Natural Disasters in South Asia

A disaster is defined by the vulnerability of the population to an event. South Asia is one of the most disaster-prone regions in terms of its vulnerability. As nearly half of the world’s poor and half of the world’s illiterates and malnourished live in this region, which is also credited to be one of the oldest civilisations of the world. In terms of geo-physical characterstics, South Asia is the region which has wide characterstics ranging from largest mountain ranges, glacial deposits, densest alluvial plains to hottest and coldest habited places. The combination of all these geo-physical and socio-economic-historical factors have made the region one of the most critical natural disaster hot spots in the world. This area gets hit at regular intervals by disasters such as flood, earthquakes, droughts, cyclones, landslides, etc. and makes them more vulnerable by creating setbacks to the developmental efforts of these countries. It is estimated that from 2 to 6 per cent of the GDP of different South Asian countries get wasted every year due to natural disasters.