World disasters report 1993.

Disaster response has been described as the last resort of the amateur: an unkind assessment but not without a grain of truth. Disaster generates an emotional response, and new disaster organisations are born with each new disaster. Lessons of the past on disaster managment have to be learned anew. The need to increase the professionalism of disaster response is evident. All the more so as, in disaster terms, the world is getting worse, not better. Disasters become more complex, frequently involving the interaction of a disaster event, politics, and technology. The last few years have also seen a growth in research into the area of disaster response. Too often, however, disaster researchers and disaster organisations have gone their separate ways. There is a need for these two groups to get together to devise more practical and professional approaches to disaster response. This report is a contribution to this effort of professionalisation. It provides facts and statistics, analysis and an exploration of trends, to dispel a number of myths about disasters and to define and advocate good practice