Disaster Action was formed following the ‘decade of disasters’ in the UK – a series of preventable tragedies in the 1980s.
Our collective experience covers disasters as wide-ranging as rail, maritime and air disasters, acts of terrorism, industrial accidents, crowd management failures, tsunamis and widespread flooding and large-scale fires.
Bereaved people and survivors from several different disasters affecting people in the UK came together to form an umbrella organisation focussed on improving accountability, support and prevention in relation to disasters and their management. Our
Every disaster is unique but our encounters across time, place and different types of incident highlighted that these human tragedies generate common needs, experiences and concerns among those impacted.
As we continued to highlight and address these our organisation grew; our appeal extended to those supporting affected by both earlier and subsequent disasters, and those professionals working to prepare for and respond to them.
Over the decades we have consolidated our understanding of how to respond to disasters and address people’s needs – from immediate and aftermath phases through to their generational impacts. Today we use this to support people directly affected by disasters and professionals addressing human aspects in emergency planning, response and recovery.
