灾害
zāihài · HSK 5
calamity
🌪️ 灾 = disaster (roof 宀 over fire 火); 害 = harm
灾 shows a house with fire trapped under the roof — the classic disaster radical. 害 means harm or injury. Together 灾害 names large-scale calamities: floods, quakes, droughts — the harm a disaster leaves behind.
灾 — roof 宀 + fire 火
灾 is an associative compound showing fire (火) under a roof (宀), depicting a house on fire — the original meaning of 'disaster' or 'calamity'. An older variant 災 added 巛 (flooding water) above 火, combining flood and fire as twin disasters. The modern simplified form keeps just the house-fire image.
害 — 宀 roof + 丯 (phonetic) + 口 mouth
Originally an ideograph showing harm spoken under a roof, with 宀 (roof/house) on top, a phonetic element 丯 in the middle, and 口 (mouth) below suggesting harmful speech. Over time it shifted from 'injury caused by words' to the broader senses of 'harm,' 'injure,' and 'fear.'