Japan is prone to earthquakes and typhoons. However, sound building construction, education and good communications mean the people in Japan are less vulnerable to earthquakes than citizens of poorer nations. Japan suffered 43 disasters from 1960 to 1981 with an average of 63 deaths per disaster. Bangladesh had 63 catastrophes over the same period with an average death toll of over 10,000.

The difference in the killing power of disasters between rich and poor areas is dramatic. A 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua killed 5000 people. An earthquake in a similarly densely populated area in California the previous year killed a total of just 65 people.

As the poor populations of the third world increase, and as social, political and economic systems force growing populations to live in vulnerable areas the number of people suffering as result of earthquakes will increase. Annual earthquake victims increased by 500 per cent from the 1960s to the 1970s.

Poverty increases the effect of disasters by a great deal.