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jkottke · 4 years

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People Behave More Cooperatively During Disasters

I've been wanting to write something about this for a few weeks now, so I was glad to find this short but meaty Twitter thread by Dan Gardner about how people react in a crisis: they get more cooperative, not less.

Please remember: The idea that when disaster strikes people panic and social order collapses is very popular. It is also a myth. A huge research literature shows disaster makes people *more* pro-social. They cooperate. They support each other. They're better than ever.

But the myth matters because it can lead people to take counterproductive actions and adopt policies. The simple truth is we are a fantastically social species and threats only fuel our instinct to pro-social behaviour.

Incidentally, this point is made, and is forgotten, after every disaster. Remember 9/11? Everyone was astonished that snarling, greedy, individualistic New Yorkers were suddenly behaving like selfless saints. No need for surprise. That's humanity. That's how we roll.

A reader suggested I check out Rebecca Solnit's writing on the topic, and indeed she wrote an entire book in 2010 about this: A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. Solnit recently spoke to CBC Radio about her research.

I had learned by reading the oral histories of the 1906 earthquake, and by reading the wonderful disaster sociologists in a field that begins in part with Samuel Prince, looking at the Halifax Explosion in 1917 ... that actually in disasters, most people are altruistic, brave, communitarian, generous and deeply creative in rescuing each other, creating the conditions for success of survival and often creating these little disaster utopias where everyone feels equal. Everyone feels like a participant.

It's like a reset, when you turn the machine on and off and on again, that our basic default setting is generous and communitarian and altruistic. But what's shocking is the incredible joy people often seem to have, when they describe that sense of purpose, connection, community agency they found. It speaks to how deeply we desire something we mostly don't have in everyday life. That's a kind of social, public love and power, above and beyond the private life.

I've put this 2016 episode of On Being with Solnit on my to-listen list.

The amazing thing about the 1989 earthquake -- it was an earthquake as big as the kind that killed thousands of people in places like Turkey and Mexico City, and things like that. But partly, because we have good infrastructure, about 50 people died, a number of people lost their homes, everybody was shaken up. But what was so interesting for me was that people seemed to kind of love what was going on.

That same year in the aftermath of the election, she wrote an essay called How to Survive a Disaster.

I landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, shortly after a big hurricane tore up the city in October of 2003. The man in charge of taking me around told me about the hurricane-not the winds at more than a hundred miles an hour that tore up trees, roofs, telephone poles, not the seas that rose nearly ten feet, but the neighbors. He spoke of the few days when everything was disrupted and lit up with happiness as he did so. In his neighborhood all the people had come out of their houses to speak with each other, aid each other, to improvise a community kitchen, make sure the elders were okay, and spend time together, no longer strangers. "Everybody woke up the next morning and everything was different," he mused. "There was no electricity, all the stores were closed, no one had access to media. The consequence was that everyone poured out into the street to bear witness. Not quite a street party, but everyone out at once-it was a sense of happiness to see everybody even though we didn't know each other." His joy struck me powerfully.

More reading material on this, via Gardner: Disaster Mythology and Fact: Hurricane Katrina and Social Attachment, Psychological disaster myths in the perception and management of mass emergencies, There Goes Hurricane Florence; Here Come the Disaster Myths, and 5 Most Common (and Most Dangerous) Disaster Myths.

Note: A version of this post first appeared in Noticing, the kottke.org newsletter. You can subscribe here.

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austindailyglobe-blog · 7 years

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Huge 7.3 Magnitude Quake Hits Iraq Near Iranian Border

At least 129 people have died and hundreds injured after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit Iraq’s Kurdish region near the Iranian border.

The strong quake hit large parts of northern Iraq and the capital Baghdad on Sunday, and also caused damage in villages across the border in Iran.

The epicenter was in Penjwin, in Sulaimaniyah province which is in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region very close to the Iranian border.

Some of those killed were in small Iranian towns while others died in Iraq and at least 300 people are said to be injured and officials are expecting both the death toll and the casualty list to grow with civilians still buried under the rubble.

An Audi is buried under a pile of rubble in an earthquake that killed at least 10 people in Iran and Iraq.

Three men inspect the damage in the Kurdistan region tonight as a building appears to have collapsed.

Rubble lies in the street after the earthquake hit 200 miles away from Baghdad, which still felt the tremors.

A building can be seen (left) destroyed by the 7.3 magnitude earthquake which injured at least 50 people (right).

A car is buried under a pile of bricks in the massive earthquake that shook Iran and Iraq.

Rescuers have stepped up efforts overnight to find dozens trapped under rubble.

At least 129 people were killed in Iran’s Kermanshah province on the Iraqi border, the provincial deputy governor told state television.

Mojtaba Nikkerdar said: ‘There are still people under the rubble. We hope the number of dead and injured won’t rise too much, but it will rise.’

More than 60 of the victims were in the town of Sarpol-e Zahab, about 15 km (10 miles) from the border.

Kurdish health officials also said at least four people were killed in Iraq and there were 50 injured.

