Comparing impacts of flooding in Ledcs and Medcs

Comparing the effect of flooding in MEDCs and LEDCs: Boscastle and Bangladesh:

The main difference between floods in MEDCs and LEDCs are the impacts of floods in each place. Very similar floods produce severely worse effects in Ledcs than they do in Medcs. The Boscastle and Bangladesh floods were essentially very similar in terms of amount of rain and water that flooded the land, never the less in Boscastle, despite there being severe damage to property and the whole of the town being flooded, there were no deaths. In contrast in Bangladesh there were over 1000 deaths due to the flooding itself, and many more died due to injury and disease related to the flood. On top of this 30 million people in Bangladesh were made homeless in contrast to only a few in Boscastle, who were only left homeless for a short time.

One of the main reasons why the impacts of a flood in a ledc and a Medcs is because of the quality of infrastructure n those countries. In an Medcs the infrastructure is likely to be well made and strong, as money has been put into it to make it long lasting and of a good quality, thus in natural disasters such as floods less damage is done, and so less people lose their homes, there is less rubble to clear up, it is less likely for conditions to become insanitary due to burst sewage systems and there will be less injury due to falling buildings. On the other hand in an Ledc, such as Bangladesh, there is much less money in the economy and with 83% of the population living on less than two dollars a day, they cannot afford to buy houses that are made well. Thus they are much more easily destroyed and so many people lost their houses in the 1998 floods, becoming homeless and causing the countries problems to spiral out of hand. Also the weak infrastructure caused sewage and work works to be ruptured and the drinking water mixed with sewage rendering it insanitary and it caused many to die or diseases such as dysentery and cholera.

Another key difference in the effects of flooding in Ledcs and Medcs is the reaction, in Medcs the reaction to a flood is much more organized and due to Medcs having more money they are quickly able to sort out a rescue service and ensure that the least possible damage to human damage is caused, for example in Boscastle within 2 hours of the main flood beginning the RAF helicopters, the RNLI and fire service had all been summoned and put a rescue plan into action. In contrast to this in Ledc, due to there being less money, communications and rescue services are worse. This meant the rescue process took much longer and many people, who may have survived if the country had been more developed, died unnecessarily. Also due to the poor road and connection systems many rural areas were cut off completely, leaving many people isolated without aid, food or clean water.

Another reason why the effects of the floods were so much wore in Bangladesh than in Boscastle is that the effects were much more serious in the long term for Bangladesh. The reason for this being that majority of the countries income is from agriculture and because the agricultural land is low lying and flat it got flooded, ruining the crops and resulting in food shortages and a loss of valuable income, a 2.2 tone deficit of rice was caused. Also because the land the crops grow on was flooded it made the land unfertile for the future, and thus Bangladesh lost a lot of money. Boscastle was not affected in the same way because, being a Medc, most people in Boscastle are employed in the service sector, and so although a few stocks were lost from shops and there was a lack of business for shops and tourist attractions the economy of the town was not affected in the same way.