Gonzalez 1

Leny Gonzalez

Wm. Morgan Stith

Level 4, writing class

July 20, 2010

Disaster Reduction activities

5 Comprehension Check

1. The number of people affected by the natural disasters has increased tripling to 2

billion, however, the numbers of killed has decrease considerably. In general, it has

made suffer the people more than before, and also it is due that the 75 percent of the

people in the world live in a vulnerable area.

2. According to the text, the most damaged part in the world is the Indian Ocean in

which the tsunami not just killed people, also it bring other sorts of social and

economic problems after the catastrophe.

3. There are three kinds of natural disasters:

Hydro-meteorological: this is related with water problems, for example,

floods and droughts.

Geophysical: this is related to the tectonic plates of the earth. Some

examples are earthquakes and tsunamis.

Biological: this is related to epidemics and insect infestations. For example

the swine flu.

4. They are vulnerable to natural disaster because they live in dangerous places, for

example, floodplains, riverbanks, steep slopes, and they also live in precarious

conditions.

Gonzalez 2

5. They propose that if the responsible government invests in prevention they would

be able to save billions of dollars, for example, if in a natural disaster the monetary

damage was 300 billion they could have prevent that economic cataclysm by make

a prevention program costing about 50 billion. The problem is that no government

wants to invest that amount of money.

6. One example is the case of China, which investing 3.15 billion dollars during the

last four decades, has averted losses in a total amount of 12 billion.

7. The other key to reducing the effects of natural disasters is the community

preparedness and education about risk reduction.