Study Note - Global Inequalities and Natural Hazards – Slow or Rapid Onset?

Global inequalities are exacerbated by human and physical factors, and the impact of earthquakes, epidemics and famine have a lethal reputation in the less economically developed world.

Despite this reputation, a much greater proportion of the world’s population are killed by events that often go unnoticed, such as violent conflict, illness and hunger; these events pass for normal existence in many parts of the world, especially, but not only, in Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs).

On occasion earthquakes have killed hundreds of thousands of people, and floods, famines or epidemics have taken the lives of millions at a time, but to focus purely on these (though this is a natural humanitarian response to a tragedy) ignores the millions who are not killed in such events; the human and physical factors that affect people over a long period of time which amplify global inequalities.

The following two tables illustrate the importance of slow onset hazards when compared to rapid onset hazards across the 20th Century.

Table 1. Hazard types and their contributions to deaths, 1900-1999.
Source: CRED at http://www.cred.be/emdat

Table 2. Deaths during disasters, listed by cause, 1900-1999.
Source: CRED (see above)