Kyoko Okano - Graduate Student, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University

Iran is a country which has frequently suffered natural and manmade disasters. However, the disaster management system in Iran has not been enough developed and the Bam earthquake on 26 December 2003, disclosed the situation. The factors which produce disasters lay in the physical world and in the social world as well. Being socio-cultural construction, disasters disclose the nature and the features of the society once it happen. Standing on this point, the author would like to review the history of disaster relief in Iran firstly and to clarify the problems and difficulties on stages that the Bam Earthquake unfolded, focusing on disaster relief in Iran in the social and policy context. As the result it became clear that the Iran is vulnerable to disasters in the social and policy contexts of disaster relief, but the earthquake also presented the potentials and the possibility to develop the way of disaster relief for the future.