Responses to Cyclone Warnings: The Case of Cyclone Mora (2017) in Bangladesh

Sebak Kumar Saha and Jamie Pittock
Additional contact information
Sebak Kumar Saha: Department of Sociology, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet 3114, Bangladesh
Jamie Pittock: Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Acton, ACT 2600, Australia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-20

Abstract: Effective disaster warning systems prevent deaths and injuries and protect livelihoods. We examined why people at risk do not move to safe places despite warnings and evacuation orders, by looking at responses to warnings for Cyclone Mora (2017) in Bangladesh in two villages of the Khulna District. Qualitative and quantitative data showed that almost all respondents received warnings before the cyclone, most from more than one source. However, only 21.6% of households took shelter in any place other than their own house. Most of these households did so with all members of their household, and most used a cyclone shelter. Almost all non-evacuee households had more than one reason for not moving to another place. The most important reasons were that they thought the weather was good despite warnings, thought the cyclone would not occur in their area, had a fatalistic attitude, were a long distance from the nearest cyclone shelter, had poor road networks to go to the cyclone shelter, considered their own house to be a safe place, were scared of burglary, recalled that nothing happened during previous warnings, and were worried about overcrowded cyclone shelters. Our findings can help develop more effective warning systems in cyclone-prone regions globally.

Keywords: Cyclone Mora; cyclone warnings; sources of cyclone warnings; reception of cyclone warnings; evacuation; cyclone shelter; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/11012/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/11012/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:11012-:d:649817

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().