Most of the time, natural disasters cause the loss of life or the damage of property, though there isn’t technically a minimum damage requirement for something to be considered a natural disaster. Indeed, since the severity of a disaster often depends on the infrastructure in a given location, classifying disasters solely based on their negative impacts is difficult.
We should mention, however, that while natural disasters are (usually) naturally caused, we would only consider them a disaster if they result in negative impacts on human life.
For example, an avalanche that occurs deep in a remote mountain range without affecting any humans wouldn’t be considered a natural disaster. But an earthquake that destroys a town certainly is.
A natural disaster can be defined as any event with an environmental cause profound environmental effect and/or process that negatively impacts humans and frequently causes financial loss.
Besides that, the definition is pretty open-ended. Read more…
