Table 3).

The big famines of the last 100-150 years seem strongly affected by the drastically increased

number of people and the political unrest with numerous wars.

Table 3. The 13 most severe famines with respect to death toll

year event location death toll

1958-1961 Great Chinese Famine China 4.9–43 million

1907 Chinese Famine China 24 million

1896-1902 Indian Famine India 19 million

1769-1771 Bengal Famines India 15 million

1876-1879 North Chinese Famine China 10 million

1315-1317 Great European Famine Europe 7.5 million

1936 Chinese Famine China 5 million

1932-1934 Soviet Famine Soviet Union 5 million

1921-1922 Russian Famine Russia, Ukraine 5 million

1943 Bengal Famine India 4 million

1941 Chinese Drought China 3 million

1928-1930 Chinese Famine China 3 million

1601-1603 Russian Famine Russia 2 million

Many disaster threats are just imagined, however. We are today living in a world where it

unfortunately has become customary to obtain awareness by threaten us with disasters that

are imagined. Some of those are of pseudo-scientific type. Others are products of inadequate

computerization and modelling, not founded in facts and observations. Some may have

political and economical grounds.

The idea of a "Global Warming" that will lead to disastrous effects in the near future is

primarily a man-made issue. Climate has always gone up and down for a variety of reasons.

In Mid-Holocene time some 8000-4000 BP, climate was significantly warmer. This was a

fact over several millennia and may, hence, be called a long-wavelength effect. We have also

experienced short-wavelength episodes, not least in the Late Holocene. Those periods had a

duration in the order of 50 years or so and were significantly warmer and drier than today. In

Northern Europe and Canada, they are seen as thin black layers in the peat bogs recording

short intervals when the peat stopped growing and started to decompose. In the last 600 years

we have had a number of "Little Ice Ages" with significantly colder conditions than today.

Those events coincide with Solar Minima. The next Solar Minima is due at around 2040-

2050. In the 20th century, we experienced warmer conditions around 1930-1940, colder

conditions at around 1940-1970 and warmer conditions again in 1980-1998. In the last

decade, the warming seems to have ceased. Similarly, the threat of an ongoing sea level rise,

soon to flood low-lying coasts and islands with disastrous effects, seems unfounded in

observational facts. Our group have spent several years of painstaking work in the Maldives.

We found no traces of any ongoing rise, rather a strong stability over the last 30 years. The

same is true for the islands of Tuvalu and Vanuatu in the Pacific, both claimed to be in the

process of becoming flooded.

Therefore, my personal believe is that all the talk of an approaching climatic disaster,

including a catastrophic sea level rise, is an example of an imagined disaster. This means that

we diverge our interest and efforts from real threats; natural as well as man-made. And this,

in itself is a disaster.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has recently claimed (August 2009)

that the natural disasters have increased drastically in the last 40 years as a function of

Global Warming. This is certainly not the case; just another imagined disaster threat (in good

timing for the December 2009 international climate meeting in Copenhagen).

Disaster Advances, our International Journal for Researches!in Disasters and Related Fields,

undoubtedly has a great mission to fulfill in the field of natural, man-made and imagined

disasters; that is to drive and enlightening us in the understanding of disastrous events, in the

discrimination of real and imagined threats, in the assessment of risks and in the preparation

of effective warning systems and precautional handling. It is a privilege to serve in striving

to fulfill those goals.

Stockholm, August 24, 2009

Nils-Axel Mörner

Printed in:

Disaster Advances, Vol. 3 (2), p. 3-5 (2010)

"From the Editor's Desk"

... Savaş/terör/afet gibi toplum sağlığını ilgilendiren durumlarda sağlık personeli profesyonel işbirliği içinde hazır bulunmalı ve toplumu desteklemekle yükümlüdürler. [3][4][5][6][7] Hemşirelerin savaş/afet durumlarında topluma vereceği hizmetler düşünüldüğünde bireysel olarak bu afetlere hazır olması gerekmektedir. [6][7][8][9][10][11] Hemşirelerin sağladığı hizmetlerin kalitesi ve sivil toplumun desteklenmesi, doğru bilgilendirmelerin yapılabilmesi ve acil durumlarda triyaj uygulamalarında sağlıklı karar verme ehliyetinin bulunması önemlidir. ...

• Serap Ozdemir

Student of nurse have dilemma supraventricular tachycardia and panic attack in Kilis that the border city: a case report

... Statement of the Problem: Life on Planet Earth is constantly being threatened by different types of disastrous events; some are natural, some are man-made and some are just imagined [1,2]. Some threats increase with our population growth and condensation to mega-cities. ...

• Nils-Axel Mörner

Life on Planet Earth is constantly being threatened by different types of disastrous events; some are natural, some are man-made and some are just imagined. Some threats increase with our population growth and condensation to mega-cities. Plagues and famines have killed hundreds of millions of people through time. Progress in medicine and health care has fortunately changed the situation drastically in recent years. Some building constructions – dams for water and nuclear power plants for electricity – have emerged as new sources of man-made disasters. There are also a number of proposed disastrous processes, which, in fact, are merely imagined, and products of super-effective lobbying campaigns.

... The tsunami hazard of a region can only be assessed in a meaningful way if we have a reasonable record of the past events in that region. Consequently, there is an urgent need of establishing such records; i.e. a database of the paleotsunami events of the region in question (Mörner, 2009a(Mörner, , 2010. This, in its turn, calls for a methodology of how to record past tsunami events. ...

... In terms of human casualties, however, it was the greatest natural disaster in recorded history, by far. The earthquake generated a super-massive tsunami that took the lives of an estimated 230,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and elsewhere (Mörner, 2010). More than 1,000,000 people were displaced in the aftermath following the tsunami, which was eventually registered at every coast of the world ocean. ...

