ABSTRACT
When a natural disaster strikes a society and becomes part of the personal experience of every surviving member, that society and its individual members are faced with many new adaptive tasks for the changed conditions of their environment. Human adaptation is multidimensional, entailing far more than a simple accommodation to the physical demands or problems of an environment. Other problems, far beyond the realm of material survival, require other forms of adaptive strategies. Human beings must adapt socially and psychologically, as well as physically, to achieve a proper fit with the total environment. This fit is largely attitudinal in the sense that it involves the way in which people perceive themselves in relation to their environment (Mechanic 1975:165). Indeed, part of the total adaptational pattern must be focused on the individual's personal adjustment to his new life situation or altered identity.
