by Stacy Wong

Created on: June 21, 2008   Last Updated: June 22, 2008

The impact of tropical cyclones can be classified as primary or secondary effects. The primary effects are those which are felt as a result of storm surge, wind damage and inland freshwater flooding directly caused by the cyclone. On the contrary, secondary effects are those which are felt as a result of the damages done to the country via the primary effects indirectly caused by the cyclone.

A cyclone of a higher category (higher wind speeds and intensity) will have a more severe impact on the nation it makes landfall on. However, the severity of the impact also differs due to the varying degrees of prediction, mitigation and response measures in place to deal with the natural disaster. Precautionary and mitigation measures help to alleviate the primary effects while relief measures help to assuage the secondary effects.

Typically, less developed countries have less or ineffective measures in place compared to developed countries. This is why given cyclones of similar magnitude, they often experience more brutal impacts (especially in terms of primary effects) than developed nations.

Less developed nations have different priorities from developed ones. Their focus is mainly to develop the nation and to eradicate poverty, a phenomenon which plagues most developing countries. Funds borrowed from the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank are mostly directed towards public projects for economic progress rather than to the establishment of structures that can hold out a natural disaster like a cyclone. Hence, it is likely that developed nations are more prepared to face a cyclone than a less developed nation.

According to Bangladesh's budget in 2007, less than 4.4% of its public expenditure went to social safety net spending while 19% went to increasing the enrolment rate of girls into secondary and higher educational institutes. This is in contrast to Japan which dedicated 45% of its total general expenditures to social security spending and slightly above 10% to education and science and technology in the same year. Hence, Japan stands a better chance against a natural disaster than Bangladesh considering that it planned to spend more on the construction of preventive structures or the maintenance of current structures to hold out against a natural disaster. Japan is also able to afford better technological equipment to predict natural disasters than Bangladesh, making Japan more prepared against a cyclone if one does come by.

The varying levels of preparedness

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