The latest batch of WikiLeaks government cables has uncovered a flood of previously unknown information—including a lack of political interest in disasters, even those occurring on embassy doorsteps.

If the leaked cables are any indicator, U.S. embassies around the world pay little attention to natural hazards and disasters in the nations where they are based. Despite the potential for disasters to seriously disrupt international relations (Natural Hazards Observer, March 2009), the cables don’t reveal much State Department fretting about catastrophic events, preparedness, or response.

The Natural Hazards Center’s Dan Whipple pored through most of the cables released before December 12 and found a curious silence on hazards, even when countries were experiencing disasters. China, for instance, suffered an earthquake in May 2008 in which 50,000 people were killed, but the available Beijing cables don’t mention the shaking. In fact, the first cable to come from the Chinese capital after the quake was an August 10 update on security and diplomacy during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

The embassy in Brazil did prepare a lengthy assessment of a November 2009 blackout in that nation.

“Brazil experienced a blackout that plunged 18 of Brazil's 27 states into darkness for periods ranging from 20 minutes to 6 hours,” the cable states. Although there were early fears of sabotage, the incident was eventually attributed to equipment and human failures. While the cable indicated that this was an opportunity for the U.S. government to be communicative with Brazil, it was in terms of generating electricity, not responding to massive infrastructure deficiencies. U.S. Forest Service work on Brazilian forest management and wildfires, however, is one of the few cases in which a natural hazard is directly addressed in the cables.

There is one area of interest to hazard professionals and the State Department that gets discussed a lot—nuclear weapons proliferation and potential acquisition by terrorists. This concern is expressed in cables from nations where these issues are very high on the list—Russia, South Korea, Iraq—but also a few places that aren’t so infamous.

Caracas, for instance. A cable from there assesses the likelihood that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will develop nuclear energy, although the title—Venezuelan Scientists Say Nuclear Energy Program Political Hot Air—seems to discount the idea.

For most hazards professionals with an interest in international affairs, the cables hold little outside of nuclear concerns. But if WikiLeaks releases the text of all 251,000 cables listed in the database, Dan's going to have a lot more reading to do.