Why do such catastrophic weather events only occur in poverty stricken countries?

Question

Is America just an extremely blessed country. Have you ever wondered why a cyclone, earthquake, etc. has not occurred at the level of destruction and deaths of poor countries? Also the severe weather tragedies always occur in countries not well known and far-far way.

Answer 1

2 problems.

First, the US has had several bad disasters. There was a really bad earthquake caused by the New Madrid Fault which was felt in most of the country and caused severe damage in the Midwest. Also, Florida and other places have had really bad hurricanes, there just isn't as much of a death toll because of early warning systems and such, so people know to leave or take cover.

Second and more importantly, you're dividing the world up into the US and Everyone Else. Have any places affected by a big natural disaster been hit by something as catastrophic before? Not likely, or at least not recently. The US is only a fraction of the world's population, and is as likely to get hit as anywhere else, and gets it about as often.

Answer 2

I have always believed, it is the over populated countries that tradgically get these conditions to under-populate the world. That is my belief anyway.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, many many countries across the world are poverty stricken with poor construction and poor communications, thus extreme weather events will by simple probability strike one or more of these countries more often than less impoverished countries, and be more devastating.  America is blessed with a somewhat better location with respect to the areal risks for natural disasters, and we are better prepared to handle them.

Answer 4

It's not that poor nations get hit by more sever weather it is that they experience more damage because they do not have the infrastructure and developed weather warning systems like United States. Unlike Britain and the Netherlands they do not have giant gates that can control the influx of oceanic flow up river mouths, and they lack engineers that can create roads and buildings that are made to tolerate the severity of forces that storm systems  enact on the infrastructure. Plus these countries lack the government funding to do the necessary repairs, so many need outside help. Oh and also there is no evidence that there is a correlation between seismec activity and weather systems.

Answer 5

Excuse me?Where were you when New Orleans drowned?Other extremes of weather occur too but the country is better equiped to respond and avert catastrophe than poorer places.

Answer 6

Weather does not discriminate. It hits affluent regions as well as impoverished regions. We don't hear too muchabout it when the affluent Communities are destroyed for several reasons, like they don't want to have their black-eyes on the news, for image reasons, the impoverished regions are just moreappreciative of the news coverages, and there are just more impoverished areas than affluent areas.

Kinda goes with the cliches that only 2% of the population is wealthy, and the rest of us are middle class or poor.

Another major reason is that the wealthy like to "spread their wings', so to speak, meaning that they own larger chunks of land and have fewer buildings on their properties, and less people to get hurt/harmed by an earthquake, for example.

America is not blessed since hurrican Katrina, which exposed a silent known weakness in all building frames that the Construction Industry hoped against hope would never be exposed. Reinforced braced-frames underperform against all tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes.