Disaster Prevention in Industrial Society - Principal Features of Disaster

Disasters have several principal features, appeared when neglected detailed and unique behaviors, consistent throughout events, which we discuss based on practical disaster data. The principal features we focused on are dynamics of technologies and society, spatiotemporal evolution and diversity in scenarios leading to disasters, and probability distribution based on disaster scale. Among these features, the probability distribution is normalized to fall into a specified curve consistent with the Weibull distribution and Heinrich's law. Numerical simulation via cellular automata (CA) simulation with a metaphor model gives Heinrich's law under the specified constraint, suggesting that the Weibull distribution or Heinrich's law gives a representative statistical characteristics universal throughout disasters.