Are you a 'Disaster Tourist' ?

A disaster tourist is a person who travels  to man-made or natural disaster sites to visually experience the devastation and catastrophe. Sites of 2008 Mumbai terrorism attacks, 1984 Bhopal gas leak sites, 2004 Tsunami were some of the prominent disaster tourism spots in India. 

Several disaster tourists visited New Orleans, US  and wandered around some of the affected streets to visually experience the damage wreaked by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Thousands of disaster tourists visited the site of world's worst nuclear accident - Chernobyl, Ukraine - to see the reactors and ghost towns.

According to sociologists a regular tourist travels to disaster sites for the purpose of learning and gaining knowledge and information. On the other hand  a disaster tourist, is  motivated by curiosity to get a first-hand experience of disaster or devastation. Disaster tourists are widely criticised  for making "pleasure trips" for purpose of entertainment  and for being insensitive to the sufferings of local residents and victims.