1 Disasters and Disaster Management

Dr. Rajnish Ranjan

    Objectives

• To develop a conceptual understanding of disasters
• To understand of disaster management and related concepts
• To comprehend the process of disaster management in India

   Keywords

Disaster , Crisis, Emergency, Disaster , Catastrophe

Rationale

The chapter provides a conceptual understanding of disasters and disaster management and forms the basis of the subsequent chapters. It elaborates on the idea of disasters and reflects on their consequences. Then the process of disaster management, its necessity and components are described. Finally a brief overview of disaster management in the context of India is provided.

Source – dreamstime.com

   Unit 1 – Disasters

Hazards and Disasters have been the companion of mankind since time immemorial. The past historical evidences across the globe provide many evidences of disaster occurrence in every part of the world affecting human lives, habitations and livelihoods with associated losses. With the increasing developmental interventions and population growth, the disasters risks have shown increasing trends. Over the past few decades, there has been a global rise in the number of disasters, which is evident from the fact that from 2005 to 2015, more than 1.5 billion people have been affected by disasters with economic losses estimated at US $ 314 billion per year in the built environment.

Every year South Asian countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal etc. gets affected by natural and manmade disasters like Earthquakes, Floods, Cyclones , Avalanches ,Landslides etc. which causes great devastations and huge economic losses annually .

The coastal countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have been vulnerable to the threats of cyclones for a long time. The southern and eastern coastal parts of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka are exposed to cyclonic disturbances originating in the Bay of Bengal while the western coast of India and the southern coast of Pakistan are vulnerable to cyclones arising in the Arabian Sea.

South Asian regions are also considered major flood prone regions in the world contributing major loss percentage in the total global loss .Since 1988, about 382 major floods have occurred in the region claiming many lives.

Large parts of southern Afghanistan, the province of Baluchistan in the remote south western region of Pakistan, north western part of Bangladesh, parts of Sri Lanka, and Nepal and several states of India are prone to drought conditions. On account of specific socio-economic conditions, the impact of the drought is comparatively severe in South Asia.

The high altitude regions of countries like Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan are vulnerable to Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) . Avalanches are also common in higher snow-clad areas of the Hindu Kush Himalayan belt of the south Asia. The countries like Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan are prone to avalanches which claim lives of hundreds of people causing enormous loss of property and infrastructure in south Asia.

Almost entire mountainous terrains of India, Afghanistan, Nepal , Pakistan ,Bhutan and Bangladesh are extremely vulnerable to Earthquakes .These are countries are located in seismically active tectonic zones which makes them vulnerable to Earthquakes. In addition, Landslides and associated slope failure phenomena is major geological hazard in countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka .

Now the question arises as to what should be the correct definition of Disaster? Many schools of thought, institutions and disaster practitioners have defined disaster in various ways depending on their requirements and existing scenario, but there has not been any common consensus about the standardized model of definition . However the commonly accepted view of disaster definition is that it’s a natural or anthropogenic occurrence arising with little or no warning causing serious disruption in the functioning of the society or communities affecting lives, livelihoods, surrounding ecology and environments with disruptions in economic activities.

Etymologically, the term ‘disaster’ is derived from Greek words, ‘dis’-meaning bad and ‘aster’ meaning star. It stems from an astrological sense blaming positions of planet for bad omens and impacts.

The term disaster has found many interpretations differing across contexts, but the fundamental notion regarding disasters is of adverse events affecting well-being of mankind and /or environmental losses . To understand further, let us examine the different definitions of disasters put forth by different organizations and scholars.

Carroll (2001) defines ‘disaster’ as an emergency considered “severe enough by local government to warrant the response and dedication of resources beyond the normal scope of a single jurisdiction or branch of local government.” On the other hand, Carter in 1991 mentioned disaster as event where the ‘affected community has to respond by taking “exceptional measures” the impact of which cannot be overcome without external assistance’. Thus the need of external assistance emerges from these definitions. This notion is evident in Drabek’s definition of disasters in 1996 where it is stated that “resources from beyond the local jurisdiction (state or federal level), are required to meet the disaster demands”. It is also to be noted that, mostly the government or the state is expected to address the overwhelming demands.

