Disaster impacts comprise physical .

The physical impacts of disasters include casualties (deaths and

injuries) and vary substantially across hazard agents. There often are difficulties in determining how
many of the deaths and injuries are caused by a disaster. In some cases it is impossible to determine
how many persons are missing and, if so, whether this is due to death or unrecorded relocation. The size
of the error in estimates of disaster death tolls can be seen in the fact that for many of the most
catastrophic events the number of deaths is rounded to the nearest thousand and some even are
rounded to the nearest ten thousand. Estimates of injuries are similarly problematic regarding
conflicting estimates of deaths and injuries attributable. Even when bodies can be counted, there are
problems because disaster impact may be only a contributing factor to casualties with pre-existing
health conditions. Moreover, some casualties are indirect consequences of the hazard agent as, for
example, with casualties caused by structural fires following earthquakes (e.g., burns) and destruction of
infrastructure (e.g., illnesses from contaminated water supplies).
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Communities reeling from natural disasters also tend to become breeding grounds for outbreaks of
communicable diseases, which are defined as diseases that easily transfer from person to person or
animal to person. Continuing problems with hygiene and diseases related to hygiene are common in
refugee camps. Maintaining hygiene levels in these camps is critical to full recovery.Prevention methods
like washing hands and vaccinations are the key to combating these deadly, yet preventable
outbreaks.Disasters change the environment, so they can also change the population [through
displacement], as well as the agents that create disease.Creating new breeding environments can
sometimes even mean new diseases are introduced to populations that have not suffered from those
diseases in the past.Disease that was present before the disaster can increase, and disease previously
under control can become problematic.