Natural Disasters And Their Impacts

Last Updated on March 19, 2019

Mother Earth is a vast space and she is prone to many unforeseen calamities. Natural disasters are events that hit the ground that cause the loss of lives and property.

There is no way to prevent the world from natural disasters. But by controlled Human actions, we can reduce the severity of few natural events.

Five Important Types of Natural Disasters are:

  1. Flood
  2. Drought
  3. Cyclone
  4. Earthquake
  5. Tsunami

Flood :

Floods are generally overflow of water from:

  • Rivers (or)
  • Lakes (or)
  • Oceans

Water escapes from the boundaries of these water bodies and The major problem is that during flood most of the things are washed away and people cannot move our of their homes. Scarcity of good drinking water and food becomes a great struggle for people till they bounce back to normal state.

Drought:

When there is very low precipitation in a region there occurs shortage in water supply. Such a condition is called Drought. Drought occurs in low rain areas and major causes of Drought are:

  • Deficiency in Precipitation in a region
  • Prolonged Dry season
  • Climate Change due to Global Warming
  • Soil Erosion
  • Human Activities

There are 3 main types of Droughts:

  1. Meteorological Drought
  2. Agricultural Drought
  3. Hydro-logical Drought

The common effects of drought are Famine, Hunger, Thirst, War over food and resources, Wildfire, Mass Migration, Dust Storms, Habitat Change and so on. Drought can be avoided or faced through methods like: Rain Water Harvesting, Building Dams, Crop Rotation, Desalination, Drought Monitoring and various other techniques.

Cyclone:

Cyclone is an air mass but in a very large scale. It is so fiery because this air mass  keeps rotating over and over around a strong center of Low Atmospheric Pressure. Cyclones are robust whirling winds that do not have a specific course or direction. They can lead to lot of destruction and loss of life in the place of impact. A Cyclone, once it strikes the earth can last for few seconds or even 10 minutes. There are 3 main types of Cyclone:

  • Extratropical Cyclone
  • Polar Low Cyclone
  • Subtropical Cyclone

Earthquake :

Earthquakes are a unexpected and violent shaking of the ground. These shakes are very strong that they cause severe destruction. The main reason for earthquakes are due to movements within the earth’s crust or because of volcanic action.

People go panic once an earthquake hits since it is capable of huge destruction and loss of life.

The effects of earthquake include:

  1. Ground Rupture
  2. Land slides
  3. Soil Liquefaction
  4. Fires
  5. Tsunami

Tsunami :

Tsunami is series of waves which arise in a large water body due to the displacement of a large volume of water. Tsunami is a rapidly rising tide which causes serious destruction. Forecasting Tsunami at the right can avoid unnecessary loss of life and reduce various risks that arise because of it.