This fascinating book provides a comprehensive overview of the extensive post-disaster mental health recovery program implemented after the 1988 Armenian earthquake. Covering the program's evolution, from the initial acute phase of clinical fieldwork, to its expansion as a three-year teaching and training program for local therapists, to the building of mental health clinics in devastated cities. Featuring poignant memoirs detailing the daily challenges and rewards of working in the trenches, the book presents a conceptual framework that can guide post-disaster clinical and research efforts, lessons learned from this work and other disasters, and highlights recent advances in disaster psychiatry. This school-based intervention program has informed subsequent disaster response efforts in many countries and has provided clinically relevant cutting-edge research findings from longitudinal and treatment outcomes studies conducted over 25 years. Essential reading for psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and other mental health professionals and those working for relief organizations following disasters.

This novel, transdisciplinary work explains how perturbations (defined as strong disturbances or deviations to a system) can affect the population dynamics of social animals, including ourselves. Social responses to perturbations, especially dispersal processes, can also generate non-linear population dynamics, including the potential appearance of tipping points and critical population transitions, which can in turn lead to catastrophic shifts and collapses. The book describes the links between social behaviour (mainly the use of social information and social copying), and non-linear population dynamics at different spatial scales (local dynamics and meta-population dynamics), and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Examples from the natural world illustrate each of the main themes (prospecting, habitat suitability, collective dispersal, and cultural evolution). Human warfare and conflict, referred to in several chapters together with quantitative and qualitative examples, is also viewed as a form of perturbation and represents a paradigmatic example of the rationale behind this book. This applicability to our own species is particularly timely, given increased interest in both ecosystem change, human migration, and the global refugee crisis. Perturbation, Behavioural Feedbacks, and Population Dynamics in Social Animals will appeal to applied, theoretical, and evolutionary ecologists, particularly those working on the population and behavioural ecology of any social animal including humans. Its overlap with the study of complexity will also ensure its relevance and use to scientists from other disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, physics, computational science, economics, and mathematics.

On 21 October 1966, 116 children and 28 adults died when a mountainside coal tip collapsed, engulfing homes and part of a school in the village of Aberfan below. It is a moment that will be forever etched in the memories of many people in Wales and beyond. Aberfan - Government & Disaster is widely recognised as the definitive study of the disaster. Following meticulous research of public records - kept confidential by the UK Government's 30-year rule - the authors, in this revised second edition, explain how and why the disaster happened and why nobody was held responsible. Iain McLean and Martin Johnes reveal how the National Coal Board, civil servants, and government ministers, who should have protected the public interest, and specifically the interests of the people of Aberfan, failed to do so. The authors also consider what has been learned or ignored from Aberfan such as the understanding of psychological trauma and the law concerning 'corporate manslaughter'. Aberfan - Government & Disaster is the revised and updated second edition of Iain McLean and Martin Johnes' acclaimed study published in 2000, which now solely focuses on Aberfan.

Natural disasters destroy more property and kill more people with each passing year. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, fires and other natural events are becoming more frequent and their consequences more devastating. Del Moral and Walker provide a comprehensive summary of the diverse ways in which natural disasters disrupt humanity and how humans cope. Burgeoning human numbers, shrinking resources and intensification of the consequences of natural disasters have produced a crisis of unparalleled proportions. Through this detailed study, the authors provide a template for improving restoration to show how relatively simple approaches can enhance both human well-being and that of the other species on the planet. This book will appeal to ecologists, land managers as well as anyone curious about the natural world and natural disasters.

Report into the Loss of the SS Titanic is a complete re-evaluation of the loss of Titanic based on evidence that has come to light since the discovery of the wreck in 1985. This collective undertaking is compiled by eleven of the world's foremost Titanic researchers - experts who have spent many years examining the wealth of information that has arisen since 1912. Following the basic layout of the 1912 Wreck Commission Report, this modern report provides fascinating insights into the ship itself, the American and British inquiries, the passengers and crew, the fateful journey and ice warnings received, the damage and sinking, rescue of survivors, the circumstances in connection with the SS Californian and SS Mount Temple, and the aftermath and ramifications that followed the disaster. The book seeks to answer controversial questions, such as whether steerage passengers were detained behind gates, and also reveals the names and aliases of all passengers and crew who sailed on Titanic's maiden voyage. Containing the most extensively referenced chronology of the voyage ever assembled and featuring a wealth of explanatory charts and diagrams, as well as archive photographs, this comprehensive volume is the definitive 'go-to' reference book for this ill-fated ship.

The peaceful town of Holmfirth, now famous for its connection with the BBC's comedy series 'Last of the Summer Wine', has had its tranquility torn apart on two separate occasions. This book retells the stories of two devastating floods which ripped apart the heart of the town. The 1852 flood was caused, in part, by negligence of the reservoir builders, and the 1944 flood was due partly to a consequence of these lessons not being learnt. The Holmfirth Floods provides a fascinating insight into everyday life in the town before, during and after these disasterous events, accompanied throughout by maps, sketches and photographs.

