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The Year in Disasters

A home burns with the sun in the background November 15, 2008 in Yorba Linda, California. Strong Santa Ana winds are fanning flames throughout Southern California, destroying hundreds of homes and causing thousands to evacuate. (Getty Images)This year, like any year was full of disasters, natural and man-made. Cranes unintentionally fell on buildings, fires engulfed acres of land, tornadoes ripped through cities and all of it was captured in photos.

Although many of these events sadly left thousands of people displaced, dead or in serious need of aid, imagery captured from these events is both devastating and amazing. So scroll through our photos and take a look at the disasters of 2008.

A crane collapsed and riped through a building in Manhattan's upper east side in May.

A 7.2 Magnitude Earthquake rocked Northern Japan

A swarm of tornadoes ripped through Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi in February, leaving the areas devastated and at least 48 dead japan

japan disaster,earthquake,tsunami,damage,loss,views

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Japan Earthquake and Tsunami 2011, a Queue, Crowd Control, How You Can Help

No Signs of Crowd Craze and Mob Violence

We all know the typical response immediately after a tragedy – chaos, looting, violence, mob mentality, and other look-out-for-yourself behaviors. But, for now anyway, that seems to be absent in Japan. Instead, we’re seeing the spirit of the Japanese people stand strong despite this adversity.

Why?

“Looting simply does not take place in Japan. I’m not even sure if there’s a word for it that is as clear in its implications as when we hear ‘looting,’” said Gregory Pflugfelder, director of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University.

Japanese have “a sense of being first and foremost responsible to the community,” he said (source: http://goo.gl/oacpa)

Keep in mind that the normal course of action is to enforce order and enforce crowd control, but since there’s no mob-like behavior that takes key personnel away from truly pressing needs, everyone can focus on the highest priority items – that is, nobody is distracted by unbecoming and mob-like behavior.

Think of it this way: if there’s looting and mob violence, medical and security personnel will be on the scene to assist victims and to enforce order. But, since there isn’t any of that in the Japan earthquake so far, medical and security personnel can continue to focus on finding real victims from the tsunami and the earthquake.

japan disaster,earthquake,tsunami,damage,loss,views

Instead of violence and looting, we see people that continue to behave the way they behaved before the earthquake. This rapid return to normalcy, psychologists say, will help Japan more quickly recover.

Mob Mentality

A cultural anthropologist, interviewed by CNN, commented that the real question is not why Japan is responding so dignified and orderly, but

the real question is why looting and disorder exist in American society [and the West].

Consider this picture of a food line in Haiti after it was hit by an earthquake in 2010:

JAPAN DISASTER

VIEW OF A cracked road in japan during eartquake