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“the Hazards Presented by Tropical Storms Have the Greatest Impact on the World’s Poorest People.” to What Extent Do You Agree with This View? (40 Marks)

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“The hazards presented by Tropical storms have the greatest impact on the world’s poorest people.” To what extent do you agree with this view? (40 marks) Tropical storms are defined as low pressure systems that form over tropical seas and can devastate areas of human settlements with hurricane force winds and floods. The severity of these impacts varies greatly depending on a countries development levels and is attributable to numerous factors such as: infrastructure, job structure, the provision of service, prediction technology and how much aid is received. Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone are two examples of tropical storms that affected areas drastically apart in economic development. One way in which MEDC’s and LEDC’s differ is …show more content…

On the other hand this was much different in the USA. Many who could afford to decided to move out of the worst areas hit like the New Orleans. The effect of this was a long term change to the areas demographic which resulted in economic consequences as those moving were generally the economically active. This resulted in the problem of the poorest being left behind leading to long term impacts such as deprivation. One way in which impacts can be reduced is through responses. Responses include both preparation and how the country reacts once the disaster has occurred. In the case of Katrina there were advanced warnings in place 2 days before the storm and a state of emergency declared 1 day in advance. Additionally risk assessments had also been published and an evacuation of New Orleans was ordered on the day. Whilst many argued that this was too late the majority of the population still did manage to leave in private cars with 150,000 remaining the majority by choice. The ability of many being able to evacuate so easily is another aspect that differs as in a country of high development such as the US private car ownership is high whilst it is significantly lower in an LEDC. The combined effect of advanced warnings and efficient evacuation thus aided in a significantly lower death toll in the US. In Myanmar however the government was significantly less prepared, whilst systems were in place to detect flooding

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