Each year more than 130 million people are affected by natural hazards such as floods, earthquakes, droughts and cyclones. This book explores these issues from a South Asian standpoint, presented in the form of case studies and essays by experts from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Nearly all of these disaster victims live in the poorer countries of the Third World, and South East Asia makes up over half the world,s disaster victims. Among the areas and people visited were the Indian state of Gujarat, which faces a wide range of hazards, natural and man-made; Nepali villagers, living under the permanent threat of mountain floods and landslides, and the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka where droughts are a constant threat to the agricultural way of life. The final essay assesses how to understand vulnerability by learning from vulnerable people.