DISASTER MANAGEMENT

What is disaster management?

Disaster Management can be defined as the organization and management of resources and

responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in
particular preparedness,response,recoveryorder to lessen the impact of disasters.

The first people to respond to a disaster are those living in the

local community. They are the first to start rescue and relief operations. The Red Cross and
Red Crescent National Societies therefore focus on community-based disaster preparedness,
which assists communities to reduce their vulnerability to disasters and strengthen their
capacities to resist them.

When the capacity of a community or country

to respond and recover from a disaster is overwhelmed, and upon request from the National
Society, the International Federation uses its regional and international networks, assets and
resources to bring assistance to the communities and National Red Cross Red Crescent
Society which is assisting them.

At an international level the International Federation advocates with Governments,

international organisations and humanitarian donors for better practice and accountability in
disaster management and greater respect of the dignity of the vulnerable people.
Types of disasters:

Disasters can take many different forms, and the duration can range from an hourly
disruption to days weeks of ongoing destruction. Below is a list of the various types of
disasters – both natural and man-made or technological in nature – that can impact a
community.

                                                  Natural Types of Disasters

Hurricanes and tropical storms

Agricultural diseases & pests
Landslides & debris flow
Damaging Winds
Thunderstorms and lighting
Drought and water shortage
Tornadoes
Earthquakes
Tsunamis
Emergency diseases (pandemic
influenza) Wildfire

Extreme heat Winter and ice storms

Floods and flash floods Sinkholes

Hurricanes and tropical storms are among the most powerful natural disasters because of their
size and destructive potential. Tornadoes are relatively brief but violent, potentially causing
winds in excess of 200 mph. Both earthquakes and tornadoes strike suddenly without
warning.

Flooding is the most common of natural hazards, and requires an understanding of the natural
systems of our environment, including floodplains and the frequency of flooding events.
Wildfires are more prevalent in the event of a drought. Disasters impacting food supply can
be extremely costly; American officials say that a food contamination scare similar to the one
that hit the

Belgian poultry industry in the 1990’s could jeopardize U.S. agricultural exports in excess of
$140 billion.

                      
Man-Made and Technological Types of Disasters

Hazardous materials
Chemical threat and biological
Power service disruption & weapons
blackout
Cyber attacks
Nuclear power plant and nuclear
blast Explosion

Radiologicalemergencies Civil unrest

Disasters also can be caused by humans. Hazardous materials emergencies include chemical
spills and groundwater contamination. Workplace fires are more common and can cause
significant property damage and loss of life. Communities are also vulnerable to threats posed
by extremist groups who use violence against both people and property.

High-risk targets include military and civilian government facilities, international airports,
large cities and high-profile landmarks. Cyber-terrorism involves attacks against computers
and networks done to intimidate or coerce a

government or its people for political or social objectives.

Disaster management Act in India

• From 2002 to 2013, India was among the five countries most frequently hit by natural
disasters.
• These included the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, which caused around 11,000 deaths and
affected 2.79 million people in India, and the 2013 floods in Uttarakhand, which caused
5,748 deaths and affected 4,200 villages..
• India has suffered from many disasters in its recent history too, both natural and climate
related, and these continue to cause devastation.
• In November 2015, floods in the southern city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, killed over 370
people and damaged crops worth US$190 m.
• And in May 2016, record temperatures of 51°C hit Phalodi, Rajasthan, during a heat wave
that affected much of northern India.

Disaster management act, 2005:-

The  Disaster Management Act, 2005, (23 December 2005) No. 53 of 2005, was passed by
the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India on 28 November, and by the Lok
Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament, on 12 December 2005. It received the assent of
The President of India on 9 January 2006. The Disaster Management Act, 2005 has 11
chapters and 79 sections. The Act extends to the whole of India. The Act provides for "the
effective management of disasters and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto."
Some facts:

Since the enactment of the disaster management act in 2005, it has enacted a new
multidisciplinary focus on disaster prevention and risk reduction and a move away from a
relief-centric regime.
• The institutional framework under the Act mandated the creation of the National Disaster
Management Authority and state disaster management authorities as the bodies responsible
for disaster preparedness and risk reduction at the respective levels.
• The Disaster Management Division of the ministry of Home Affairs’ retained responsibility
for steering the national
disaster response overall.
• And, it mandated the concerned Ministries and Departments to draw up their own plans in
accordance with the National Plan.
• The Act further contains the provisions for financial mechanisms such as the creation of
funds for the response, National Disaster Mitigation Fund and similar funds at the state and
district levels.

Where disaster management act has been lacking

The states have not able to implement the concerned plans.

• NDMA has failed the states to prepare for the disaster they are vulnerable to.
• Regarding floods, NDMA has no system in place for the early warnings in the vulnerable
areas like Uttrakhand.
• There is alack of coordination between the government agencies and ministries responsible
for disaster management like the ministry of earth sciences, state governments,and NDMA

• NDMA has failed in performing many important functions like recommending provision of
funds for mitigation, as well as relief in repayment of loans or grant of fresh ones.

NDMA’s project management capacity has been found deficient. NDMA has not been able to
complete many major projects so far.

National disaster management plan, 2016

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi recently released the National Disaster Management Plan
(NDMP), as a first ever national plan prepared in the country.

Salient features

The NDMP incorporates substantively the approach mentioned in the Sendai Framework.
• The plan covers all phases of disaster management: prevention, mitigation, response and
recovery.
• It provides for horizontal and vertical integration among all the agencies and departments of
the Government.
• The plan has assigned roles and responsibilities of all levels of Government right up to
Panchayat and Urban Local body level in a matrix format.
• As the plan is following the regional approach, it will be beneficial not only for disaster
management but also for
development planning.
• It also identifies major activities such as early warning, information dissemination, medical
care, fuel, transportation, search and rescue, evacuation, etc. to serve as a checklist for
agencies responding to a disaster.
• The plan emphasizes on preparing communities to cope with disasters, so it stresses on a
greater need for Information, Education, and Communication activities.

