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Casualties Following Natural Hazards

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

  • 352 Accesses

Synonyms

Casualties; Fatal and nonfatal injuries; Mass casualty events; Natural disasters, forces of nature

Definition

A casualty of a natural disaster can be defined as any person suffering a physical or psychological injury therefrom. Injury, in turn, is “unintentional or intentional damage to the anatomical structures or physiological processes of the body incurred from acute exposure to an exchange of energy (thermal, mechanical, electrical, or chemical), or the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen” (p. 4, National Committee for Injury Prevention and Control, 1989; Driscoll et al., 2004). For the purposes of this contribution, a natural disaster is considered an event with one of the following: 10 or more human fatalities; 100 or more people affected; a state of emergency declared; and international assistance sought (Scheuren et al., 2008).

Introduction/background

Since the beginning of recorded history, natural disasters have been measured by the severity of their impact...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health, Tropical Medicine & Rehabilitation Sciences; James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, 4811, Australia

    Kerrianne Watt

  2. University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Prof. Philip Weinstein

Authors
  1. Kerrianne Watt
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  2. Prof. Philip Weinstein
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kerrianne Watt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

    Peter T. Bobrowsky

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Watt, K., Weinstein, P. (2013). Casualties Following Natural Hazards. In: Bobrowsky, P.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4399-4_58

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