"...Disaster losses include not only the shocking direct impacts that we see on the news, such as the loss of life, housing, and infrastructure, but also indirect impacts such as the foregone production of goods and services caused by interruptions in utility services, transport, labor supplies, suppliers, or markets."

Although natural disasters have long been considered a tragic interruption to the development process, the development community now links disasters to development. An earthquake in San Fernando, California may suffer the equal amount of direct economic loss as an earthquake in Venezuela. The disasters differ in the recovery time and loss of life experienced by each country. In the end, the recovery factors become an issue of basic development. It is doing development right and making sure that human activities contribute to reducing disasters rather than exacerbating them.