Talk:Disaster/Archive 1

Addition of disaster categories
Two points here Sneaky, first we need a reference for your work and second, the new material is too long for the introduction. While you've provided references for each disaster category, your work looks to be original thought without references and therefore not allowed in wikipedia. The new material needs to be tightened up a lot. Way too long.... Also a new thought, an asteriod strike in the Amazon would be a catastrophe even though few people would be killed directly. Revmachine21 13:02, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok Rev, I've started work to improve the referencing. There is more to do, and I will see what can be done to condense it. I've also added a subheading so the introduction is back to its original length. Anyway, I can assure you its not out of my own head. This is well-known stuff to disaster researchers. On your final point... an asteroid strike would have an effect well beyond the Amazon, as any dinosaur would tell you. But if you think a volcanic eruption in, say, the Aleutian Islands which affects noone is a disaster I'd be interested in why. It would actually be just a natural process... User:Sneakysnaga 21:21, 25 August 2005


 * Just moved apartments and was out of action over the weekend. I still might consider an eruption in such an area a disruption of the area had a value measurable in human terms.  Amazon = biodiversity & CO2 sink, Aleutian Islands = do they have a perceived value?  I can think of loss of habitat to geographically specific species.

Some disasters missing?
Nice article, though I was disappointed to find some of the man-made disaster categories had not yet been written. I have three further comments.

Firstly, I was wondering if there are some types of man-made disasters missing? I am thinking mostly of transport accidents. Can major airplane crashes or train crashes or sinking of ships (eg. Titanic) be considered disasters? Also, crowd stampedes and crushes ranging from football stadia disasters to religious pilgrammage crowd disasters?

Secondly, a more general point about when a disaster becomes a catastrophe? Some of the larger disasters (such as a supervolcano erupting or an asteroid impact) would seem to me to be more like catastrophes, especially near the point of eruption/impact. Further away from the area of the catastrophe, you would have disaster zones. But my main point here is that no-one has done for the Catastrophe page what you have done for the Disaster page. And some content from here might be best over there. Such as what I've mentioned below.

Thirdly, and this is more looking at global catastrophes, where would things like species extinction events, deforestation, environmental disasters, oil spills, global warming and so forth, fit in something like this? Overpopulation could be added to the list. And many things I have forgotten. I can also remember a book I read about possible ways in which life on Earth and in the Universe as a whole could end. What about a nearby star going supernova? The Sun reaching the end of its life? And finally, going for the kill so to speak, what about UNIVERSAL disasters/catastrophes? Things like the heat death of the universe and the half-life of the proton?

Hmm. I went from train crashes to the heat death of the universe! :-) Carcharoth 02:31, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Does this duplicate stuff elsewhere?
I've been looking around Wikipedia and found several areas that seem to be duplicating what is being done here. I found a Disasters category as well as List of disasters and this article I am commenting on right now Disaster. These all seem to take a slightly different angle on disasters, but they also seem rather similar. Is there any way to build on what is being done in all three areas, rather than having three separate projects going on? In particular, should all the disasters listed in List of disasters be added to the Disaster category? Also, the subsections of the Disaster page seems to be duplicating the subcategories at the Disaster category. To top it all off, there is a wikibook as well. I would like to spend some time helping to tidy this up, but I'm not sure quite what to do and where to start! Can anyone advise? Carcharoth 22:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that the article would be much better if it let the listing to the separate articles for natural/technological/sociological hazards/disasters (i.e. six articles). This article could then concentrate on the definitions of hazard/disaster and their classification.  Any comments? rxnd ( t | &#8364; | c ) 11:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I like 'Disasters' as a general theme and primary category as it is now... It gives a broad overview of the two primary subcategories (i.e. the  'secondary categories' ): man-made and natural (environmental) disasters. These two subcategories/secondary categories are rightly expanded into two respective entries in the wikipedia of each's own. Furthermore, the List of Disasters, which is currently separate of the two secondary entries, is fairly comprehensive and can stand on it's own terms as a tertiary category, i believe, because of the amount of information it provides. Thus, i think that the  'secondary categories'  can thus refer to this tertiary list as additional reading as each already does. Gregz08 (talk)

reworking of intro to man-made disasters
Well, it's more of a removal of extraneous text than a reworking, but:
 * I've replaced "caused by an act of god" with "caused by a natural phenomenon." The second statement is neutral, and does not reflect any religious beliefs.

