Ques. What do you understand by disaster management? In the light of the recent cyclone vardah, critically examine the disaster management methods in the country.
Ans. According to the UN, ‘Disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impact, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.’
There are three phases of disaster management:
- Before the disaster: It is the period of preparedness before the actual disaster has taken place. It involves early warning signals, how to prepare for the disaster, effective infrastructure, etc.
- During the disaster: This phase is the most crucial one, which involves saving the lives of the affected people. Evacuation, rescue, provision of basic needs like food, water, shelter, etc. are the activities involved in this phase. It also requires capacity building for taking care of these activities during the disaster.
- Post-disaster: It involves rehabilitation and resettlement of the affected individuals. It also involves rebuilding of the damaged infrastructure.
Some of the methods to deal with disaster management are discussed below:
- Proper planning for risk reduction.
- Adopting new and innovative technologies for risk reduction.
- Installing of early warning systems.
- Early evacuation and rescue.
- Capacity building by deploying the locals as they have good knowledge about the local terrain.
- Coordinating the roles of community and voluntary organizations, local bodies and governmental agencies.
- Awareness generation, monitoring and evaluation.
- Planned recovery.
- Rehabilitation with more sustainable livelihoods.
- Special social programmes for mitigating the impact of disasters.
- Use of indigenous coping mechanisms.
- Mobilization of necessary emergency services in the disaster prone areas.
In India, the community is especially the first responder in any disaster. Apart from that, there is integrated administrative machinery for disaster management at the national, state, district and sub-district level. The National Disaster Management Act (NDMA) 2005, is the legal framework for monitoring the implementation of disaster management plans in the country. The two main institutions to deal with disaster management are the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM).
With the proper implementation of plans and use of effective and innovative technologies, the effects of disasters can be curbed to a large extent.
