Name: Juliana Xyrelle Y.

Futalan

Grade & Section: 11- Zealousness

Assignment # 1

Answer the following questions.

1. What is a disaster?

 A disaster is a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community
or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the
community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources. Though often caused by nature,
disasters can have human origins. The word disaster is derived from Middle French désastre and
that from Old Italian disastro, which in turn comes from the Ancient Greek pejorative prefix
δυσ-, (dus-) "bad"and ἀστήρ (aster), "star". The root of the word disaster ("bad star" in Greek)
comes from an astrological sense of a calamity blamed on the position of planets. A disaster is
an unplanned event in which the needs of the affected community outweigh the available
resources. A disaster occurs somewhere in the world almost daily, but these events vary
considerably in scope, size, and context. Large-scale disasters with numerous casualties are
relatively unusual events. Various phenomena like earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions,
floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, tsunamis, cyclones and pandemics are all natural
hazards that kill thousands of people and destroy billions of dollars of habitat and property each
year. A disaster is a situation that causes substantial losses and damage to communities and
individuals, possibly including losses of life and livelihood assets and damage to the ecosystem,
which leaves the affected communities unable to function normally without outside assistance.

2. Explain the concept of disaster risk?

 Disaster risk is the likelihood that people will experience disasters. This risk is a function of: the
nature, probability and intensity of hazards; the vulnerability of the people to these hazards;
and, inversely, of their capacities to withstand or cope with these hazards. The disaster risk has
an equation, and the equation is DR (disaster risk) is equal to V (vulnerability) times H (hazard)
over C (capacity). This equation helps the disaster risk reduction encompasses three areas of
activities, and the number one activity is Prevention or mitigation of hazards, two is Reduction
of vulnerabilities to hazards, while three is Strengthening capacities to withstand or cope with
hazards. These activities should be a focus during emergency and development programming
alike. It helps people to know or to be alarmed when it comes to disaster. It aims to reduce
socio-economic vulnerabilities to disaster as well as dealing with the environmental and other
hazards that trigger them. Disaster risk reduction is the concept and practice of reducing
disaster risks through systematic efforts to analyze and reduce the causal factors of disasters.