Economy
When a natural disaster occurs, small countries are affected the most. Infrastructures are often destroyed. For example, roads, electricity, hospitals, and school buildings are destroyed, making relief and recovery efforts difficult. Small countries often do not have the means to fix roads or establish new medical facilities immediately after the disaster.
The effect of a tsunami on economy is very severe. A big country usually has a more diversified economy, while a smaller country might have a whole industry crippled by the disaster. For example, Thailand is heavily dependent on tourism as its source of income and foreign exchange. About half of the tourist revenue came from the resort town of Phuket . After the Tsunami of December 2004 destroyed the town of Phuket, the Thai economy suffered a huge hit. Countries such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and villages along the coastal area are heavily dependent on fishing. With the boats destroyed and damages to the coral reef, fishing may not be viable for an extended period of time. Without their primary livelihood, many families will have a very difficult time making ends meet.
Right after the tsunami disaster, the immediate needs are to provide shelter for the people whose homes are destroyed, to provide clean water and to provide food. These are funds that need to be re-allocated from national treasuries. These funds may be previously allotted to economic development projects elsewhere that will be postponed.
Infrastructure that is destroyed by tsunami now needs to be rebuilt. For example, roads, bridges, and railroads may take years to rebuild. These are vital to economic development for the people and it will take many years to recover.
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Credits
Credits: Online
Credits: Books
Apocalypse: a Natural History of Global Disasters
by Bill McGuire (Cassell, London, 1999).
Credits: Interactions
Ideas for team-generated interactions were conceived by reading articles from NASA and also from Creative Adventures activities.
Credits: Individuals
- Ms. Irivinti for teaching us how to use Dreamweaver for our web design, Photoshop and Fireworks for graphics as well as animating our logo. She taught us how to create different background (fading) effects, how to pick appropriate colors, and how to generate theme specific images, spacers etc. She also assisted us with all programming aspects of our website.
- Mrs. Cataldo, Ms. Irivinti and our parents for guiding us with research and content development. It was difficult to find information we needed in one place and their assistance helped us a lot in this regard.
- Mrs. Cataldo and Ms. Irivinti for reviewing and editing what we wrote. They told us when our writing needed more work and also taught us how to cite sources, obtain permission for images that we borrowed from other websites and also the proper way to credit them.
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