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GUIDANCE PLUS

Efficient disaster management guidance plus

B. S. WARRIER

Disaster management is yet another area about which there is growing awareness in the country. We explore what could be involved in disaster management, as a forerunner to exploring related courses.

Photo: Vivek Bendre

alert: Disaster management requires timely intervention and prompt execution of plans in order to save lives.

Disaster management is a term many of us use often, without fully realising what precisely it represents. Most of us may have vague ideas of the subject. Therefore, let us first go into a few definitions, for the sake of precision and clarity.

A dangerous condition or event that threatens or has the potential for causing injury to life, or damage to property or environment. The condition or events may be natural with meteorological, geological or even biological origin, or unnatural with human beings or technology behind them. An earthquake, flood, or cyclone is a natural hazard. But a nuclear accident is an instance of an unnatural hazard.

A serious disruption of the functioning of a society, causing widespread human, material, or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected society to cope with using its own normal resources. A disaster occurs when hazards and vulnerability meet. The hazard that triggers it may be in the form of an earthquake, cyclone, landslide, flood, or war. What is a disaster to a person may be just an accident to society. The loss of life of the sole breadwinner in a family is an example.

The extent to which a community, structure, service, or geographical area is likely to be damaged or disrupted by a hazard, on account of the nature, construction or proximity to hazardous terrain. There are disaster-prone areas that are greatly vulnerable.

We cannot contend that a particular situation is universally vulnerable. As an instance, let us compare a bamboo and thatch house and a concrete building. We are likely to say that the bamboo and thatch is more vulnerable than concrete. It may be true during a cyclone; but if an earthquake occurs, concrete becomes more vulnerable. In order to reduce vulnerability, we may have to contemplate a combination of adverse circumstances.

The feared losses caused by a hazard of a particular magnitude occurring in a given area, over a specific time period. The losses may be in the form of deaths, injuries, loss of property, or other similar outcomes. Basically, there are four factors that determine risk – hazard, location, exposure, and vulnerability. A risk can be reduced by preparedness and mitigation. Preparedness covers warning systems, properly designed emergency plans, evacuation schedules, trained personnel, and upkeep of appropriate inventory. These measures resorted to before the occurrence of a disastrous event will minimise the losses, if not eliminate them altogether. Mitigation on the other hand aims at reducing the effects of the hazard or the vulnerability of the situation. Evacuation of people from flooded places is an example of mitigation.

Disaster management encompasses decisions and activities before the disaster, during the disaster, and after the disaster. Our vast country has several potential hazards. It is estimated that more than half of our landmass is susceptible to seismic hazard. Floods, cyclone, landslide, cloudburst, avalanche, and tsunami are events over which man has little or no control. Help and rescue operations with minimum delay should be the objective of management.

Timely warning and alerts, quick response systems, and summoning of all agencies capable of assistance, and above all effective co-ordination are the integral components of effective disaster management. Situations may be of an emergent nature. Fright and panic among the affected people is natural. Apart from physical help, the field workers and managers should bring solace to the troubled minds.

Advance action plans would include:

•Quake-resistant structural design.

•Enacting and enforcing healthy land-use pattern and construction codes.

•Spreading the message of safety measures, thereby ensuring public awareness.

•Training programs for architects, builders, contractors, and construction workers.

•Ensuring compliance of fire and safety rules.

•Long-range plans for flood control through engineering.

•Preventive construction to arrest landslides.

•Earthquake drills and similar exercises in disaster-prone areas.

•Building facilities for temporary rehabilitation.

•Developing insurance and risk management projects.

•Research and development in disaster management.

Steps for mitigating the effects of tsunami have to be planned well ahead in view of the enormity of the damage it can cause. Sea water surging up in the form of wave trains with devastating power may drown people and livestock, wipe out structures, cause floods, and destroy electric supply, telephone, water supply and sewerage systems.

Anything in the path of a tsunami such as human settlements, roads, bridges, seaports, ships, or boats may be razed to the ground. After the first phase of damage, huge quantities of debris, spillage of chemicals, and decaying carcasses would give rise to colossal environmental issues. Measures of preparedness would involve hazard mapping, early warning systems, and awareness campaigns. Even with the most thoughtful preparedness, damages would occur and therefore strategies of mitigation have to be planned well, and implemented quickly during hard times.

Landslides form another kind of disaster that is often hard to predict. They may be caused by erosion, unexpected intensity of rainfall, geological weakness, indiscriminate excavation, earthquake, or volcanic eruption. Unplanned settlements on steep slopes or valleys, and poor foundations lead to damage of buildings. Roads, power lines, and telephone links including underground cable systems are vulnerable.

Steps for mitigation may include hazard mapping, effective land use patterns, strong foundations, construction of proper retaining walls, surface drainage systems, and enhancing the vegetation cover.

One feature of cyclones is that they build slowly, but strike suddenly. It involves an atmospheric system characterised by the rapid inward circulation of air masses about a low-pressure centre, usually accompanied by stormy and destructive weather. Cyclones circulate counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. The calm centre may move at speeds near 50 km an hour. Cyclones can be predicted through satellite tracking, hours or even days before their occurrence.

Lightweight structures, buildings without proper anchorage to the foundations, settlements located in low lying coastal areas, roads, fences, electricity or telephone poles, hoardings, light-pitched roofs, and fishing boats are usually under grave risk during cyclones. Disruption of water supply and sanitation may lead to the outbreak of epidemics. Breakdown of communication links would hinder smooth management efforts.

Yet another type of disaster is due to floods, which may develop either slowly or rapidly when dams of barrages collapse. Timely warning is possible except in the case of flash floods. Remote sensing and GIS will be of help in this regard. Roads, buildings, livestock, agricultural fields, water supply and sewerage systems are at grave risk. Flood control measures implemented in our country have been effective.

Drought, the opposite of flood, is a slow-onset disaster. Poor rainfall, falling groundwater, and drying rivers are some of the reasons for droughts. Agricultural crops fail and ecology gets greatly disturbed. Augmentation of water supply and irrigation systems have to be planned executed.

There are disasters from other causes like forest fire, industrial accidents including spillage of chemicals or nuclear radiation, epidemics, rail accidents, and air crashes. Proper disaster management is essential if the crisis situations should not disrupt smooth living, as also development programs.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal Ministry for coordination of relief and response and overall natural disaster management at the national level. The Department of Agriculture and Cooperation is the nodal Ministry for drought management. Other Ministries have also been assigned the responsibility of providing emergency support in case of disasters. There is a standing national crisis management committee in the central government, headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

Further, there is a Crisis Management Group, with the Central Relief Commissioner in the Ministry of Home Affairs as the Chairman, and nodal officers drawn from various ministries. An emergency operation room functions round the clock in the Home Ministry. A national contingency action plan for dealing with contingencies arising in the wake of natural disasters has been formulated by the Government of India. Many of the State Governments also have mechanisms for handling disasters. However, we know the inherent constraints and limitations in quick delivery of services from governmental bodies.

Disaster management cannot be the exclusive responsibility of the Government. There has to be significant contribution from diverse sources. As an instance of cooperative effort, management of the Bhuj earthquake in 2001 is often cited. When nearly ten thousand industrial units in Gujarat went out of production, along with damage to roads, bridges, rail, and the communication network, as a consequence of the earthquake, the corporate sector came for the rescue operation in a big way.

The Confederation of Indian Industry has scaled up the scope of its association with the national disaster management agenda. Awareness creation, training, mock drills, development of on-site and off-site disaster management plans, preparation of inventory resources, sensitisation programmes and risk transfer mechanisms through the services from the insurance sector are some of the measures formulated.

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