This book conducts a systematic inquiry into the tragic deaths caused by natural disasters at different geographic scales. It employs key disaster concepts and classification of disasters to understand the high mortality rates and the various factors associated with these deaths. Deaths are the direct and immediate impact of disaster events, which have remained a major concern for disaster managers and policy-makers all over the world. Using primary research and secondary data, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of various facets of disaster deaths such as trends, circumstances and causes, and determinants at global, regional, national, and subnational scales. It offers a holistic perspective on disaster mortality, which has been lacking for some time. The book not only fills this research gap but also suggests important policy implications for disaster managers and policy makers working in multilateral, bilateral, local, and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These policies include effective strategies to significantly reduce the risk of deaths caused by natural disasters, which are explored through chapters written in a clear and accessible style. Drawing together the case studies on past major disasters as well as recent ones, the book provides new and critical insights into deaths precipitated by natural disasters. Suitable for both technical and nontechnical readers, the book has a broader appeal and will thus be useful for practitioners, researchers, students, as well as activists in the area of hazards and disasters who are interested in studying mortality due to extreme natural events.

This book conducts a systematic inquiry into the tragic deaths caused by natural disasters at different geographic scales. It employs key disaster concepts and classification of disasters to understand the high mortality rates and the various factors associated with these deaths. Deaths are the direct and immediate impact of disaster events, which have remained a major concern for disaster managers and policy-makers all over the world. Using primary research and secondary data, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of various facets of disaster deaths such as trends, circumstances and causes, and determinants at global, regional, national, and subnational scales. It offers a holistic perspective on disaster mortality, which has been lacking for some time. The book not only fills this research gap but also suggests important policy implications for disaster managers and policy makers working in multilateral, bilateral, local, and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). These policies include effective strategies to significantly reduce the risk of deaths caused by natural disasters, which are explored through chapters written in a clear and accessible style. Drawing together the case studies on past major disasters as well as recent ones, the book provides new and critical insights into deaths precipitated by natural disasters. Suitable for both technical and nontechnical readers, the book has a broader appeal and will thus be useful for practitioners, researchers, students, as well as activists in the area of hazards and disasters who are interested in studying mortality due to extreme natural events.

375 exciting teales of heroism and tragedy drawn from the nearly 150,000 search and rescue missions carried out by the National Park Service since 1872.

The “compelling” story behind the 1995 Chicago weather disaster that killed hundreds—and what it revealed about our broken society (Boston Globe). On July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index—how the temperature actually feels on the body—would hit 126. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. By July 20, over seven hundred people had perished—twenty times the number of those struck down by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Heat waves kill more Americans than all other natural disasters combined. Until now, no one could explain either the overwhelming number or the heartbreaking manner of the deaths resulting from the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Meteorologists and medical scientists have been unable to account for the scale of the trauma, and political officials have puzzled over the sources of the city’s vulnerability. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a “social autopsy,” examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been. He investigates why some neighborhoods experienced greater mortality than others, how city government responded, and how journalists, scientists, and public officials reported and explained these events. Through years of fieldwork, interviews, and research, he uncovers the surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown that contributed to this human catastrophe as hundreds died alone behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies. As this incisive and gripping account demonstrates, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities made visible by the 1995 heat wave remain in play in America’s cities today—and we ignore them at our peril. Includes photos and a new preface on meeting the challenges of climate change in urban centers “Heat Wave is not so much a book about weather, as it is about the calamitous consequences of forgetting our fellow citizens. . . . A provocative, fascinating book, one that applies to much more than weather disasters.” —Chicago Sun-Times “It’s hard to put down Heat Wave without believing you’ve just read a tale of slow murder by public policy.” —Salon “A classic. I can’t recommend it enough.” —Chris Hayes

In the wake of a large-scale disaster, from the initial devastation through the long tail of recovery, protecting the health and well-being of the affected individuals and communities is paramount. Accurate and timely information about mortality and significant morbidity related to the disaster are the cornerstone of the efforts of the disaster management enterprise to save lives and prevent further health impacts. Conversely, failure to accurately capture mortality and significant morbidity data undercuts the nation's capacity to protect its population. Information about disaster-related mortality and significant morbidity adds value at all phases of the disaster management cycle. As a disaster unfolds, the data are crucial in guiding response and recovery priorities, ensuring a common operating picture and real-time situational awareness across stakeholders, and protecting vulnerable populations and settings at heightened risk. A Framework for Assessing Mortality and Morbidity After Large-Scale Disasters reviews and describes the current state of the field of disaster-related mortality and significant morbidity assessment. This report examines practices and methods for data collection, recording, sharing, and use across state, local, tribal, and territorial stakeholders; evaluates best practices; and identifies areas for future resource investment.

What are the words we use to describe something that we never thought we'd have to describe? In Seven American Deaths and Disasters, Kenneth Goldsmith transcribes historic radio and television reports of national tragedies as they unfurl, revealing an extraordinarily rich linguistic panorama of passionate description. Taking its title from the series of Andy Warhol paintings by the same name, Goldsmith recasts the mundane as the iconic, creating a series of prose poems that encapsulate seven pivotal moments in recent American history: the John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and John Lennon assassinations, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the Columbine shootings, 9/11, and the death of Michael Jackson. While we've become accustomed to watching endless reruns of these tragic spectacles—often to the point of cliché—once rendered in text, they become unfamiliar, and revealing new dimensions emerge. Impartial reportage is revealed to be laced with subjectivity, bias, mystery, second-guessing, and, in many cases, white-knuckled fear. Part nostalgia, part myth, these words render pivotal moments in American history through the communal lens of media.

One of the world's leading seismologists looks at the dangers of megaquakes, and explains where they'll next strike, why they're becoming more lethal, and what science and engineering are doing to save lives.