ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES(ES)

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Lesson 23: Disaster management

Impact of disasters

• Disasters cause many deaths and economic losses amounting to billions of dollars each year.
  
• Disasters kill many people, inflict injuries and facilitate the spread of diseases and displace over billions of people.
  
• Mainly poor people face with unforeseen hardships, misery and death.
  
• Development programmes will be disrupted accompanied by destructions of strategic infrastructure.
  
• Flood waters provide an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes and create an increased risk of such diseases as malaria, dengue and rift valley fever.
  
• Flood water combined with effects of open sewage leads to cholera, diarrhoea and gastro-intestinal viruses, leptospirosis and hanta virus infection.
  
• Drought triggers malnutrition and famine.
  
• Droughts also lead to migration, damage to public health, infrastructure, water distribution and health care.