The length of Aegean arc in south-west Turkey has been deter mined by the use of intermediate focal depth earthquakes which occurred between 1900-1985 in the south-west of Turkey (34.00- 38.00 Nand 27.00-32.00 E). Intermediate focal depth earthqua kes in south-west Turkey revealed the presence of a seismic Benioff zone caused by underthrusting of the African litho spheric plate by the Aegean arc. In order to determine the geometry of underthrustin%detailed epicenter maps of the in termediate depth earthquakes in south-west of Turkey were pre pared. It is known that these earthquakes brought great harm in the past. Investigation of time distribution of them will help to predict the occurrence of them in the future. These intermediate focal depth earthquakes can be differenti ated from deep ones by their micro- and macroseismic proper ties. Papazachos (1969) and Comninakis (1970) found that the foci of these earthquakes are in a zone underthrusting exten ding from the East Mediterranean to the Aegean arc. Morgan (1968) and Le pichori (1968) defined three plates which are important in East Mediterranean tectonics. These are the Afri ca, Arabic and Eurasian plates. They define wide earthquake belt on the boundaries between the African and Eurasian plate."

Politicians, economists, and the media have put forth no shortage of explanations for the mounting problem of wealth inequality - a loss of working class jobs, a rise in finance-driven speculative capitalism, and a surge of tax policy decisions that benefit the ultra-rich, among others. While these arguments focus on the macro problems that contribute to growing inequality, they overlook one innocuous but substantial contributor to the widening divide: the explosion of fees accompanying virtually every transaction that people make. As Devin Fergus shows in Land of the Fee, these perfectly legal fees are buried deep within the verbose agreements between vendors and consumers - agreements that few people fully read or comprehend. The end effect, Fergus argues, is a massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few: large banking corporations, airlines, corporate hotel chains, and other entities of vast wealth. Fergus traces the fee system from its origins in the deregulatory wave of the late 1970s to the present, placing the development within the larger context of escalating income inequality. He organizes the book around four of the basics of existence: housing, work, transportation, and schooling. In each category, industry lobbyists successfully influenced legislatures into transforming the law until surreptitious fees became the norm. The average consumer is now subject to a dizzying array of charges in areas like mortgage contracts, banking transactions, auto insurance rates, college payments, and payday loans. The fees that accompany these transactions are not subject to usury laws and have effectively redistributed wealth from the lower and middle classes to ultra-wealthy corporations and the individuals at their pinnacles. By exposing this predatory and nearly invisible system of fees, Land of the Fee will reshape our understanding of wealth inequality in America.

The magnitude of refugees movements in the Third World, widely perceived as an unprecedented crisis, has generated widespread concern in the West. This concern reveals itself as an ambiguous mixture of heartfelt compassion for the plight of the unfortunates cast adrift and a diffuse fear that they will come "pouring in." In this comprehensive study, the authors examine the refugee flows originating in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and suggest how a better understanding of this phenomenon can be used by the international community to assist those in greatest need. Reviewing the history of refugee movements in the West, they show how their formation and the fate of endangered populations have also been shaped by the partisan objectives of receiving countries. They survey the kinds of social conflicts characteristic of different regions of the Third World and the ways refugees and refugee policy are made to serve broader political purposes.

On March 11, 2011, one of the biggest earthquakes in history occurred off the northeast coast of Japan, triggering a deadly tsunami that destroyed much of the Tohoku coastline. Driven by a desire to help the people of Tohoku, long-time Tokyo resident Caroline Pover embarked on a mission to collect emergency supplies from her native UK. Caroline delivered these supplies to an isolated part of Japan that even many Japanese have never heard of: the Oshika Peninsula. While there, she saw beyond the horror of the debris and destruction, and fell in love with the beauty of the landscape and the spirit of the people who had called the peninsula home for hundreds of years since their samurai ancestors first settled there. Compelled to do whatever she could to help, she promised to return, once more, just for a month ... One Month in Tohoku is the true story of what became the many months Caroline spent visiting Oshika. During extended periods of time over the course of many years, she lived alongside the people of Oshika, and they embraced her as one of their own -- she still visits them to this day. This book tells us about a very traditional way of life in a remote community that cares deeply about all who are a part of it. It is the story of how, after a disaster took away everything they had, these seemingly forgotten fishing communities are still rebuilding their lives. It is also the story of how a network of people from all over the globe were inspired to donate millions of yen to support families, schools, and businesses, and to never forget the survivors of the world's costliest disaster. To commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the tsunami, Caroline has set out in words a deeply moving tale of the very human impact of a natural disaster. Readers will cry tears of laughter as well as tears of sadness, and be touched by Caroline's surprising humour and honesty and that of her Oshika friends as they unexpectedly become so beloved to one another. This is the story of a beautiful friendship between a very determined Englishwoman and the incredibly brave and resilient fishermen, women, and children of Tohoku.

'A tale of irresponsibility and inexperience' THE TIMES 'Graphically written with a sense of dramatic construction' SCOTSMAN On December 28th 1879, the night of the Great Storm, the Tay Bridge collapsed, along with the train that was crossing, and everyone on board... This is the true story of that disastrous night, told from multiple viewpoints: The station master waiting for the train to arrive - who sees the approaching lights simply vanish. The bored young boys watching from their bedroom window who witness the disaster. The dreamer who designed the bridge which eventually destroyed him. The old highlanders who professed the bridge doomed from the outset. The young woman on the ill-fated train, carrying a love letter from the man she hoped to marry... THE HIGH GIRDERS is a vivid, dramatic reconstruction of the ill-omened man-made catastrophe of the Tay Bridge disaster - and its grim aftermath.