Disaster Management All Unit Notes...
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Disaster:
The term disaster owes its origin to the French word “Disaster” which is a combination of
two words ‘des’ meaning bad and ‘aster’ meaning star. Thus the term refers to ‘Bad or Evil
star’.
A disaster can be defined as “A serious disruption in the functioning of the community
or a society causing wide spread material, economic, social or environmental losses
which exceed the ability of the affected society to cope using its own resources”.
A disaster is a result from the combination of hazard, vulnerability and insufficient
capacity or measures to reduce the potential chances of risk.
A disaster happens when a hazard impacts on the vulnerable population and causes
damage, casualties and disruption. Any hazard – flood, earthquake or cyclone which
is a triggering event along with greater vulnerability (inadequate access to resources,
sick and old people, lack of awareness etc) would lead to disaster causing greater
loss to life and property.
Hazards:
The word ‘hazard’ owes its origin to the word ‘hazard’ in old French and ‘al-Azhar’ in Arabic
meaning ‘chance’ or ‘luck’
Hazard may be defined as “a dangerous condition or event, that threat or have the
potential for causing injury to life or damage to property or the environment.”
Hazards can be grouped into two broad categories:
Natural hazards are hazards which are caused because of natural phenomena (hazards
with meteorological, geological or even biological origin)
Examples of natural hazards are cyclones, tsunamis, earthquake and volcanic
eruption which are exclusively of natural origin.
Landslides, floods, drought, fires are socio-natural hazards since their causes are
both natural and manmade.
For example flooding may be caused because of heavy rains, landslide or blocking of
drains with human waste
Manmade hazards are hazards which are due to human negligence.
Manmade hazards are associated with industries or energy generation facilities and
include explosions, leakage of toxic waste, pollution, dam failure, wars or civil strife
etc.
Vulnerability:
Vulnerability may be defined as “The extent to which a community, structure, services or
geographic area is likely to be damaged or disrupted by the impact of particular hazard, on
account of their nature, construction and proximity to hazardous terrains or a disaster prone
area.”
Vulnerabilities can be categorized into:
1. Physical vulnerability
2. Socio-economic vulnerability
Physical Vulnerability: It includes notions of who and what may be damaged or destroyed
by natural hazard such as earthquakes or floods. It is based on the physical condition of
people and elements at risk, such as buildings, infrastructure etc; and their proximity,
location and nature of the hazard. It also relates to the technical capability of building and
structures to resist the forces acting upon them during a hazard event.
Socio-economic Vulnerability: The degree to which a population is affected by a hazard
will not merely lie in the physical components of vulnerability but also on the socioeconomic
conditions. The socio-economic condition of the people also determines the intensity of the
impact. For example, people who are poor and living in the sea coast don’t have the money
to construct strong concrete houses. They are generally at risk and lose their shelters
whenever there is strong wind or cyclone. Because of their poverty they too are not able to
rebuild their houses.
Capacity:
Capacity can be defined as “resources, means and strengths which exist in households and
communities and which enable them to cope with, withstand, prepare for, prevent, mitigate
or quickly recover from a disaster”.
Capacities could be:
1. Physical capacity
2. Socio-economic capacity
Physical Capacity: People whose houses have been destroyed by the cyclone or crops
have been destroyed by the flood can salvage things from their homes and from their farms.
Some family members have skills, which enable them to find employment if they migrate,
either temporarily or permanently.
Socio-economic Capacity: In most of the disasters, people suffer their greatest losses in
the physical and material realm. Rich people have the capacity to recover soon because of
their wealth. In fact, they are seldom hit by disasters because they live in safe areas and
their houses are built with stronger materials
Risk:
Risk is a “measure of the expected losses due to a hazard event occurring in a given area
over a specific time period. Risk is a function of the probability of particular hazardous event
and the losses each would cause.”
The level of risk depends upon:
Nature of the hazard
Vulnerability of the elements which are affected
Economic value of those elements
Disaster Risk Reduction:
1. Preparedness:
This protective process embraces measures which enable governments,
communities and individuals to respond rapidly to disaster situations to cope with
them effectively. Preparedness includes the formulation of viable emergency plans,
the development of warning systems, the maintenance of inventories and the training
of personnel. It may also embrace search and rescue measures as well as
evacuation plans for areas that may be at risk from a recurring disaster.
Preparedness therefore encompasses those measures taken before a disaster event
which are aimed at minimizing loss of life, disruption of critical services, and damage
when the disaster occurs.
2. Mitigation:
Mitigation embraces measures taken to reduce both the effect of the hazard and the
vulnerable conditions to it in order to reduce the scale of a future disaster. Therefore
mitigation activities can be focused on the hazard itself or the elements exposed to
the threat. Examples of mitigation measures which are hazard specific include water
management in drought prone areas, relocating people away from the hazard prone
areas and by strengthening structures to reduce damage when a hazard occurs. In
addition to these physical measures, mitigation should also aim at reducing the
economic and social vulnerabilities of potential disasters.
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