Magnitude and Configuration of Disasters. The increasing number of disasters and consequent casualties in an era of growing sophistication of care for the emergency patient mandates a systematized disaster response utilizing all of a nation's resources in optimum fashion. Life in the second half of this century has grown more complicated and in so doing has laid the basis for more complex disasters. Larger groups of people are vulnerable to individual catastrophic events. Population increases and sociopolitical alterations have accelerated the trend toward the establishment of residential and industrial centers in areas subject to natural disasters. Societal and political pressures are increasing tensions, producing ever more disasters along a broad spectrum, ranging from isolated terrorist events through low intensity conflict to limited conventional warfare. Perhaps most important, our increasingly technological society has not only contributed significantly to the menu of conflicts but has brought a variety of new transportation and industrial hazards to the ordinary course of life.