Calendar of Hazards

Updated 2024, May 14 th.

 

Some hazards and catastrophes are predictable in time and place as they simply follow the seasons, some are not. The is even an alphabetical wiki-list of natural disasters! Reason to think about Coping Strategies ?  

 

Per haps a calendar is helpful as many disasters are to the seasons and the climate.

 

This calendar shows lists of both predictable and unpredictable disasters. They have in common that each event exceeds the resilience resources and capacities of a(ny) country. That is, to single-handedly:

1.        handle the event swiftly and

2.          curb the damage and recuperate from it promptly.

That means: without serious setbacks to the nations wealth, prosperity and development for all or for targeted groups of their citizens. Of course, wealthy countries usually are more resilient than poorer ones. 

 

From an average point of view, the frequency of such supra national hazards and catastrophes appears to be two each month, somewhere in the world*). Flooding and draughts take turns, depending the season in the region/hemisphere, other hazards (diseases, famine) following their wake. And there are 'Waco Events' like quakes, eruptions and meteorites.

 

Predictable

Jan

·             Australia: bushfires, in particular New South Wales and Victoria

·             Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa: heat waves, droughts, and wildfires

·             Europe: storms and in the south heavy rainfall and flooding.

·             India: northern regions cold waves and southern regions cyclones, heavy rainfall.

·             Peru and Bolivia: flooding, heavy rainfall

·             Southeast Asia Countries (Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam): tropical storms, typhoons, or heavy rainfall leading to flooding or landslides.

·             South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Yemen: droughts, which can lead to famines

·             USA coastal regions and southern states: winter storms, including blizzards and heavy snowfall, occasional tornado outbreaks in certain regions, “north”: polar vortex

·             Yemen and South Sudan: famines 

Feb

 

Mar

 

Apr

 

May

 

June

 

July

 

 

Aug

 

Sep

·             Africa: floods

·             Asia, Pacific and Japan, China: hurricanes / typhoon (about ten a year)

·             Caribbean islands with Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic: severe storms, hurricanes

·             Indonesia, Japan, Turkey: earthquakes (vault lines)

·             USA: tropical storms and hurricanes affecting coastal regions of North America, including the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard; states like Louisiana and Florida

 

Oct

 

Nov

 

Dec

 

Other predictable "minor" events within the capacity range of most (developed) countries are planes getting lost or crashed, ships and ferries that sink, constructions that collapse, mining accidents and small outbreaks of some infectious diseases.

 

Unpredictable

Yet there are some patterns and facts about them:

·             earthquakes (about a dozen a year; particularly in Aug, Sept, Oct apparently; at the vault lines of course; Indonesia (Java and Sumatra), Japan (in regions like Hokkaido and Honshu), Turkey, S-America, LA-area). See your list of Active Vulcanos

·             famine (see infectious diseases - crops; usually local damage; ps see list of locust plagues);

·             fire (usually following the wake of droughts and dry seasons in the USA, Mediterranean and Australia);

·             hurricanes (in the known 'corridors' for Asia, Pacific and Japan, China; hurricane season June-Jan 3-4 in category 5, the other smaller ones: about twenty a year, August, September);

·             meteors (earth's atmosphere evaporates Earth Crossing Object 's smaller than 50 meters. Objects like the 1908 Siberia impact occur once every 200 years, causing severe national damage. Objects larger than 2 km hit earth once or twice every million years, causing world wide effects. The last known extinction size objects date 65, 130 and 250 million years back). See also the NEO-wiki.

·             outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases (estimates: among mankind 1 pro year, live stock 2 pro year and crops 4 pro year; usually in the wake of floods);

·             tsunamis (usually local damage)

·             volcanic eruptions on land (usually local damage, super eruptions occur once every 100,000 years and have bigger impacts like impacts of meteorites);

·             volcanic eruptions under water (usually local damage): Tonga and Vanuatu (in the Pacific Ring of Fire: underwater volcanic eruptions See your list of Submarine Vulcanos.

 

Coping Strategies

War threats were in history supra national threats, faced and handled by mutual assistance treaties. As war is hopefully not much of a threat for most countries, governments might consider other types of mutual assistance treaties and other usage of military structures, resources and equipments.

 

Given the frequency of hazards and catastrophes, arrangements for mutually deployment of regular emergency services might be considered. There is even perfect list of all kinds of natural disasters. And when the emergency is complex or regular infrastructures have collapsed, a 'Roman Army' like structured (by numbers of ten, having all relevant skills represented to tackle all sorts of situations and obstacles) standing ‘ international rapid assistance force’ (IRAF) might be commendable. Such IRAF teams can deliver the first counter strike to the hazard's direct consequences and clear the way for other, humanitarian civilian assistances.

 

In the course of time, IRAF-like oganisation passed my eye (see ‘Spotted’ below). And of course ‘survivalists’ have developed their own sets of self-help instructions (See ‘ Prepare yourself below). Both lists arre neither complete nor exhaustive, and the same goes for this calendar too.

 

Spotted:

·             INTERNATIONAL SEARCH AND RESCUE ADVISORY GROUP (INSARAG) is a global network of more than 80 countries and organisations under the United Nations umbrella. www.insarag.org/

·             International Rescue Committee  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Rescue_Committee

·             European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO): http://ec.europa.eu/echo/index_en.htm

·             Solidarity in action: http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/core_achievements/solidarity_in_action/index_en.htm?#intro & Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (a global agreement to reduce and prevent disaster risks (manmade or natural) across the globe.

·             UNDAC  United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination www.unocha.org/what-we-do/coordination-tools/undac/overview

·             Aid Worker Security Database: http://aidworkersecurity.org

(PM  I hope these organisations convene once in a while to coordinate their actions.)

 

 

Prepare yourself

Note: this direct links might not work, therefore the www address is given for copy/paste purposes

 

 

Sources, details & more:

 

See also:

 

*)

First edition was Sept 2007, using 5 years of news (2002-2006) from Mapreport.

In 2013 the exercise was repeated using 6 years of news (2007-2012) from Mapreport. A conservative average estimate of 2 hazards pro month, was adjusted to 1 every 2 months; hope that positive change is not an artefact as the result of a policy change at Mapreport.

Updates of the list stopped as Mapreport wasn’t available anymore.

In 2024 ChatGPT (an AI-tool around a library of over 5 million sources till Sept. 2021) was asked to update the calendar of predictable and unpredictable disasters for the 2013-2021 time frame. That did not deliver new data for this list. Only with multiple questions (without an example, by month, by disaster), more data/info was retrieved.