When we follow the above definition, the idea of ‘scale’ becomes significant. A local disaster shall affect the community and might require external support from the state but it may not be considered disaster when considered from the state level. Similarly a state level disaster might require national level support but it might not be a disaster at the national or international level. Thus the scale at which an event is considered as disasters becomes important.

To avoid this subjectivity, thresholds are also used to categorize adverse events as disasters. In such cases, the impacts of the adverse events are quantified and based on the defined thresholds, it is considered whether an event is a disaster or not. Emergency Events Database developed by the Center for research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) has attempted to record disaster events across countries from 1988. It systematically categorizes disasters and updates it in the publicly accessible database- EMDAT. To be entered in the CRED database, the following criteria need to be fulfilled:

a)     10 or more people are reported to be killed by the event

b)     100 people reportedly injured

c)     A call for international assistance or

d)     The declaration of a state of emergency

Though the above definition does not include disruption of services or economic losses in its criteria to define a disaster, the same is often taken as a standard to identify disasters. Certain other definitions have also combined both casualty and economic losses. According to Sheehan and Hewitt (1969), all events which cause at least 100 human deaths, 100 human injuries, or US $1 million economic damages are disasters. Dombrosky (1998) defined disaster as “a situation involving damage and/or loss of lives beyond one million German marks and/or 1,000 person killed”.

When we consider the above mentioned definitions, it is observed that the mentioned issues may not be significant everywhere. For instance, 10 deaths might be a significant number of deaths in a developed country like the US or European nations, but might not be a grave concern for developing nations in the middle east or the south Asian counties . This has led to the emergence of ‘relative criteria’, where disaster is considered as a “significant disaster” if 1% or more of total annual GDP of the nation is damaged or affected people is more than 1% of the total national population (Coppola, 2015).

Disasters are also considered as stressful and traumatic events. According to Erikson (1976), any event or condition that could be shown to produce trauma on a large scale would have earned a place on the current roster of ‘disasters’.” Salter (1996 – 98) defines disaster as a condition or situation of significant “distress” to a community.

Often disasters are associated with suddenness and unpredictability. The occurrence of a sudden or major misfortune which disrupts the basic fabric and normal functioning of a society or community (FEMA, 2007) justifies this thought. However the idea of associating disaster with suddenness and unpredictability is largely debated in the contemporary scenario. Lagadec (1982) mentions that “disasters must not be seen like the meteorite that falls out of the sky on an innocent world; the disaster, most often, is anticipated on multiple occasions.” The recent research interventions recognize the role of anthropogenic elements in converting adverse events to disasters. The socio economic processes that a society undergoes often determine whether an event manifests as a disaster. In other words disasters are more than just the event but rather are subjective phenomena. “They arise from the behavior of complex systems, are perceived and take place in a specific socio-economic, historical, cultural and chronological context (Horlick-Jones and Peters) ”. For instance, flood is a natural phenomenon where the sediments carried by the river are deposited on its floodplains. In absence of human settlements, The natural over flowage of water in river channels may not pose no threats, but the same being highly fertile and agriculturally productive attracts human settlements in flood plain. This makes the entire region lucrative for human settlements and activities thus leading to flood disasters. Further in many cases dams and dykes are constructed to prevent overflowing and spilling of rivers. This causes sediments carried by the river to be deposited on the river bed, raising the bed level. This reduces carrying capacity of rivers, thus causing frequent overflowing and resultant flood disasters. It is ,therefore, clear that anthropogenic activities are one of the prime factors of flood disasters.

The below mentioned figure represents how natural hazards like floods interact with vulnerability conditions like unplanned urbanization leading to disasters.