• Gloria I. López

Preface This book has been published in order to deepen efforts towards the understanding of tsunami dynamics that seems to be never enough. This multi-disciplinary volume compiles a collection of scientific papers showing the state-of-the-art of tsunami research at different levels. The various contributions cover an array of themes that span from geological evidence to post-trauma human care, encompassing pre-tsunami analyses and modeling to post-tsunami management and preparedness techniques. "Tsunami – Analysis of a Hazard: from physical interpretation to human impact" presents evidence and case studies from different regions of the World: from the isolated Hawaiian Islands and Northern Indian Ocean, to the edges of the Atlantic and Eastern Mediterranean.

... The tsunami hazard of a region can only be assessed in a meaningful way if we have a reasonable record of the past events in that region. Consequently, there is an urgent need of establishing such records; i.e. a database of the paleotsunami events of the region in question (Mörner, 2009a(Mörner, , 2010. This, in its turn, calls for a methodology of how to record past tsunami events. ...

... The tsunami hazard of a region can only be assessed in a meaningful way if we have a reasonable record of the past events in that region. Consequently, there is an urgent need of establishing such records; i.e. a database of the paleotsunami events of the region in question (Mörner, 2009a(Mörner, , 2010. This, in its turn, calls for a methodology of how to record past tsunami events. ...

• X. He
• J. Liu
• C. Guo
• G. Zhenjun

The desulfurization pump, as a core device of the coal-fired power plant desulfurization equipment, was optimally designed to effectively reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission from coal-fired power plant so that the acid-rain pollution could be controlled. Blades of desulfurization pump were designed to obtain more suitable streamline shape for fluid flow in the internal flow field based on the design method of blade great distortion and the pump hydraulic performance was improved as well. Hydro-cyclone loss and noise of pump inlet was decreased according to blade appropriate extension to pump inlet. An impeller clearance automatic compensation device was added to the front shroud, which ensured the pump working in high efficiency area. Wear of the pump was greatly reduced and the pump service life was extended by developing a new materialM26-23Valloy steel. The pump internal flow field was calculated through k-s model provided by CFD software Fluent 6.3 and the impeller radial force was analyzed. The pump performance test results showed that the desulfurization pump has reasonable structure and the performance curve was flat with wide range of high efficiency and the pump efficiency at design point is improved by 3.8%. High efficiency hydraulic design, advanced structural design and development of new wear-resistant materials for desulfurization pump will increase the pump efficiency and service life, which ensure coal-fired power plant higher desulfurization efficiency. Efficient long-term operation of desulfurization pump for coal-fired power plant can effectively reduce emissions and protect the environment, which play a catalytic role to achieve energy saving and emission reduction of power sector and effective control of acid-rain.

Temperature analysis and forecasting is a kind of classic meteorological problem and the temperature coefficient plays an important role in many fields. In order to analyze the temperature process more profound and predict the future temperature more exactly, the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and Wavelet Neural Network (WNN) method are used to obtain more valuable information based on the limited historical temperature data in Chongqing Municipality of China. The main steps are as follows: first, we carry out temperature signal de-noising by using wavelet transform. Secondly, decomposed signals under different scales are obtained by using EMD to reduce the non-stationarity in the signals. The temperature data of Chongqing from 1951 years to 2010 years are used as the training set. They are first normalized and then utilized as input data for the WNN. Finally, the component of decomposition is predicted by using WNN and then the predicted results are restructured. The method was tested by the temperature data of 2011 whole year. The predict results, which compared with Elman ANN and WNN, show that the predicted results are in good agreement with the actual data. So this method is reliable and useful for the temperature's analysis and forecasting.

• Hualou Long
• Zou Jian

This paper analyzes the spatio-temporal pattern of farmland destroyed by natural hazards (FDNH) in China, using land-use data and socioeconomic data from the Ministry of Land and Resources and the National Bureau of Statistics of China, respectively, and the ESRI's ArcGIS spatial analyst module. An index of destroyed rate of farmland due to natural hazards (DRFNH) was established to assess the regional anti-disaster capacity. The outcomes indicated that China's FDNH amounted to 1.662 million ha during 1988-2008, and the direct grain loss reached 6.055 million tonnes. In general, with the gradual improvement in agricultural anti-disaster capacity, both the DRFNH and area of FDNH in China has been declining in the last two decades. The area of FDNH was universally large and the DRFNH was relatively high at the national level during 1988-1998, but the DRFNH and the area of FDNH took on an obvious declining trend during 1999-2008 due to the improvement of agricultural production conditions and the implementation of building new countryside strategy. Then, this paper established an integrated prevention and treatment system of China's FDNH, which includes the aspects of assessment of natural disaster risk and FDNH status quo, reconstruction for regional anti-disaster facilities, FDNH rehabilitation, disaster early warning system, and improving relevant organization and management.

• Serpil Ozdemir

ABSTRACT War/terrorism, occurring in the human hand, prevents the normal life of society, is destroying the support systems that enable them to cope. Wars and terrorist attacks; quite a lot of people risked his life to give, such as damage to health facilities, patient transport, advanced treatment negatively affects the ability to communicate with staff. Nurses in the war / terrorism incidents, identify unusual cases they can deliver health services effectively requires that they are available for personal and professional. This article is the historical process of nursing care given to war, war / terrorism incidents and for the importance of nursing education is to review the responsibilities of nurses in the fi eld of battle. Key Words: War, terror, nursing services.

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Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285927503_Natural_Man-_Made_and_Imagined_Disaster