Natural Disasters in the Middle-East and North Africa With a Focus on Iran: 1900 to 2015

Abstract

Background: Many types of natural disasters are sudden and calamitous events that create a large\rsocioeconomic burden with significant negative impact on health care, social infrastructure, and\rthe environment; especially in the low and middle income countries; therefore, it is necessary to\rreduce or control this kind of disasters by understanding the specific risks and negative impacts.\rRecognition of disaster events helps us to plan effectively, coordinate and invest on disaster risk\rreduction projects.\rMaterials and Methods: The current article was a narrative review of the epidemiological data\ravailable on natural disasters in MNA countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia,\rand Yemen) and their trends from 1900 to 2015. The statistical data were obtained from international\rdisaster sources (EM-DAT, DesInventar and Gapminder) and literature reviews of international\rreports and journals. To find related articles from journals, data bases such as Pubmed, Escopus,\rGoogle Scholar, and SID were searched for the following key words: natural disasters, Middle-East,\rdisasters and Middle-East, disasters and North Africa, natural disasters and Middle-East, natural\rdisasters and North Africa, and disaster and trend.\rResults: In the last century, more than 80% of natural disaster events occurred in MNA and\rconcentrated in just 9 countries as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, Morocco,\rYemen, and Egypt. Hydrological disasters (flood and landslide) with 63% had the largest share in\r2015 and were more than that of the last century. In 2015, mortality rate of flood with 11% and\rlandslides with 32% had increasing trend compared to last century. In the last 2 years, conversely,\rdamages and victims from flood were about 85%, which were more than those of the last century,\rbut in landslides no change was observed. In 2015, meteorological disasters such as storms and\rextreme temperatures represented 19% of the total disaster occurrence that had an increasing trend\rcompared to that of the last century with 12%. Extreme temperatures with 57% of all deaths and\rstorm with 72% of total victims had the highest levels among other natural disasters in this period.\rIn the previous years, the total number of death, affected people, and damages of metrological\rdisasters had increasing trend compared to the last century. In addition, in 2015, the frequency\rof climatological disasters (drought) and geophysical disasters (earthquake) did not change\rsignificantly, but the number of affected people, deaths, and damages from drought and earthquakes\rhad a noticeable decrease compared to those of the last century.\rConclusion: The trends of natural disasters frequency from 1900 to 2015 in MNA has increased\rand effective mitigation and preparedness is necessary, both at individual and governance levels.\rThis issue in the middle income and developing countries in MNA should be considered as a high\rpriority in national planning.