1. Overall assessment of natural disasters (events, human implications)

The overall assessment of natural disasters in South East Asia and Bangladesh is but partial. The political instabilities in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have hindered the collection of data. Moreover, all the events that have caused damage cannot be taken into account, particularly the minor events data are sometimes non-existent or, if present, are scattered, inaccurate or based on different criteria making an eventual comparison difficult. These events often have a high frequency and are endured with fate on both a local and national scale without drawing external attention. Though the events are only mentioned here, it is necessary to know that they exist because their cumulated effects (which should be evaluated) can have adverse consequences on the economies and societies involved. Such events may also be full of lessons to learn. They often herald major disasters in as much as they are known to occur in areas recently occupied or being under occupation process.

The CRED-UCL (²) database used for the present report does not take into account all the events that caused damages. However, from the threshold values taken and the events registered (³), it is possible to know the principal natural disasters that occurred between 1900 and 1996 in the area of study in terms of events, victims and populations affected. A comparison of data from the different countries is also possible.

²EM-DAT - Emergency Events Database.

³The events with at least 10 dead and/or 100 affected people are taken into consideration. The events that called for assistance on a national or international scale are also taken into consideration. The affected people are considered as people who asked for immediate assistance during an emergency situation.

A first statement refers to the very large place taken by the region under study in terms of natural disasters. Despite the fact that the countries in this region occupy only 1.7% of the total continental surface area and have 6.7% of the world population only, up to 12% (⁴ of the events and more than 20% of the deaths and affected people have been recorded in the region, using world wide scale, in the last 25 years.

⁴Excluding droughts.

Estimating disaster losses

Fig. 3 - Types of consequences of natural disasters.

		Losses
Consequences	Measure	Tangible	Intangible
Deaths	Number of people	Loss of economically active individuals	Social and psychological effects on remaining community
Injuries	Number and injury severity	Medical treatment needs, temporary loss of economic activity by productive individuals	Social and psychological pain and recovery
Physical damage	Inventory of damaged elements, by number and damage level	Replacement and repair cost	Cultural losses
Emergency operations	Volume of labor, workdays employed, equipment and resources	Mobilization costs, investment in preparedness capability	Stress and overwork in relief participants
Disruption to economy	Number of working days lost, volume of production lost	Value of lost production	Opportunities, competitiveness, reputation
Social disruption	Number of displaced persons, homeless	Temporary housing, relief, economic production	Psychological, social contacts, cohesion community morale
Environmental impact	Scale and severity	Clean-up costs, repair cost	Consequences of poorer environment, health risks, risk of future disaster

Source: "Disaster Economics", Disaster Management Training Programme, UNDP/DHA, 1994.

Over the century, 700 disasters have occurred in the region (figure 4) of which 158 (23%) occurred between 1900 and 1979, and 542 (77%) between 1972 and 1996. These data together with that of deaths and affected people appear to show that the natural disasters are becoming more frequent and are also causing heavier and heavier consequences. This is likely to be a general trend. However, one needs to be cautious about the reliability of the data. Most of the information is incomplete especially that concerning the affected people, and the data from certain particular countries (⁵).

⁵There is little data on Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand before 1960.

The Philippines are unquestionably the Islands with the greater amount of disasters (figures 4, 5 and 10). Approximately 50% of the events recorded affected the archipelago. On the other hand, Bangladesh gives the highest number of deaths and affected people (figures 4, 6, 7, 11 and 12).

During the period 1972-1996, two thirds of the affected people and almost 80% of the deaths were from Bangladesh. These figures are even much higher if the century scale is used. The most fatal events on the century were a cyclone in 1970 (300,000 deaths and 4 million affected people) and another one in 1991 (140,000 deaths and 15 million affected people). Comparing figures 6 and 7 with figures 8 and 9, it can be observed that without taking into account the two most fatal events, the ratio of deaths remains the same.

The five other countries all together register only 26% of the events that occurred between 1972 and 1996 (⁶), 5% of the deaths and 18.5% of the affected people. The raw data nevertheless give very high values for the target countries as a whole: approximately 13,000 deaths and above all about 80 million affected people. More than half of them are from Vietnam. For example the floods in the Central Provinces and the Mekong delta between July and December 1996 are supposed having caused more than 680 deaths or missing, in addition to 2 to 4 million disaster stricken people (⁷). The 1995 floods in Laos might have affected at least 300,000 people (JEGGLE, 1996).

⁶Most reliable period for comparisons of this kind, as mentioned above.
⁷After "Water Resources Journal", July 1997.

Fig. 4 - Frequency of events, deaths and affected people from 1900 to 1996.

1900-1996

	EVENTS	%	DEATHS	%	AFFECTED	%
PHILIPPINES	335	47.9	60,953	8.0	63,840,420	13.4
BANGLADESH	190	27.1	669,299	87.8	329,859,768	69.4
VIETNAM	77	11.0	19,910	2.6	43,457,995	9.1
THAILAND	41	5.9	3,493	0.5	23,382,807	4.9
MYANMAR	32	4.6	7,533	1.0	6,907,769	1.5
LAOS	20	2.9	431	0.0	5,679,772	1.2
CAMBODIA	5	0.7	665	0.0	1,950,000	0.4
REGION	700	100	762,284	100	475,078,531	100

1900-1971

	EVENTS	%	DEATHS	%	AFFECTED	%
PHILIPPINES	81	51.3	18,796	3.8	4,118,248	8.3
BANGLADESH	43	27.2	461,971	92.4	43,020,095	87.0
VIETNAM	10	6.3	11,136	2.2	1,029,541	2.1
THAILAND	4	2.5	1,275	0.3	200,000	0.4
MYANMAR	15	9.5	6,479	1.3	907,519	1.8
LAOS	4	2.5	316	0.0	179,000	0.4
CAMBODIA	1	0.6	0	0.0	0	0.0
REGION	158	100	499,973	100	49,454,403	100

1972-1996

	EVENTS	%	DEATHS	%	AFFECTED	%
PHILIPPINES	254	46.9	42,157	16.1	59,722,172	14.0
BANGLADESH	147	27.1	207,328	79.0	286,839,673	67.4
VIETNAM	67	12.4	8,774	3.3	42,428,454	10.0
THAILAND	37	6.8	2,218	0.8	23,182,807	5.4
MYANMAR	17	3.1	1,054	0.4	6,000,250	1.4
LAOS	16	3.0	115	0.0	5,500,772	1.3
CAMBODIA	4	0.7	665	0.3	1,950,000	0.5
REGION	542	100	262,311	100	425,624,128	100

Source: CRED database.

Fig. 5 - Number of disasters (1900-1996) (Source: CRED database)

Fig. 6 - Number of deaths (1900-1996) (Source: CRED database)

Fig. 7 - Number of people affected (1900-1996) (Source: CRED database)

Fig. 8 - Number of deaths (1900-1996) without taking into account the two biggest events in Bangladesh (1970 and 1991 cyclones) (Source: CRED database)

Fig. 9 - Number of people affected (1900-1996) without taking into account the two biggest events in Bangladesh (1970 and 1991 cyclones) (Source: CRED database)

Fig. 10 - Number of disasters (1972-1996) (Source: CRED database)

Fig. 11 - Number of deaths (1972-1996) (Source: CRED database)

Fig. 12 - Number of people affected (1972-1996) (Source: CRED database)