ABSTRACT
Accidents and disasters were long seen as acts of God (a concept that survives in insurance language). Mortals were at the mercy of random, uncontrollable events. As the science of complexity has developed over the past few decades, it has strayed ever further away from being able to offer simple answers to why people suffer. Complexity theory and system thinking have shown that both good and bad things in a complex system emerge from the normal, everyday interactions between a multitude of different parts. It is impossible to trace the failure of a system back to the behavior of a single part. In a complex system, a tiny initial disturbance in one corner can give rise to huge changes later on. Small 'causes' can be amplified tremendously. The root causes of people's vulnerability to disasters can often be found in national and global political, social and economic trends, planning and codes, policies governing protection and response.
