Disasters provide physical, social, political and environmental development windows of opportunities that can be used not only to reconstruct the impacted areas, but also to improve the socio-economic and physical conditions of the impacted population in the long run. It is argued, however, that there is a limited time frame of approximately four years for such opportunities to be utilized efficiently. Bam earthquake in December 2003 that killed more than 27000 and devastated the historical part of the city opened several unique opportunities for mitigation, socio-economic and physical development. This paper examines the roles that various stakeholders played in the Bam reconstruction and their contribution to the success and failure of utilizing disaster development opportunities. The results show that stakeholders’ collaboration and participation, knowledge and experience, long-term and holistic visions, division of labour and use of resources have had significant influence on the success and failure of using post-disaster opportunities.
