GC: n
S: UNISDR – https://bit.ly/2SrFxqY (last access: 3 February 2019); ARC – https://rdcrss.org/2t2K1WX (last access: 18 September 2017).
N: 1. 1590s, from Middle French désastre (1560s), from Italian disastro “ill-starred,” from dis-, here merely pejorative + astro “star, planet,” from Latin astrum, from Greek astron “star” (from PIE root *ster- “star”). The sense is astrological, of a calamity blamed on an unfavorable position of a planet.
2. Event caused by a natural phenomenon, technical failure or accident, whether or not due to human intervention, that causes serious injury to persons or extensive damage to property and requires the community concerned to take unusual action.
Examples of disasters include fires, floods, earthquakes, landslides, explosions, toxic leaks and pandemics.
3. disaster, calamity, catastrophe, cataclysm are comparable when they denote an event or situation that is regarded as a terrible misfortune.
- A disaster is an unforeseen mischance or misadventure (as a shipwreck, a serious railroad accident, or the failure of a great enterprise) which happens either through culpable lack of foresight or through adverse external agency and brings with it destruction (as of life and property) or ruin (as of projects, careers, or great hopes).
- Calamity is a grievous misfortune, particularly one which involves a great or far-reaching personal or public loss or which produces profound, often widespread distress; thus the rout at Bull Run was a disaster for the North but the assassination of Lincoln was a calamity; the wreck of the Don Juan was a disaster and, as involving the loss of Shelley, it was a calamity.
- Catastrophe is used of a disastrous conclusion; it often emphasizes the idea of finality.
4. In the field of Insurance, the Spanish term siniestro can be translated as “claim” (claims made basis system), “occurrence”, “occurrence of risk” (occurrence basis system), “loss” or “casualty” depending on context.
S: 1. OED – https://bit.ly/2WDV8Dm (last access: 18 September 2017). 2. GDT – https://bit.ly/2MMkKJA (last access: 18 September 2017). 3. EL&U – https://bit.ly/2TtOde3 (last access: 18 September 2017). 4. GDT – https://bit.ly/2G7qVr5; https://bit.ly/2GqP0sz (last access: 19 September 2017).
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S:
CR: disaster victims
