What is a Disaster?

Abstract

One of the most serious bottle-necks in the discussions concerning the medical disaster relief is the lack of any uniformity of the concept “Disaster.”In the summary of the International Congress on Disaster Medicine (Mainz 1977) (1) we can read “The definition of a disaster. This question hung over many of the discussions of the Congress. Several speakers drew attention to the fundamental differences between relief services for an air or train crash and those for an earthquake or flood. Armed conflicts can present different problems again which in themselves vary enormously. While numbers of victims were submitted as a basis for one classification, numbers alone are not enough.”