Effects of Natural Disasters

on People
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The biggest shock we ever had was Hurricane Gilbert; . . .all what we found after Gilbert was one wooden chair.
Woman, Millbank, Jamaica
Unfortunately for me, the land on which I made my farm was a swampy area and when it rained the whole farm
submerged with water and was destroyed
. Elderly man, Atonsu Bokro, Ghana

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Altering the hazard (seeding clouds during a drought).

Averting the hazard (building dams to control floodwaters).
Avoiding the hazard (moving parts of communities out of floodplains).
Adapting to the hazard (constructing earthquake-proof buildings).
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Following a widespread natural disaster, national and local governments need to establish a
macroeconomic management scheme to tackle fiscal and current account effectslower tax revenues and
higher public spending, lower exports and higher imports. A calamity fund like that in Mexico can
improve governments ability to cover the costs of coping with natural disasters (box 9.8). Calamity funds
should focus on absorbing the catastrophic risks that cannot be absorbed by third parties, such as disasterrelated damage affecting farmers and urban dwellers unable to afford private insurance, and providing
social assistance to poor disaster victims.
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Box 9.9 Involving communities in postdisaster reconstruction: lessons from the Maharashtra
Emergency Earthquake Rehabilitation Program
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