Natural phenomena like earthquake and cyclones become disasters because of lack of awareness on how to construct affordable disaster resistant houses by using viable technologies. It has been observed that this ignorance results in the violation of the basic rules of good construction and hazard resistant technology leading to deaths,injury and unwarranted hardship to the people along with huge losses in terms of houses and infrastructure. In addition to the direct losses caused by the disaster it has been observed that the people suffers elf-inflicted losses out of ignorance and under the  influence of the unscientific myths that prevail after the disasters. For example the Latur Earthquake made people think that there was no future in their houses that were built out of stone, wood and mud, or those with foundation built on soil instead of on rock, or those that were made with load bearing system.This led them to get their houses dismantled and sell the salvaged material at a throw  away price. As are sult tens of thousands of families lost perfectly good undamaged houses.