Calamitous, distressing, or ruinous effects of a disastrous
event (such as drought, flood, fire, hurricane, war) of such
scale that they disrupt (or threaten to disrupt) critical
functions of an organization, society or system, for a period
long enough to significantly harm it or cause its failure. It is
the consequences of a disastrous event and the inability of its
victims to cope with them that constitute a disaster, not the
event itself. Although there is no universally accepted
definition of a disaster, the following observation by the US
disaster relief specialist Frederick C. Cuny (1944-1995) comes
close, "A situation resulting from an environmental phenomenon
or armed conflict that produced stress, personal injury,
physical damage, and economic disruption of great magnitude."
The definition adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO)
terms a disaster as "The result of a vast ecological breakdown
in the relations between man and his environment, a serious and
sudden (or slow, as in drought) disrupti