Disaster Management

No country, no state, no place is immune from disaster. It can attack us anytime, anywhere. We can’t escape from it. But we can prevent its negative effects by pre planning. For that there is the provision of ‘Disaster Management’ at country, state, district, city level.

‘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 and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters.

Disasters can be of many types. There are four main types of disasters:

Natural disasters- Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcano eruptions are considered under this type. They have immediate impacts on human health and secondary impacts causing death and suffering. i.e. - from floods causing landslides, earthquakes resulting in fires, tsunamis causing widespread flooding and typhoons sinking ferries etc.

Environmental emergencies- Include technological or industrial accidents, usually involving hazardous material and occur where these materials are produced, used or transported. Large forest fires can be included in this definition because they tend to be caused by humans.

Complex emergencies- These emergencies involve a break-down of authority, looting and attacks on strategic installations. Complex emergencies include conflict situations and war.

Pandemic emergencies- These emergencies involve a sudden onset of a contagious disease that affects health and also disrupts services and businesses. They also affect the economic and social costs.

Any disaster can interrupt essential services, like the provision of health care, electricity, water, garbage removal, transportation and communications. The interruption can seriously affect the health, social and economic networks of local communities and countries. Disasters have a big and long-lasting impact on people even after the immediate effect. Poorly planned relief activities can have a significant negative impact on the disaster victims, donors and relief agencies.
Local, regional, national and sometimes even international organisations are all involved in mounting a humanitarian response to disasters. Each has a prepared disaster management plan. These plans cover prevention, preparedness, relief and recovery.

Disaster management includes disaster prevention, disaster preparedness, disaster relief and disaster recovery. Disaster prevention is the activities designed to provide permanent protection from disasters. Not all disasters, particularly natural disasters, can be prevented, but the risk of loss of life and injury can be decreased with good evacuation plans, environmental planning and design standards. ‘The Hyogo Framework’ is currently worldwide accepted plan for the disaster prevention. It offers guiding principles, priorities for action and practical means for achieving disaster resilience for vulnerable communities. Disaster preparedness is designed to minimise loss of life and damage – for example by removing people and property from a threatened location and by facilitating timely and effective rescue, relief and rehabilitation. Preparedness is the main way of reducing the impact of disasters. Community-based preparedness and management should be a high priority in the practice. Disaster relief is a coordinated multi-agency response to reduce the impact of a disaster and its long-term results. Relief activities include rescue, relocation, providing food and water, preventing disease and disability, repairing vital services such as telecommunications and transport, providing temporary shelter and emergency health care. Disaster recovery is one of the most essential parts of the disaster management. Once emergency needs have been met and the initial crisis is over, the people affected and the communities that support them are still under fear. Recovery activities include rebuilding infrastructure, health care and rehabilitation. These should blend with development activities such as building human resources for health and developing policies and practices to avoid similar situations in future.

We can’t prevent the disasters as that thing in almighty God’s hands but by the ‘Disaster Management’, we can surely lessen the horrifying effects of the disasters!