Even earthquakes do not always have to claim lives, says Kenzo Oshima, a senior UN official from Japan, which has seen more than its fair share of these natural visitations. Under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Oshima says the sad fact is that many who have perished in earthquakes could have been spared if they or responsible government leaders only had taken sensible precautions.

The UN estimates that 90,000 names every year are added to the natural disasters fatality list. This number would fall sharply, it says in a new report, if only there were more rational use of land, better early warning systems were in place and other precautions taken.

The 400-page report is one of the key documents up for review and debate at the upcoming UN conference on sustainable development in Johannesburg, which opens in late August and will be covered gavel-to-gavel in special editions of The Earth Times and on the newspaper's Web site.

In the past decade, the UN says, at least 800,000 lives were lost to earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts and floods. The financial and economic toll is estimated to have been an awesome $685 billion.

Six times as many people were adversely affected by natural disasters than those who were caught up in armed conflicts, the report states. Heavily populated Asia suffered most, with 43 percent of the total losses. Impoverished Africa was hardest hit when the numbers were compared on a per capita basis.

Unaccustomed heat in a usually temperate climate can do enormous damage even in highly developed nations. A recently published book about the killer heat wave in Chicago in July 1995 recalls that 739 people died from its effects in the space of a week, 365 of them on one day at the peak. This was a greater toll than that from Hurricane Andrew, the TWA 800 crash, the Oklahoma City bombing and the Northridge, Cal., earthquake combined.

NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg, who wrote "Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago," no doubt would agree with Oshima and much that's in the UN report on the failure of authorities to take proper precautions to meet unexpected threats by a capricious nature or to respond adequately when disaster struck. Afterward, the Chicago authorities concluded that the heat wave was a unique meteorological event and that "government alone cannot do it all."

Mayor Richard Daley -- the same politician who led Al Gore's lost battle over the Florida ballot chads -- is quoted as having said at one point, "It's hot. It's very hot. But let's not blow it out of proportion." This, no doubt, was easy to say inside an air-conditioned city office. But the heat wave's worst effects were felt on the South Side, where the poor folks live who may not have been able to spring even for a fan.

There were so many cadavers that 48-ft. refrigerated trailers used for transporting meat lined up outside a city morgue to take care of the overflow, Klinenberg recalls.