It sounds like someone having a rant about their most recent power outage, and doesn't belong in the article. See my other edits in the history: I've just been doing some copyediting over each section to make the text easier to read. I may right here later if I need to make any more major changes. Graham 09:50, 21 September 2005 (UTC) Response: I don't think that sentence should have been removed. The power grid has been intentionally left vulnerable because to make it really robust would be prohibitively expensive, and thus the comment sounds more like an accurate statement to me, than a 'rant' about losing one's personal power connection.
 * Response: Maybe we ought to substitue both the words natural and/or supernatural phenomenon for the fact that we simply do not know which it is...i.e. do we take a gnostics point of view (believer in God), agnostics point of view (not sure whether or not God exists)- i.e. natural OR supernatural, or an atheist's point of view (God definitely does not exist. Perhaps we ought to "split the fucking difference" to be  'fair'  to both parties/both sides of the coin. I invite people to way in on this matter futher. Gregz08 (talk)
 * I've removed the following text: "The power grid and telecommunication infrastructure could be made more resilient against outages however, probably due to cost and feasibilit constraints, the systems were intentionally left vulnerable to outage."

Also - this may belong in another section here but I don't see where - I came to the edits page because the article Disaster had a comment saying on it that it should be merged into or with another article on Tragedy. I strongly disagree with this idea, as the two are only tangentially related!! Tragedy is usually something on a personal level, such as your wife or father or pet died, or it may be a type of play wherein the ending is very bad for several people, but tragedy does not nearly rise to the level of a true disaster wherein large numbers of people are killed or displaced. 'nuff said! — Preceding unsigned comment added by AikiDavid911 (talk • contribs) 19:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Disaster Management Wikiproject?
There is an awful lot of duplication and confusion in the disaster management field on Wikipedia. The categories are confusing and non-intuitive. There are several really good articles like this one, but there is need for overview and coherence. I think that we should start a Disaster Management Wikiproject to better coordinate terminology and content. --Drdan 19:53, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Project started. See template above. We need members! Join here! --Drdan 07:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)₢₡₡

Restructuring
This article is too big and it duplicates much of other pages. It should be a starting article for natural hazards, man-made hazards (which does not yet exist), and emergency management/BCP. Those should be the three headings. There is also a confusion in the use of the terms disaster and hazard. Disasters (e.g. the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) are the result of hazards (e.g. earthquakes). The referencing is chaotic and needs reworking as well. --rxnd ( t | &#8364; | c ) 17:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Big job though... Carcharoth 14:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Rogue Waves, Disasters or Not?
I propose an addition to the natural disasters category. Rogue Waves are notable for their damage potential and mythical attributes. They were long thought to be once in a millenia occurrences, but they are indeed a real threat to shipping and maritime ventures. In fact, several are notable for causing ships to be damaged or destroyed (MS München and Norwegian Dawn). The great kawa 20:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Response: Not that i'm an expert on Rogue Waves, but after watching a program on the History channel regarding these natural occurences, these waves seem to me to be a real feature in our natural world. I'd suggest that you put this element, Rogue Waves, into the Natural Disasters category, and place all known Rogue waves (and the dates of each) into the List of Disasters entry within the wikipedia as well. By the way, you may also want to provide some 'history' regarding the controversy surrounding this element and also the evidence related to it. Gregz08 (talk)


 * No because they are localized and are more along the level of say a a bad windstorm. "Disasters" are higher up like hurricanes or tsunamis. Melab-1 (talk) 19:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hypernovas should be removed
First, the article on Hypernovas says that they are part of an older theory, and current astronomy no longer believes they are the cause of gamma ray bursts. Further, gamma rays would not pass through the earth - even the atmosphere reduces the strength of gamma rays considerably - so only one side of the Earth would get fried. For example, the gamma ray article says: "Gamma-ray astronomy did not develop until it was possible to get our detectors above all or most of the atmosphere, using balloons or spacecraft." This is not consistent with a global extinction event, as this entry suggests.


 * I think that this article/information/entry regarding Hypernovas must be hypothetical and ought to be listed as a  'possible/hypothetical/predicition event'  rather than a definite known event...perhaps we ought to have a section called: Hypotheticals or Prognostications/Predictions, and try to include some  'science'  as related to the guess work/guestimation. By the way, when did we start calling Supernovas, Hypernovas??...Naturally, and alas, i'm not' an expert in this field either....Gregz08 (talk)

List of doomsday scenarios
Could use votes to save this article, thanks MapleTree 22:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Should there be a section on fictional disasters?
I don't nessicerily mean a list but would it be worth adding a section which talks about the portrayal of disasters in movies and such? - Bisected8 15:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting idea, but I don't believe it a wise idea. I can see the benefit of using Deep Impact as a reference for an ELE, for example. But I think trying to discuss portrayal of disaster in fiction is a subject for the appropriate media group. As for even listing disaster movies... most action movies and many movies as a whole focus on disaster, whether it be on a personal or galactic scale (war is considered disaster), and there is enough debate on the classification of currently identified actual disasters... I think it would be a can of worms.  Parradoxx 21:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

