We explain what natural disasters are and how these natural phenomena are classified. Examples of natural disasters.
What are natural disasters?
Natural disasters are understood to be violent or sudden changes in the dynamics of the environment, whose repercussions can cause material and life losses, and which are the product of environmental events in which the hand of the human being, how are the earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, among others.
They are classified as disasters since environmental conditions go to extremes, exceeding the limits of what is considered normal. Thus, an earthquake may be harmless, but if it increases its intensity and becomes an earthquake, it will surely cause death, destruction and structural changes in the land surface.
Natural disasters should not be confused with disasters environmental, characterized by the presence of a specific substance that contaminates, degrades or destroys the chemical, physical or biotic balance of a ecosystem. These types of environmental tragedies are usually a direct consequence of irresponsible human activities with the environment.
However, one could argue that these disasters are never exclusively natural, since to some extent they can be complicated or even due to poor planning (even total lack of planning), on the part of the societies human. Even so, unpredictable phenomena such as eruption of the volcanoes are major challenges for even the most developed and organized of the societies.
Classification of natural disasters
Natural disasters can be classified according to their nature, as follows:
- Atmospheric phenomena. They are derived from climatic conditions or earth's atmosphere, and they tend to be extreme: prolonged droughts or endless thunderstorms, blizzards, hurricanes, etc.
- Mass landslides. It is understood by this to avalanches, avalanches and other landslides of land masses, such as rivers, stones, moutains, mud, etc.
- Biological disasters. This is where pandemics and mass extinctions come in, among other infectious outbreaks that may or may not directly attack humans.
- Volcanic eruptions. When the boiling magma from the depths of the Earth it gushes out violently, gives rise to volcanoes. Hot lava creates new surface layers and destroys everything in its path.
- Space phenomena. This is where objects fall from space like meteorites, solar winds and other phenomena coming from outside the planet.
- Forest fires. The drought, the intense Sun or the presence of glass and other materials that concentrate the sun's rays acting as a magnifying glass, can start huge fires, which devour hectares of grasslands and even entire forests in their path, killing life and massively polluting the atmosphere with their fumes and particles in suspension.
- Earthquakes. This is the name given to the jerky and disorderly movements of the earth's crust, a consequence of the movements of the tectonic plates. They can be mild and cause little damage, or they can be terrible jolts that topple trees, buildings, and mountains.
- Tsunamis and floods. Consequence of summary or abrupt earthquakes climate changes (like the El Niño phenomenon), flood everything in their path, submerging entire houses and accumulating masses of Water that drag everything in their path, ruining crops and entire villages.
Examples of natural disasters
Throughout history there have been great natural disasters, among which we can list the following:
- The Great Drought in the United States during the 1930s.
- The Tragedy of Vargas, a trough on the Venezuelan coast in 1999, which caused heavy rains for a week and massive landslides, which is why it is classified as the deadliest mudslide in history by the Guinness Record.
- The Spanish flu of 1918, a pandemic that killed around 40 million people.
- The 2011 Japanese tsunami, the result of a catastrophic earthquake in the Pacific Ocean basin measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, which created waves up to 40.5 meters high.
- The eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which buried the Roman city of Pompeii in lava in AD 79.
- The 2017 Chiapas earthquake, which occurred in September of that year and with its epicenter in the Mexican city, had an intensity of 8.2 on the Richter scale and left 98 dead and 2,500,000 affected.
- Hurricane María in 2017, the third hurricane of the season of the year in the Caribbean, after Irma and José, also devastating. It killed around 500 people and was particularly cruel in Puerto Rico, which was still recovering from the damage caused by Irma.