Natural disasters in China divine retribution: "tianzai" (天災), literally 'heavenly disaster'. In ancient beliefs, natural disasters were seen as Heaven’s response to immoral human behaviour, whereby the conduct of different individuals carried different weights. While the behaviour of common people ranked last, the actions of bureaucrats had a greater effect. Given that in Imperial China the emperor's behaviour was believed to be the most important, popular belief was that the emperor should attempt to prevent disasters by ensuring his conduct was in following with moral codes – and if a disaster should occur, he was responsible for addressing the consequences. According to the Overseas
Human response to disasters mass media to include newspapers, television, radio, and internet news. This is largely due to the way they portray disasters. In fact, most people base their opinions and beliefs regarding disasters and survivor behavior on what they see in the media. The media strives to keep their viewers’ and readers’ attention for as long as possible. Drama and destruction is interesting and compelling; most of everything else is secondary. For the most part, the media, regardless of country, takes a fairly standard approach to disaster coverage and reporting. Immediately after the disaster, they rely on statistics of destruction and damage