Occupation sector employees% of 100,000 employed Fatalities per
Private industry 90 4.2- Agriculture, forestry and fishing 14 22.7
- Mining 2 23.5
- oil and gas exploitation 1 23.1
- Construction 20 12.2
- Manufacturing 10 3.1
- Transportation and public utilities 16 11.3
- Wholesale trade 4 4.0
- Retail trade 9 2.1
- Finance, insurance, and real estate 2 1.0
- Services 12 1.7
Government 10 2.7 - Federal (including resident armed forces) 2 3.0
Total 100 4.0
(^)
Table 1.3: Exposure and fatality rates for the population for different occupation sectors (Bureau of
Labour Statistics (2004)).
Risks Due to Natural Hazards
In Table 1.4 an overview of fatalities and insured losses due to natural hazards in the period
1970-2001 is given based on Swiss Re (2001). From the table it is seen that floods, hurricanes
and earthquakes are dominating in terms of fatalities. The insured losses only give an
indication of the economic losses. In many events most of the real economic losses were not
insured at all.
The nature of natural hazards is that they mostly affect a rather limited geographical area.
Even though in general statistical terms the fatalities and direct economic losses may be
relatively small as compared with other sources of death and the overall GDP of a given
country, the localized nature of the events can be quite dramatic and have significant indirect
consequences even much larger than the direct consequences. Safeguarding the individuals
and the assets of society against natural hazards is a classical task of the engineer.