Disaster
A disaster is something bad that happens. Disasters can destroy homes and many kinds of work. Disasters can be of different kinds, but most are caused by forces of nature.
Natural disasters
These may include avalanches (where snow comes down a mountain), cold (where animals and people freeze), diseases (sicknesses), droughts (when there is no water), earthquakes (where the ground moves), famine (where there is not enough food), fire (that burns things and people), flood (where rivers grow too big and invade land), hail (hard ice falls like rain), heat that lowers the water supply, hurricanes that break everything, the hyper nova of a star that kills life, an impact event where meteors hit the earth, a limnic eruption (where bad chemicals come from lakes and can kill people), landslides and mudslides (where the top of the ground moves because of extra water), sink holes (where a cave falls in), solar flares (where the sun reaches out at the earth and burns it), storm surge (where water piles up and then suddenly comes on land), thunderstorms (rain with lightning and thunder), tornadoes (currents of wind that break things), tsunami (where a wall of water comes on land), volcanoes (where lava from inside the earth comes out slowly or shoots into the air), a waterspout (like a tornado on water), or winter storms (where snow falls thick and you cannot see).
Human-caused disasters
Disasters caused by humans include aviation (flying) accidents, arson, CBRNs (where a country has a powerful weapon), civil disorder (where people riot or do crimes), power outages (where electricity is interrupted), public relations crises where a company must tell bad news, radiation accidents, disasters in space, a telecommunications outage (not being able to communicate), terrorism (where a group attacks civilians or says they will attack to gain something), and war (fighting with weapons between large groups).
Living through a disaster
To live through a disaster, it is important that your family and your city prepare in advance. This may be making a pack of things you need in an emergency, it may be a government sending soldiers to help, or it may be something in between. It is recommended to keep a disaster survival kit with canned goods, in the advent of such a disaster.
Related pages
Other websites

- Department of Homeland Security Archived 2006-10-16 at the Wayback Machine
- London Prepared Archived 2006-02-25 at the Wayback Machine
- Disaster Psychiatry Outreach
- Preparing an emergency survival kit
- EM-DAT: The International Disasters Database includes information on man-made and natural disasters, basic definitions and a database of disasters occurrence and impact from 1900 to today
- Disasters factsheet
- Assisting Children and Adolescents in Coping with Disasters Archived 2006-03-07 at the Wayback Machine