ABSTRACT
Every day, humans face immediate health risk and experience low-probability, high-loss hazards. Over the last century, there have been close to 8,000 naturally triggered disasters (droughts, floods, earthquakes, windstorms and landslides) that have affected over 100 people, caused 10 or more deaths or resulted in a state of emergency. Earthquakes in the past century, which have predominantly occurred along seismic hotbeds that run from the Himalayas to south-eastern Europe and along the Pacific Rim, have caused the deaths of approximately 2 million people (CRED 2005). At the same time, diarrhoeal diseases cause close to 2 million deaths in a single year, with over 80 per cent of these deaths linked to poor sanitation and access to safe drinking water. Nearly 17 per cent of the global population lacks access to an improved water source and over twice that lack improved sanitation (WHO 2006).
