Role of social resilience in mitigating disasters

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze a few recent earthquakes, gain insights into the role of social resilience in the severity of disaster impact and offer plausible approaches to mitigate future disaster impact. Managing and alleviating social and psychological harm among people, in the face of recurring disasters in the world, is very important. Design/methodology/approach – An approach of event comparison has been adopted in this paper. Three recent earthquake events, the 2012 event in Haida Gwaii, Canada, the 2010 event in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami have been examined through the lens of social resilience of affected population. Findings – Japanese people illustrated patience, tolerance and consideration for other impacted people, proving that it is an effective and efficient approach to dealing with a disaster. New Zealand’s resilience can be attributed to having a governance that is well aware of the hazards in the country. In Canada, however, as of 2001, there are barely any government-funded programs geared toward seismic risks research. Although economically, politically and technologically similar countries can easily learn from this review on resilience, it is important to recognize that there are limitations. Originality/value – The research provides a unique point of view into three different cases of earthquake occurred recently in developed economies. The analysis presented in the paper focuses on social resilience, governance and people’s reaction to the disaster which is vital for disaster risk reduction strategies and programs development as well as implementation.