DISASTER MANAGEMENT

What is a Disaster?

• A disaster is a result of natural or man-made causes that leads to sudden disruption of normal life, causing severe damage to life and property to an extent that available social and economic protection mechanisms are inadequate to cope.
• It is an undesirable occurrence resulting from forces that are largely outside human control. It strikes quickly with little or no warning and requires major efforts in providing statutory emergency service.

Classification of Disasters

• Disasters are classified as per origin, into natural and man-made disasters. As per severity, disasters are classified as minor or major (in impact).
• Natural disasters are sudden ecological disruptions or threats that exceed the adjustment capacity of the affected community and require external assistance.
• Natural disasters can be broadly classified into categories including geophysicalsuch as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; hydrological such as floods; meteorological such as hurricanes; climatological such as heat and cold waves and droughts; and biological such as epidemics.

Geophysical:

Meteorological, Cyclone and floods

Drought

Cold Waves

Tsunami

Epidemics outbreak

Man-made disasters can include hazardous material spills, fires, groundwater contamination, transportation accidents, structure failures, mining accidents, explosions and acts of terrorism.

Urban fire

Causes for Occurrence of Disaster:

• Environmental degradation:Removal of trees and forest cover from a watershed area have caused, soil erosion, expansion of flood plain area in upper and middle course of rivers and groundwater depletion.
• Developmental process:Exploitation of land use, development of infrastructure, rapid urbanization and technological development have caused increasing pressure over the natural resources.
• Political issues:War, nuclear power aspirations, fight between countries to become superpower and conquering land, sea and skies. These have resulted into wide range of disaster events such as Hiroshima nuclear explosion, Syrian civil war, growing militarisation of oceans and outer space.
• Industrialization:This has resulted into warming of earth and frequency of extreme weather events has also increased.

Impacts of Disaster:

• Disaster impacts individuals physically(through loss of life, injury, health, disability) as well as psychologically.
• Disaster results in huge economic lossdue to destruction of property, human settlements, and infrastructure etc.
• Disaster can alter the natural environment, loss of habitat to many plants and animals and cause ecological stress that can result in biodiversity loss.
• After natural disasters, food and other natural resources like water often becomes scarce resulting into foodand water scarcity.
• The disaster results in displacement of people, and displaced population often face several challenges in new settlements, in this process poorer becomes poorer.
• Disaster increases the level of vulnerabilityand hence multiply the effects of disaster.