More disaster types needed
I have added bridge collapses and given an example of a dam disasterPeterrhyslewis 10:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Just Curious
But where would PR disasters fall under? Zidel333 06:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning it all up
I am going to make what might be seen as a drastic edit. Currently this article is partly a duplicate of Natural hazard. The terms disaster (the result of a hazard's impact) and hazard (the cause of the disaster) are constantly mixed up. My solution is to cut down this article down to two small sections describing (1) natural hazards and (2) human-made hazards. Disasters are adequately dealt with on the List of disasters. --rxnd ( t | &#8364; | c ) 12:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Good work - it needed a clean-up. Graham 87 04:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. It looks better now. But I did like the old version as well... Did the nice annotated list with examples get lost, or is it preserved somewhere else? Carcharoth 15:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It's preserved (in a way) at natural disaster and Human-made disaster. Graham 87 15:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Too many links
I find that the section on Risks of hypothetical future disasters and the see also section contain too many links. In fact, the wikilinks under Risks of hypothetical future disasters are all hazards and not disasters. Furthermore, the article for Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth contain all the links that are listed here. If there are no objections, I will go ahead and remove that section and refine the See also section. --rxnd (talk) 09:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Terrorist Attack
The inclusion of this item in the initial description is very bothersome to me. There is, in my mind, a distinct difference between a disaster and a "terrorist attack." It comes down to, as it does in the courts, intent. Most items listed have no triggering event or entity that intends to cause an area of destruction and suffering. Even under the heading "man-made," most events that have later been described as "disasters," are a result of human error, negligence, or poor risk management. At times, utter human stupidity could rationally be argued as the cause of a "disaster."

A terrorist attack, on the other hand, is conceived with the clear and decisive choice and intent to create an area of destruction and suffering. While it may be possible through human effort and understanding to block that intent at a given moment, continued resistance requires a different tact than managing other kinds of risk. As an example, a hurricane does not turn around to strike a given area a second time because it is dissatisfied with its efforts. The Chernobyl reactor wouldn't have stepped up its output had it been faced with a vigilant staff.

For these reasons, I propose the term "terrorist attack" be removed from the entry for "disaster."

Gryph667 (talk) 05:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC) Gryph667


 * I think you are right, although we should refer to academic literature and see if it classifies terrorists attacks as disasters or not. See also my similar question about whether acts of war can be classified as disasters below. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Terrible introductory paragraph
I would fix it but I know it'll get reverted. As is stands though, it's just clunky. If we could get rid of the parenthesis, that would be a start. The word 'tragedy' is a little too sentimental for an encyclopedia. Let's get real: it's usually -- maybe always -- about human deaths. Property loss is frequent but tertiary. That's all for now. Vranak (talk) 20:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * 1. Agree it's clunky. Before reading this post I got "rid of the parenthesis" as it looked like merely a typo/grammar error.
 * 2. Disasters are most certainly not only about human deaths. Thankfully we (humans) are finally acknowledging that adverse environmental events can also be classed as disasters. Paragraph 2, dismissing "uninhabited regions" as examples of "low vulnerability", needs to be amended to reflect this. Can someone find a reference please. Uninhabited Louisiana coastal marshlands or Himalayan glaciers might be good places to start.
 * 3. IMHO the word 'tragedy' is no more "sentimental" than the word "disaster" itself. Both are subjective, relative terms, and are often used metaphorically for relatively trivial incidents, e.g. "the wedding was a disaster." I suggest this article badly needs a "Definition" section, immediately after the lede, to clarify the scope intent of the article and prevent (possibly humourous) requests to include such things as "PR disasters". The definition section should refer to legal definitions of different levels of disasters, and responses to them, used to declare states of emergency, etc., which of course vary by jurisdiction. Thanks. -- Bricaniwi (talk) 23:44, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Acts of war
Would acts of war (ex. bombing) classify as disasters? I'd think not, but the current article suggests they would (section on man-made disasters). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)


