Those who suffer most in disasters are the most vulnerable? To what extent do you agree with this?

To catorgorize people as “suffered” after a disaster varies within different countries, for example for an LEDC like Haiti, “suffered” means loss of lives and crops ruined. However “suffered” for a MEDC country such as America, would be damaged/loss of buildings. Vulnerable can be defined as those exposed to possible harm, which could be seen as everyone who lives within a hazard hot spot. On the other hand vulerability could be based on how long it would take them to recover if they had been hit with a disaster and suffered loss.

This statement can be true when looking at the boxing day tsunami that happened in 2004, espeically for Sri Lanka. They had suffered from over 30,000 deaths. Sri Lanka is a LEDC country that relies hugely on tourism. The tsunami had destroyed many of tourism facilities such as hotel buildings, it took them a while to recover too making them vulnerable. This can be seen as the most vulnerable people, suffered as the more expensive land are away from coasts; leaving people with limited money or choice even to live near it, making them vulnerable from disasters.

Another example of where the ones who suffer the most in disaster are the most vulnerable would be Indonesia, boxing day tsunami 2004 as well. Indonesia is also an LEDC that suffered a lot from the tsunami. 70% of coastal population were killed or went missing during the disaster and up to 400,000 people were displayed. This shows that they were vulnerable as their housing was likely to be very weak and also shanty town-like due to the extremely high number of people being displayed.

On the contrary, disasters such as the 2011 Japan earthquake. More than 18,000 people were killed in the disaster. Most died by drowning. This can be seen as a different vulnerability of the people, however as the tsunami waves reached up to heights up to 128 feet, it is impossible for anyone not to drown in that situation.

To conclude, there are a range of vulnerability and suffering and it depends on the country and the people themselves; although, in terms of level of suffering, LEDCs have it the worse and take the most time to recover, as they are low in money and need donations such as Haiti. On the other hand, MEDCs such as Japan; when a disaster hits they need help (to clean up) rather than money.