The Indonesian tsunami, the South Asian flood, the Peruvian earthquake, the Wenchuan earthquake, the Japanese nuclear disaster in Fukushima, and the hurricane of Katrina and Sandy, these ongoing disasters remind people of their vulnerability all the time. Although the global economy and technology are constantly evolving, early warning measures continue to perfect, it is impossible to avoid disasters at any time. With the development of economy and society, urbanization continues to advance, population and wealth continue to gather into large cities. However, humans are also becoming more vulnerable facing major natural disasters. With the growth of wealth, the losses caused by disasters also show an increasing trend. As argued by Neil Smith (2006), there is no such thing as the natural disaster: “In every phase and aspect of a disaster, the contours of disaster and the difference between who lives and who dies is to a greater or lesser extent a social calculus.” This essay will analyze a national and an international case of “natural” disasters, and evaluate the human contributions to them. Human actions have greatly shaped the extents and effects of natural disasters, though economy, politics, management, finance, population, and even media.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina landed on the outer coast of New Orleans at a speed of 233 kilometers per hour. On the same day, a flood control embankment broke down. In the following two days, the hurricane almost completely destroyed the jazz capital. It is worth mentioning that in addition to natural disasters, the US government has an undeniable responsibility in the disaster. Dr. Raymond of the University of California at Berkeley believed that the disaster is the most serious engineering disaster that occurred after the Chernobyl incident, and pointed out that the failure of the Federal Levee System was the direct cause of the hurricane (News in Black, 2015). The US Senate report also severely criticized the Bush administration for its ineffectiveness in disaster relief and considered The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as ineffective. After Katrina, it proposed systematic reforms to deal with national disasters. The major human factors that worsened the natural disaster include lack of preparation, chaos in policy coordination, and lack of strong government leadership.
Katrina revealed the insufficient emergency preparedness in the region. In fact, many scholars and institutions (Collins, et al., 2006) have made proposals for urban planning and embankment construction in New Orleans way before the Hurricane. However, the authorities did not listen to them, and concentrated a large number of high-value projects such as prosperous business districts, seaside sightseeing areas and luxurious residences on the seashore, which made the city and the ocean lack the necessary disaster buffer. After more than two hundred years without being flooded, the official even cut the budget for the New Orleans Corps of Engineers budget by 80% (Smith, 2006). In addition, the government evacuation program only provided traffic guidance but lacked public transportation, resulting in the situation that only the rich evacuate fast enough. Other lack of emergency preparedness also included that none of the pumping stations in New Orleans functioned at all (Collins, et al., 2006). The resources required for medicines, food, drinking water, communication equipment, transportation equipment, etc. were all scarce and these resources were not promptly delivered after the disaster.
The inter-governmental legal relationship was complicated and the cooperation mechanism was chaotic. The National Emergency Response System had serious flaws in dealing with major natural disasters. In line with the US federal government, the basic criterion of its national response plan was that the emergency should be dealt with at the lowest administrative level as possible (Ink, 2006). That is, the local government took the initial response action first, then requested the support of the neighboring local government. If the situation continued to expand, it would request support from the state government or neighboring states. It is worth mentioning that the national response plan contained a situation in which a serious emergency can require the federal government to take the initiative to intervene in advance, but there was no plan for practical operation (Ink, 2006). This complex politics of federal and state has greatly affected the speed of decision coordination and deployment. Although private organizations and enterprises actively transported materials in the early stages of disaster relief, they were all insufficient in comparison with the needs of the disaster-stricken areas.
During Katrina, the government also showed the lack of leadership, which made it the main target of criticism. On the one hand, President Bush of the United States was still on vacation during the disaster, and it was not until five days later that he visited the disaster area. The president’s slow response has had a bad influence on the refugees. The psychological disaster relief measures of safety, calming, connectedness and efficacy (Ursano, et al., 2007) were completely mission. On the other hand, 70% of the city’s police force was itself a victim of a hurricane and had little ability to hunt down criminals. 200 policemen were overwhelmed and surrendered their badges. Two policemen even commit suicide (Ink, 2006). The lack of timely input of the National Guard had further aggravated the mood of the victims. Robbery, rape, murder and other acts of violence have soared until they were in anarchy. After the disaster, the US government has made extensive reflections on the failure of the administration during natural disaster. The Senate and the House of Representatives also provided reports for the government, proposing many improvement measures. For example, establishing an institutionalized and comprehensive national emergency preparedness system.
In human history, the cyclical famine is a long-standing phenomenon. It has been found that the decline in food output is not the only factor in the occurrence of famine. According to the analysis of Davis (2002) through the cases in south Asia, north China, and southern Africa, “famines are social crises that represent the failures of particular economic and political systems”. With the complexity and change of the situation, famine cannot simply be explained using meteorological disasters or war as the root cause. Most of the famine in modernization has its complicated reasons, especially influenced and restricted by a country’s political and economic system, strategic guidelines, and policy measures. Located in the northeastern part of Africa, the Horn of Africa is the easternmost region of the African continent, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. In 2011, the precipitation in the Horn of Africa was only 5% to 50% of the normal value of previous years, leading hundreds of millions of people needing emergency humanitarian assistance. However, irregularities in rainfall in the region was not uncommon (Moseley, 2012), as human factors played a more dominant role in the disaster.
Population is a significant human factor that exaggeration the extent and effect of the natural disasters. In the 18th century, British economist Malthus proposed the famous Malthusian population theory. The basic theory is that the growth of human beings exceeds the growth trend of food supply. Malthus pointed out that the population will have an infinite growth trend until the limit of natural resources (Keneally2011). Despite the failure to consider potential improvements and innovation of agriculture and human productivity, Malthus’s theory does fit the famine in the Horn of Africa. The 2011 crisis in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya seems to be a perfect proof of Malthus’s