Natural disaster
Experimental estimate · v0.3Initial distress among people living in 112 temporary accommodation centres.
Distress in accommodation centres
Not given in selected report. Source context
people in 112 centres
Approximate, assumption-based USU for the included experience. Deaths are a separate measure.
Reading the result
The shared flood template gives about 30.5 USU per person. Applied to an arithmetic anchor of 100,730 centre residents, the result is about 3.1 million USU. The source reports more than that many residents; neither the exact population nor its actual duration of distress is known from this report.
This estimate covers the selected accommodation-centre population only. It is not the full flood burden, and the source’s population threshold does not make the USU result a guaranteed lower bound.
The duration and intensity assigned to displacement distress have the weakest evidence basis in this event list. They are a starting scenario, not observed cohort averages.
The calculation
30.5 USU per modeled course, before multiplying by the reported count. The calculation uses unrounded values; only the headline is rounded.
Intensity is assigned on a 0–10 scale and averaged over the whole elapsed course, including relief and sleep. Why divide by 47.25?
We assign the same 30-day initial course to each person in the selected flood-displaced cohort. Reports of continuing displacement and difficult living conditions support a multiweek scenario. None measures a 30-day cohort mean. This is a consistency choice, not evidence of equal recovery time or a month actually spent in a shelter. [S6] [S10] [S11] [S12]
WHO describes anxiety, sadness, sleep problems and other distress after emergencies. Assigned intensity 2 represents a modest whole-day average across the selected cohort, including relief and people with little distress. This provisional mapping to the pain reference is especially weak; WHO supplies no numeric conversion. [S7]
All flood entries use the same 30-day, intensity-2 course. The Nepal and Mozambique entries cover site or centre residents; the Brazil and Pakistan entries use broader displaced-population snapshots.
At 14 days and intensity 1, the result is about 0.72 million USU. At 60 days and intensity 3, it is about 9.2 million USU.
These are alternative input scenarios, not confidence intervals or bounds on all uncertainty. Some cross-condition orderings change under these choices. The headline uses the single shared template above.
Coverage
One initial distress course for each person represented by the 100,730-person arithmetic anchor, using the same duration and intensity as the other flood entries. People outside the selected centres are not modeled.
UNICEF Flash Update #2, published 2 February 2026, reports over 100,730 displaced people in 112 temporary accommodation centres as of 29 January. We use 100,730 as the arithmetic anchor because a more precise count is not supplied, and retain the qualifier in the displayed population. This excludes people displaced outside those centres. The broader affected population is not substituted or added. Occupancy is a dated population, not measured person-time. [S12]
Injury and disease episodes, bereavement, later mental-health effects, distress outside the selected cohort and post-death loss.
Omitted experiences are unestimated, not known to be zero. This is not a complete event total or a guaranteed lower bound.
Whole representative courses are assigned to the source-defined cases or cohort. Course time can extend beyond the reporting dates. Individual trajectories, fatal-case truncation and a causal baseline are not reconstructed; no suffering after death is assigned.
Deaths remain separate
The selected UNICEF Flash Update #2 does not provide a death count. This report therefore leaves mortality unavailable rather than treating it as zero or importing a count from a different period or event definition. [S12]
USU estimates experienced suffering during lived time. The death count is shown alongside it and is not converted into USU.
Trace the estimate
Approximately 7.9 million people displaced and at least 1,700 deaths. Describes continuing disruption; no measured average duration or intensity.
3,629 people in 37 displacement sites and 1,367 deaths across the broader flood event. Site residents are a selected population, not all affected or displaced people.
Over 100,730 people in 112 temporary accommodation centres. We use 100,730 as the arithmetic anchor and preserve the qualifier. This report supplies no death count.
Continuing displacement and delayed returns support investigating a multiweek window, not a measured mean duration.
Qualitative basis for distress inclusion. Neither numeric intensity nor transfer from pain is established; conflict-specific disorder prevalence is not used.
Stipulated six-hour kidney-stone reference: 47.25 modeled intensity-hours, with linear weighting. This convention defines the unit; it is not a measured equivalence between conditions.
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