Session Long Project Involve Developing a Disaster

Session Long Project involve developing a disaster management program a specific country include hazard analysis, prevention, preparedness, response, recovery plans. Epidemiology Disasters Respond: 1. In 2011, Japan was shook by a devastating earthquake which claimed thousands of deaths and led to serious economic casualties. Since then, a number of concerns have been raised in regards to expectations of an even vengeful one in the near future. In fact, Japan has had a history of damaging quakes throughout the years.

In 2004, the Ch-etsu Earthquakes, although less serious as to the number of human lives, forced many people to leave homes and injured thousands. It was considered the most vengeful quake since 1995 when thousands were killed in the Great Hanshin Earthquake, hundreds of thousands more were affected one way or another and substantial economical damage was registered. As such, Japanese have become more vigilant in regards to their safety and are keeping their guard up, aware of an imminent danger.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Japan has been subject to some various harmful and other less dangerous earthquakes considering that the Asian continent is one of the regions where seismic activity is not merely regular, but frequent. In fact, when addressing the number of human casualties, Asia is situated at the top of the list with a distribution of deaths of 67%. This is to say that, of all continents, the level of impact of earthquakes is most high in Asia when considering the number of deaths.

Furthermore, there is an approximately 80 percentage of economical damage caused by earthquakes, subsequently tsunamis which occur because of the former. This again makes Asia the most affected of continents in matters of estimated financial damage. Although Japan has had its share of devastating natural disasters experienced as earthquakes, other Asian countries have also suffered due to similar unfortunate experiences. The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) provided in January this year a top 10 of worldwide deadliest disasters.

Accordingly, whereas the earthquake, subsequently tsunami in Japan 2011 registered 19,846 number of deaths, the earthquake/tsunami in Indonesia several years earlier was estimated at 165,708 (CRED, January 2013). The latter was the second biggest tsunami ever registered and it was caused by an undersea megathrust earthquake. Like Japan, Indonesia is also situated in the Pacific's Ring of Fire which is an area subject to intense tectonic activity and thus, earthquakes and tsunamis occur regularly.

The impact of the 2004 series of tsunamis was felt in a number of other regions as well, like Bangladesh, Yemen, Singapore, etc., including several African areas. Because of their position in relation to the Ring of Fire, both Indonesia and Japan have known frequent seismic activity. However, it is difficult to assess the level of frequency in Asian countries individually precisely because seismic activity is common. In this respect, addressing major earthquake disasters may be more effective in contrasting quakes' frequency, subsequently the impact and the aftermath consequences.

In Asia, earthquakes occur on a 12% rate which is overthrown by floods with a 45 percentage of occurrence and a 27% storm rate. However, neither of the last two has registered as many deaths or economic damage as earthquakes. This goes to show that the impact of this particular natural disaster is substantial on the Asian continent and it dramatically reflects upon the people and the overall situation.

A report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has acknowledged that, although all continents are affected by large-scale disasters, ?the Asian region had the highest total numbers of displaced each year, with China, Sri Lanka, Japan and the Philippines having the worst disasters in scale. (IFRC, p. 16) What the report is referring to in matters of "displaced" is in regards to the number of people who have been forced to flee their homes due to natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Thus, the level of impact on the well being of people is understood to have been dramatic in the last years. This raises concerns as to the safety of people and Asian societies are in need of further mobilizing forces in order to ensure the efficiency of rescue missions. Due to the fact that earthquakes cannot be prevented, safety measures should at least be directed at constructing resistant structures and people should benefit from specific training and should be further assisted in the aftermath of an earthquake.

As such, humanitarian challenges need to be addressed appropriately. Indeed, ?disaster preparedness must go beyond emergency relief and incorporate long-term aspects. Failure to address this early would only cause further strains on national capacities in dealing with the increasing high frequency of disasters. (Jamil and Kuntjoro, 2009) As already stated, Japan's geographical position is related to the frequency in number of earthquakes which occur in the country. Worldwide, most earthquakes occur along a belt called the Circum-Pacific belt which goes around Japan, as well, among several other parts of the globe.

This does not only expose Japan to a series of daily minor quakes but is also the responsible factor for Japan being several times stricken by high magnitude earthquakes, such as the one in 2011 measuring 8.9. Furthermore, because ?Japan lies at the intersection of three major tectonic plates, ? The frequency of major earthquakes is more so higher (Leonard, 2011, p. 2) Thus, minor earthquakes, although frequent, do not represent a serious threat to Japan. But, the frequency of major earthquakes does because the impact is further higher and the aftermath more challenging.

This is because earthquakes.