The kanji 禍 generally conveys the idea of misfortune, disaster, calamity, or a bad event. It signifies something that brings harm, suffering, or negative consequences. This can range from natural disasters to human-caused troubles.

・On-yomi (音読み): カ (ka) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): わざわい (wazawai)

⚫︎ 災禍 Translation: disaster; calamity ⚫︎ 禍根 Translation: root of evil; source of trouble ⚫︎ 大禍 Translation: great disaster

The kanji 禍 is a 形声文字 (keisei moji), which means it's a character formed by combining a semantic component (meaning) and a phonetic component (sound). The left side is the radical 示 (礻), which represents an offering or a sign related to the unseen world, often associated with spirits, gods, or anything supernatural. The right side is 果, which originally represented a fruit, and by extension, the "result" or "consequence" of something. Together, they imply that something from the spiritual realm (the unseen world) has resulted in a negative consequence or misfortune. This points to the ancient belief that calamities might be caused by divine displeasure or supernatural forces.