 * See my request above for a definition section. And take care confusing the act with it's effects. Personally I think acts of war affecting enough people would require the same recovery responses as a "natural" disaster, so the effects of a bombing might meet some legal definitions of disaster (especially considering the historic roots of disaster management in wartime "Civil Defence".) But in common usage we rarely refer to bombings as disasters, e.g. New York's Twin Towers. I suspect this is because the more specific word "bombing" is far more descriptive / meaningful / useful than the general word "disaster". -- Bricaniwi (talk) 00:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Scatological disasters
Can anybody define it (term used in the current "Man-made disaster" section)? I am a sociologist and I am not familiar with the term, Google Book search gives a lot of false positives (sociological disaster studies, research, literature) - but it all seems to refer to the study of disasters from the sociological perspective, not a term "sociological disaster" (see also sociology of disaster). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Etymology is not correct
The page states The word derives from Middle French désastre and that from Old Italian disastro, which in turn comes from the Greek pejorative prefix δυσ-, (dus-) "bad"[3] + ἀστήρ (aster), "star". This is not correct. The Greek word for star is Astron aka "ἄστρον" which became Astrum in Latin. Aster is a Latin derivation from Astrum. Thus this etymology is mixing Latin and Greek words. If it were bad star, the greek would be dus-/dys- (δυσ-) + astron (ἄστρον), rather than dus- + aster (ἀστήρ). At any rate, the etymology given is not precise. If you do a search, you will not find any Greek word δυσἀστήρ (dusaster), because the Greeks use the terms καταστροφή (katastrofi)aka catastrophe or συμφορά (symfora)which means bale, bane, disaster, woe.
 * Modern etymologist agree that the word disaster derives as follows:
 * 1580 AD, from M.Fr. desastre (1564), from It. disastro "ill-starred," from dis- "away, without" + astro "star, planet," from L. astrum, from Gk. astron. The sense is astrological, of a calamity blamed on an unfavorable position of a planet.81.149.206.5 (talk) 00:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)etymonlinedotcom

The correct etymology
The etymology is wrong. This is the right one:

"dis": in Hellenics doesn't mean bad....

"dys"="bad" (examples: ΔΥΣ-ΟΙΩΝΟ=bad-omen, ΔΥΣ-ΑΝΑΛΟΓΟ=bad-analogy, ΔΥΣ-ΘΕΟΡΑΤΟ=badly-huge, etc)

"dis": It comes from the number 2=ΔΥΟ; Hellenics: "DIS=ΔΙΣ=TWO TIMES" or DOUBLE(=ΔΙΠΛΟ).

STAR=ΑΣΤΗΡ (Hellenics).

So, disaster, is the "DIS+ΑΣΤΗΡ"="DIS-ASTER"="DOUBLE-STAR".

Two stars together AT THE SAME TIME, something unusual CLOSE TO EARTH, that causes tremendous (hel. δραματικές) catastrophes (hel. καταστροφές). It was known among ages, that this happens occasionally and the one of these two stars was the Sun; guess the other one... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.55.136.12 (talk) 21:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC) Who ever knows to speak Hellenics, this is the right etymology (hel. ετυμολογία). The truth is hidden & this is not the main one...

Μore evidence of DIS=TWO or DOUBLE (in english): distichiasis, distichon, distigmatic, disyllavism, dissyllable, ditheism, dithematic, dithyramp, dithyrous, ditokous

Μore evidence of DYS=BAD (in english): dyschromatopsia, dyschylia, dysentery, dyslexia, dysmorphia, dysodia, dyspepsia, dyspnea (& a lot more, almost all medical which expresses dys-functionality [dysfunction=BAD function]).

By all of you (dictionaries included), shouldn't be "disaster", but "dysaster" "Hellenics"="Logic"="Mathematics" (ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΓΛΩΣΣΑ=ΛΟΓΙΚΗ=ΜΑΘΗΜΑΤΙΚΑ). Whether you like it or not my good friends, ΔΙΣΑΣΤΗΡ=ΔΙΣ+ΑΣΤΗΡ=DOUBLE STAR, an event, which causes as a result, "DISASTERS" ΤΗΝ ΓΛΩΣΣΑΝ ΜΟΥ "ΕΔΩΣΑΝ" ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΝ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:582:C5F:6B00:A10F:4C2D:4EE3:BDEE (talk) 17:50, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Idiocy
"In contemporary academia, disasters are seen as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk." In which case 'contemporary' academia - thanks guys, handy to know we are not talking about the Schoolmen of the fourteenth century - is a bull-shitter fully equipped with those special 20:20 hindsight glasses. To say 'there has been a disaster: therefore, someone has badly managed the risk' perfectly reflects the stupidity of todays blame culture; but its not really grown up, is it? So, if a gamma ray burst from 1000 light years away wipes the planet clean today, that'll be because of 'inappropriately managed risk', will it? Who writes this stuff? God forbid they have tenure somewhere because then I'd be fearing an academic disaster of the first magnitude.Unraed (talk) 08:43, 3 May 2012 (UTC)unraed

Do disasters necessarily have to be large-scale?
There can be disasters in the individual and communitarian context, like death of a person. Can such occurrences be termed as disasters. Arba17 (talk) 11:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

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