ABSTRACT

The impact of hazards in the developing countries is disproportionately high compared to those in the Western world. To give a concrete example: the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh, with wind speeds of 240km per hour, killed over 138,000 people, whereas just one year later Hurricane Andrew in Florida, USA, with an even higher wind velocity (270km per hour), caused only 15 human casualties. Therefore it is not only the fury or intensity of any hazard that is responsible for the loss of life and property; there are other factors such as poor physical infrastructure, high vulnerability, low capacity and, most important of all, a poor state of governance.