Earthquakes and natural disasters in South East Asia

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Earthquakes and natural disasters in South East Asia

Thesis Statement

Throughout the history, natural disasters occurring in East Asia have shaped and influenced the course of human development with particular impact upon its culture, economy and social behavior.

Introduction

Natural disasters have ushered human civilization into new era with significant developments in disparate domains as economic, religious, cultural, social or human behavior among significant others being observed, predominantly due to the steps and action or remedial plans that follows natural disasters. People in need are approached with compassionate response from people all around the world to compensate for their grief and loss, representing significant impact of natural disasters in economic and social context. The human civilization developed religiously with new outlook towards religion and the deity or the God as a result of natural disasters, representing significant human development as a consequence of the influence of natural disasters upon human development with particular impact upon religion.

This research is important to understand the impact of natural disasters from multiple perspectives as natural disasters are usually associated with destruction and devastation. Focusing on the developmental view will introduce fresh perspective which could be put to leverage in influencing effective human development even in times of natural disasters as earthquakes, volcano eruption and the likes. This is also important for the formulation of effective risk mitigation strategies in times of natural disasters as the actions undertaken under the umbrella of risk management interventions are predominantly guided by the religious as well as cultural beliefs of people working under relevant authority. The impact of cultural and religious influences during volcanic eruptions; natural disaster as focused by one of the research studies, was found to significantly impact societies and their development of risk management strategies; representing human development (Blong, 1984). This is often referred as 'Volcano sub-cultures' (Dove, 2008). Volcanic eruptions possess the tendency to shape and influence culture, religion and livelihood at local scale.

In addition to the cultural and religious influences which subsequently shape communities, people's social behaviour and vulnerability, natural hazards are also found to have been deeply implanted in socio-economic context as well as historical development of the particular area (Chester, 1998). Although natural disasters are beyond the control of any authority, whilst not being able to be predicted accurately, the secondary consequences which primarily are related to the economic output, mental health of people who are subjected to the disaster etcetera could be managed provided research in the right dimension is undertaken. Human development could be reflected in terms of socio-economic status, education, religious beliefs and cultural developments in alignment to induce minimized impacts of the natural disaster (Riad and Norris, 1996). This effectively reflects on the background of the study, which is imperative to be established so as to effectively progress towards the in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the issue to reach effective conclusion.

Discussion

To identify and use relevant literature, literature search was initiated through the use of technical search engine by the name of Google ...