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In the real world, when some horrible disaster happens, humanitarian aid generally pours in to the area. In the United States, these efforts are (in theory) coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or "FEMA" for short, hence the trope name. It may not be effective for whatever reason, but people ''try'' to help.
Not so in fiction, where earthquakes, terrorist attacks, and stranger events are ''avoided'' or outright cordoned off by the outside world and the survivors are left to fend for themselves. This seems especially prevalent in Japanese fiction, as it appears that nation has ''zero'' confidence in the stability of the social
This covers isolated disasters ignored by the outside world, not conditions where the ''entire'' fabric of civilization has been destroyed by global-scale events. A [[Lampshade Hanging]] of this trope as the first clue that a disaster extends ''beyond'' the purely local scale is such a common narrative device that it's very nearly a sub-trope.
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Note that this can sadly be very much [[Truth in Television]], mostly in isolated areas where civilization is less organized, and the world doesn't like paying much attention (similar to an ignored civil war in Africa).
{{examples
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
* Somewhat justified in ''[[
▲== [[Anime and Manga]] ==
* In ''[[
▲* Somewhat justified in ''[[Akira (Manga)|Akira]]'' (manga version), as by the time major humanitarian aid efforts are on their way to Neo-Tokyo, Tetsuo and his followers have already organized the survivors into a militantly isolationist nut cult who ''attack'' the relief workers.
▲* In ''[[Scryed]]'', the Lost Ground has been placed under the jurisdiction of HOLY, which doesn't seem to care about civilizing the area in any way other than getting Alter Users under their control.
* The combination of an earthquake and a surge in demonic activity causes a large chunk of Tokyo to become a lawless danger zone in ''[[Demon City Shinjuku]]''.
* ''[[Tokyo Magnitude 8.0]]'' is an [[Aversion]]. The anime is about how to deal with a post-earthquake condition.
* Averted in ''[[Uzumaki]]'', where relief is quick to come in once news about the weird shit going on in town reaches the outside world. The problem comes when whirlpools form in the harbor and sink all the ships, and any attempts to get into or out of town run headlong into [[Alien Geometries|the roads following entirely different paths]].
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''
** Note that the government actually declared Gotham to no longer be part of the American territory (something that's not possible under the US Constitution) and literally shot down any attempts to bring relief aid to the people who insisted on staying!
*** And Metropolis, a city that had similarly been extensively damaged by Lex Luthor shortly before, was fixed magically (by GOTHAM NATIVE Zatanna the Magician) but nothing was done to restore Gotham (until, ironically, Luthor paid for the repairs to get the publicity that got him elected President.)
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Resident Evil: Apocalypse
* ''[[Outbreak]]'': The city was quarantined, and they the plan was to Fuel Air Bomb it to stop the infection from spreading.
* ''[[The Crazies]]'': [[The Remake]] has the first city cordoned off and Fuel Air Bombed. Worse, they made everybody think they were evac'ing, when they really {{spoiler|were just herding them into trucks to burn them alive}}. Survivors made it to another city which was then targeted for the same treatment.
* In the remake of ''[[Dawn of the Dead]],'' there ''was'' an effort by the US Government to stop the zombie apocalypse, from mass quarantines to military safe zones. But in barely a ''few days,'' it becomes clear to the protagonists that all of it failed.
* In the 2008 version of ''[[Day of the Dead]]'' the Army cordons off the town, and all phone and [[Cell Phone]] service is cut off.
* ''[[
** ''[[
* [[Super
== [[Tabletop RPG]] ==
* The ''[[Shadowrun]]'' supplement ''Bug City
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' establishes this trope was subverted to limited yet ineffectual degree in the Capital Wasteland at one point, while ''[[Fallout 4]]'' goes on to illuminate on the true cause this wasn't enacted on a wider scale in the Commonwealth, {{spoiler|since even before the bombs of the Great War fell, the organizations that were in charge of supplies were so riddled with corruption it's unlikely any significant amount of aid would have made it out to help anyone, had there been enough people left to distribute it}}.
* ''[[
* After the opening destruction in the video game ''[[In Famous (Video Game)|In Famous]]'' the government occasionally drops food and medical supplies, but no personnel enter the area, and there are groups of soldiers with authorization to use deadly force on anyone attempting to leave the city. Partially justified in that some unknown and deadly plague has infected a goodly amount of the citizenry.▼
** ''[[Devil Survivor 2]]'' raises the stakes. At first, some emergency services try to help out, but that becomes practically nonexistent due to a much bigger problem: {{spoiler|the entire world is slowly being destroyed thanks to the beings that govern the universe attempting to wipe it out}}. As a result, mere survival is a far greater concern not too long into the plot.
▲* After the opening destruction in the video game ''[[
* In ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' and its sequel, [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|CEDA]] ''tried'' to respond to the "Green Flu", but got overwhelmed. Inevitably, every time the Survivors try to get to a CEDA evacuation point, it'll be destroyed with nothing but corpses to show for it, and will end up having to escape another way.
* There is a FEMA in ''[[
* The original premise of ''[[I Am Alive]]'' was that massive earthquake in Chicago coincides with mass water shortages worldwide, so no early rescue teams arrived at the city.
** Subverted in the finished game with the Event, a cataclysmic series of disasters so widespread and destructive that it not only hindered relief efforts but also effectively ''destroyed'' almost all semblance of civilized order within a year after it began. This in turn left the survivors to fend for themselves...[[Humans Are
* Paragon City from ''[[City of Heroes]]'' is supposedly a major metropolis in Rhode Island on the East Coast of the United States, but a least five of its neighborhoods are in ruins or completely wiped off the map (The Hollows, Boomtown, Faultline, Eden/The Hive, and the Rikti War Zone) due to supervillain action and/or a recent alien invasion. Further, actual military forces from two foreign governments (Nemesis and Arachnos), a hostile NGO (Malta) and those very same aliens (the Rikti) can be found loitering on street corners in some of the higher-level zones. One would expect ''some'' response from the United States government to ''at least'' the military presences, but the only evidence that the Federal Government even ''exists'' are a couple of FBI agents who act as contacts. Averted slightly with the Faultline zone, which started as a shattered mass of broken buildings and chasms but was converted into a partially-recovered and -reconstructed zone about halfway through the game's original run.
{{reflist}}
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