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Affected by Disasters

Map No. 245

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Disasters are events that overwhelm local capacity, causing destruction and suffering, and necessitating a request for outside help. Disasters include droughts, epidemics, volcanoes, storms, fires, and events caused by accidents or indirectly caused by wars. Being affected by a disaster here means requiring assistance to survive, for example shelter, water, sanitation, medication and food.

Of all people affected by disasters between 1975 and 2004, 43% live in Southern Asia, 41% live in Eastern Asia, and 5% live in Southeastern Africa.

"We cannot prevent disasters ... What we hope to do is to be more proactive, to be better prepared so that we can react better, faster." Winston Choo, 2006

Territory size shows the proportion of all people worldwide affected by disasters between 1975 and 2004, that live there. Being ‘affected’ includes requiring emergency assistance for basic survival, and catching an infectious diseases not usually found there.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page