Problems with the Disaster Management Plan, 2016

The plan has been too general in its identification of the activities to be undertaken by the
central and states governments for disaster risk mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery,
reconstruction, and governance.
• The plan has not provided any time frame for undertaking these activities.
• There is not mention of the framework for monitoring and evaluation of the plan.
• The funding mechanism is also not clear about the project inneed of funds.
• Activities that the plan has included are not new. Same activities were listed in the previous
plans too that too with the time-frame for implementation.
• Although the plan is said to be aligned with Sendai framework, but there are no goals or
targets, unlike Sendai framework.

Strategic approach to capacity development for implementation of the Sendai Framework for
Disaster Risk Reduction

This Strategic Approach to Capacity Development for Implementation of the Sendai

Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction seeks to establish among all stakeholders a common
understanding of capacity development within the disaster risk reduction (DRR) context. By
characterizing outstanding capacity development needs in light of common obstacles and
constraints, presenting key principles, elements, and actions that together help guide planning
discussions, providing targets and ideals, and normalizing practice across sectors,
improvement of practical standards will occur.

This Strategic Approach is a resource of empowerment for all relevant capacity development
partners and stakeholders, and its goal - A Vision of Risk-Informed Sustainable Development
by 2030. It provides generalized advice on the capacity development roles and
responsibilities of various DRR stakeholders, and high-level guidance in six critical areas of
need.
 Developing and Strengthening DRR Fundamentals

Institutionalizing DRR Capacity Sharing

Using Risk Information Before and After Disasters

Establishing Collaborative Action for DRR at the National and Local Levels

Strengthening External Support Mechanisms

Advancing and Expanding DRR Capabilities

It is designed to be a living document to reflect changes in needs and trends over time, and
this space envisaged to evolve into platform to capture and share lessons learned, best
practices, and examples.

This Strategic Approach is an outcome of the UNISDR facilitated consultations and study of
prevailing DRR-specific capacity development needs of Member States, from mid-2017 to
March 2018, in collaboration with UN entities, partners, and DRR stakeholders for the
purpose of developing a more effective strategic approach.

CLIMATE CHANGES:
  Climate change may not be responsible for the recent skyrocketing cost of natural disasters,
but it is very likely that it will impact future catastrophes. Climate models provide a glimpse
of the future, and while they do not agree on all of the details, most models predict a few
general trends. First, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an
increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will probably boost temperatures over most
land surfaces, though the exact change will vary regionally. More uncertain—but possible—
outcomes of an increase in global temperatures include increased risk of drought and  
increased intensity of storms, including tropical cyclones with higher wind speeds, a wetter
Asian monsoon, and, possibly, more intense mid-latitude storms. (For more information,
see Global Warming: Potential Effects of Global Warming)
  Global warming could affect storm formation by decreasing the temperature difference
between the poles and the equator. That temperature difference fuels the mid-latitude storms
affect the Earth’s most populated regions. Warmer temperatures could increase the amount
of water vapor that enters the atmosphere. The result is a hotter, more humid environment.
At the equator, where conditions are already hot and humid, the change isn’t expected to be
large. At the poles, however, the air is cold and dry; a little extra heat and water vapor could
raise temperatures greatly. As a result, global warming may cause the temperature
difference between the poles and the equator to decrease. and as the difference decreases, so
should the number of storms, says George Tselioudis, a research scientist at NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University.

But even as a warming climate might decrease the overall number of storms that form, it
could increase the number of intense storms. As temperatures continue to rise, more and
more water vapor could evaporate into the atmosphere, and water vapor is the fuel for
storms. “If we are creating an atmosphere more loaded with humidity, any storm that does
develop has greater potential to develop into an intense storm,” says Tselioudis

The combined result of increased temperatures over land, decreased equator-versus-pole

temperature differences, and increased humidity could be increasingly intense cycles of
droughts and floods as more of a region’s precipitation falls in a single large storm rather
than a series of small ones. A warmer, wetter atmosphere could also affect tropical storms
(hurricanes), but changes to tropical storms are harder to predict and track. Some scientists
have speculated that a warmer climate that allows more intense storms to develop would
also spawn more hurricanes.

The one way in which global warming could impact hurricanes is by making them more
intense. More heat and water in the atmosphere and warmer sea surface temperatures could
provide more fuel to increase the wind speeds of tropical storms. Warming that has already
occurred since 1980 has increased sea surface temperatures 0.3 degrees Celsius, which
should increase the maximum potential wind speed of hurricanes by 1 knot, according to
hurricane intensity models. But increases that small could not have been observed yet. “At
present, hurricane intensity is measured only to an accuracy of plus or minus five knots, so it
is not possible to discern any change that might have occurred owing to warming that has
already taken place,” says Emanuel.

Conclusion:

Although natural disasters are beyond the control of human being, however, their impacts
can be reduced by setting up of advanced warning systems. Technology may provide a
“silver bullet” to cope the consequences of climate change and increasing disasters in the
country. Present day natural disaster scales- the Volcanic Explosivity Index, the Richter
Scale, the Palmer Drought Severity Index, the Saffir-Simpson Scale, and the Fujita Tornado
Scale, which are used to warn communities, measure the nature disaster in terms of intensity
of these hazards but do not include human vulnerability as a component. This index will
address human vulnerability and will measure the severity of the disaster in terms of
development setbacks. This Index may be calculated as: Natural Disaster Lethality
Index=Percent GDP Loss/100+Percent People Died/100+Percent People Affected/1000