Hazards, Disasters, & Catastrophes - What's the Difference?

  

• A hazard is defined as a POTENTIAL source of harm/damage, like a natural disaster or even something man-made.
• A disaster is something that actually causes a SERIOUS disruption or interference with a community, and can result in extreme human/economic/environmental losses that the community simply cannot handle.
• A catastrophe is a severe and sudden event causing great damage or especially the loss of human life. 
• The three terms sort of represent the varying degrees of severity what classifying damaging events or potential damaging events, with a hazard being the least extreme, a disaster ranking just above that, and a catastrophe being the worst of the three.