Discusses crucial issues in detail from the secrets that kill people in disasters & the information that saves lives to the global risks to civilians from the 100 million anti-personnel mines scattered across the world & the new controls that could be enforced on the export & indiscriminate use of mines. Discusses a voluntary code of conduct setting out minimum standards which should be expected of relief agencies & which will take into full account the needs of people affected by disasters. Photographs & 31 tables & figures.

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 management 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. The "World Disasters Report," produced by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies with the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 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. This is the first volume of Annual Reports which will become a vital tool for all those involved in the area of disaster response.

This is a well-written and generously illustrated overview of all the natural and technological events that threaten humans and what they value. It draws on the latest research across the physical and human sciences and guides students and researchers from problems, theories and policies to explore practical, real-world situations.

The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.

Selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2011 International Conference on Materials, Mechatronics and Automation (ICMMA 2011), On 15-16 January, 2011, Australia, Melbourne