The US Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude 7.3, while an Iraqi meteorology official put its magnitude at 6.5 with the epicenter in Penjwin in Sulaimaniyah province in the Kurdistan region close to the main border crossing with Iran.

The electricity was cut off in several Iranian and Iraqi cities, and fears of aftershocks sent thousands of people in both countries out onto the streets and parks in cold weather.

‘The night has made it difficult for helicopters to fly to the affected areas and some roads are also cut off. We are worried about remote villages,’ Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said in an interview on state television.

Many houses in rural parts of the province are made of mud bricks and are known to crumble easily in quake-prone Iran.

A quake registering a magnitude between 7 and 7.9 can inflict widespread, heavy damage.

Local people said in media reports and on Twitter they had felt several aftershocks. Television said schools were closed in Kermanshah and Ilam provinces on Monday.

On the Iraqi side, the most extensive damage was in the town of Darbandikhan, 75 km (47 miles) east of the city of Sulaimaniyah in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region.

More than 30 people were injured in the town, according to Kurdish Health Minister Rekawt Hama Rasheed.

‘The situation there is very critical,’ Rasheed said.

The district’s main hospital was severely damaged and had no power, Rasheed said, so the injured were being taken to Sulaimaniyah for treatment.

There was extensive structural damage to buildings and homes.

In Halabja, local officials said a 12-year-old boy died from an electric shock when an electric cable fell during the earthquake.

Many residents in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, rushed out of houses and tall buildings in panic.

‘I was sitting with my kids having dinner and suddenly the building was just dancing in the air,’ said Majida Ameer, who ran out of her building in the capital’s Salihiya district with her three children.

‘I thought at first that it was a huge bomb. But then I heard everyone around me screaming: “Earthquake!”.’

There were similar scenes in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, and across other cities in northern Iraq, close to the quake’s epicentre.

Iraq’s meteorology centre advised people to stay away from buildings and not to use elevators, in case of aftershocks.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3 struck Iraq on Sunday rocking Baghdad more than 200 miles away. The epicenter was 103 km (64 miles) southeast of the city of As-Sulaymaniyah near the Iranian border.

The windows to this supermarket are left completely shattered by the 7.3 magnitude earthquake.

The destruction left behind by the earthquake is seen here as shards of glass litter the streets.

The calm before the storm as people can be seen sitting in a cafe just moments before the earthquake hits.

People ditch their tables and sprint out of the cafe, hurdling chairs and sofas to get to safetyResidents of Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir also reported feeling a strong tremor, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in the city.

Turkish Red Crescent Chairman Kerem Kinik told broadcaster NTV that Red Crescent teams in Erbil were preparing to go to the site of the earthquake and that Turkeyâs national disaster management agency, AFAD, and National Medical Rescue Teams (UMKE) were also preparing to head into Iraq. AFAD’s chairman said the organization was waiting for a reply to its offer for help.

In a tweet, Kinik said the Turkish Red Crescent was gathering 3,000 tents and heaters, 10,000 beds and blankets and moving them towards the Iraqi border.

‘We are coordinating with Iranian and Iraqi Red Crescent groups. We are also getting prepared to make deliveries from our northern Iraq Erbil depot,’ he said.

Israeli media said the quake was felt in many parts of Israel too.

The quake was even felt in the Iranian capital Tehran, with some villages hit by power cuts, Iranian state TV reported.

‘The quake was felt in several Iranian provinces bordering Iraq … Eight villages were damaged … Electricity has been cut in some villages and rescue teams have been dispatched to those areas,’ TV reported.

In the province of Sulaimaniyah, located in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, residents ran out onto the streets at the time of the quake and some minor property damage was recorded, a reporter said.

In Iran, ISNA said the earthquake was felt in several cities in the west of the country including Tabriz.

Residents of Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir also reported feeling a strong tremor, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in the city.

In a tweet, Kinik said the Turkish Red Crescent was gathering 3,000 tents and heaters, 10,000 beds and blankets and moving them towards the Iraqi border.

‘We are coordinating with Iranian and Iraqi Red Crescent groups. We are also getting prepared to make deliveries from our northern Iraq Erbil depot,’ he said.

Israeli media said the quake was felt in many parts of Israel too.

The quake was even felt in the Iranian capital Tehran, with some villages hit by power cuts, Iranian state TV reported.

In the province of Sulaimaniyah, located in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, residents ran out onto the streets at the time of the quake and some minor property damage was recorded, a reporter said.

In Iran, ISNA said the earthquake was felt in several cities in the west of the country including Tabriz.

The quake took place along a 1,500 kilometer fault line between the Arabia and Eurasia tectonic plates, a belt extending through western Iran and into northeastern Iraq, the US Geological Survey said.

A 5.7 magnitude earthquake near Iran’s border with Turkmenistan in May killed two people, injured hundreds and caused widespread damage, state media reported.

The last major earthquake to strike Iran was a 2003 tremor in Bam, in the southeastern province of Kerman, which killed at least 31,000 people and flattened the city.

Meanwhile, in Japan, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck tonight.

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Huge 7.3 Magnitude Quake Hits Iraq Near Iranian Border was originally published on Austin Daily Globe

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