Mass Deaths Disasters: An analytical approach to their definition

Abstract

High death tolls associated with disasters have eventually been used as a scale of measurement. The absence of methodological tools specifically destined for the evaluation and analytical understanding of the problem has led to take the number of deaths as a direct measurement of the intensity of the disaster. This, in turn, exacerbates the effects of such events. The political and unscrupulous use of these figures, the concealment of responsibilities, the exceeding of the technical capacity in managing and determining the final disposition of bodies, the lack of processes for counting the death, the overlap of missing persons’ numbers with unidentified bodies, as well as the disregard for victims and their families, encompass a series of concrete aspects surrounding these events that –tied to phenomena or human-driven causes– continue to be reproduced globally with little attention to their prevention or mitigation. The recent pandemic highlighted this reality worldwide, including highly developed countries. In this work, we conduct a critical review of the issue and propose a definition whose methodological function aims to contribute to a critical understanding of the problem, as well as to establish a specific field of study in this regard.