Climatic Hazard In An LEDC - Natural Hazards

Question 1

• name of disaster
• location
• facts (5)

Answer 1

• cyclone Nargis
• Myanmar
• 2nd May 2008
• formed in the Bay of Bengal
• hit the Irawaddy delta 5 days after its formation
• maximum sustained wind speed of 212km/hour
• storm surge of 12 feet

Question 2

• primary and secondary impacts (3)

Answer 2

• more than 140,000 people were killed —-> 2000 children were orphaned, putting pressure on the country
• 95% of buildings in the Irawaddy delta were destroyed —-> 2-3 million were left homeless and vulnerable
• over 63% of rice paddy fields were submerged —-> the cost of rice increased by 50% leading to starvation, people lost their livelihoods

Question 3

• reasons for severity (3)

Answer 3

• government refused foreign aid till 3 weeks after the cyclone
• almost 75% of mangroves had been removed for: firewood; land for rice paddies and settlement areas so there was less protection from the storm surge
• despite warnings from Indian and Thai weather agencies the weather forecasters announced that there was little risk so people weren’t prepared or evacuated

Question 4

• long-term response (1)

Answer 4

• decided in 2015 that U.S. technology firms would bring a technologically advanced, nationwide, monitoring, forecasting and severe weather alerting system