Source –Coppola, 2015

Crisis, Emergency, Disaster and Catastrophe

  Often these terms are used interchangeably in other context, but as far as the context of disasters is concerned, each has the specific meaning .The response capacity of human community is crucial to differentiate each as different events might require different levels of attention from responders. On the basis of the level of the resources required to handle events, events are classified as:

Crisis: The capacity to respond to crisis exceeds the requirement- with capacity to spare

Emergency: The capacity to respond to event meets or somewhat exceeds the requirement

Disaster: Event requirement exceeds capacity

Catastrophe: Demand overwhelms and may destroy capacity (Quarantelli 2000)

Unit 2 – Disaster Management

Definition: Disaster Management consists of the set of continuous and integrated processes of planning, organizing, coordinating and implementing measures for prevention,preparedness,mitigation,response,rehabilitation,reconstruction ,capacity building etc. that are undertaken before, during and after disasters with the objective of minimizing damages to lives, livelihood, economy or environment. It also involves organization and management of resources and responsibilities.

Pearce (2000) defines disaster management as “a process that assists communities to respond, both pre- and post-event, in such a way as to save lives, to preserve property; and to maintain the ecological, economic, and political stability of the impacted region.”

It involves the body of policy, administrative decisions and operational activities which pertain to the various stages of a disaster at all levels. (UNDHA, 1992, taken from FEMA, 2007) Further narrowing it down, Romano mentions that “disaster management activities include

1. Preparedness planning to assess hazard vulnerability;

    2. Mitigation activities to reduce hazards in the structure of the facility, its equipment, its operations, and its personnel;

3. Response planning to provide for key support operations, such as first aid, search and rescue, building evacuation, emergency communications, and general personnel training; and

4. Recovery, in which an organization prioritizes its operations for efficient business continuation and determines how to protect and restore these components.” (Romano, 1995)

Routine events like apartment fires, vehicle accidents, road accidents etc. do not impact a lot of people. In other words, the capacity of the local community to deal with these events is more than the requirement. So these events need not be considered disasters and can be managed effectively by the local community. The non-routine events that exceed the response capacity of the local community are disasters. This view of disasters thereby provides an opportunity to deal with events and thereby control or manage impacts of the hazard events. Thus it gives rise to the concept of Disaster Management. Management is making people capable of joint performance, by giving them a common goal, values, structure, and the ongoing training and development they need in order to perform and to respond to change (Drucker 1988). Disasters involve change, and the community and the responders need assistance in dealing with the events and resultant changes.

Why disaster management is required?

Disasters result in casualty, affects individuals and cause significant damage and losses to the socio economic processes, services and the environment. These impacts can be minimized or avoided through preventive processes and preparedness and by reducing vulnerabilities. Also the post disaster chaos and stress can be minimized through proper planning, coordination between intervening agencies and institutional strengthening. The reconstruction process also plays an important role in creating or reducing future risks. Thus to minimize vulnerabilities and to reduce exposure of the society to hazardous events, disaster management is required.

Disaster management cycle

Source – ndma.gov.in

The above diagram indicates that disaster management involves three key stages of activities:

1.Pre disaster stage – comprises of activities undertaken to prevent disasters or reduce the risk of disasters. It involves

a) Prevention – Measures aimed at impeding the occurrence of a disaster event and/or preventing such an occurrence having harmful effects on communities in known as prevention. (ADB, 2008)

E. g controlled burning off in bush fire prone area before fire risk season

b) Preparedness – The state of readiness to deal with a threatening disaster situation or disaster. (Ministry of Law and Justice, India, 2005) Preparedness is aimed to reduce casualties, damage to and destruction of property, damage to subsistence and cash crops, disruption of services, damage to national infrastructure, economic loss, and loss of livelihood through effective response. It tends to be strongly oriented towards action by individual organizations and community at large. (ADB, 2008)

e.g. Mock crisis exercises, public awareness activities, post disaster reviews of actions taken and their impact, functional and readiness checks etc.

c) Mitigation–Processes and initiatives to reduce the impact of hazards.“While it may be possible to prevent some disaster effects, other effects will obviously persist. The concept of mitigation recognizes this and maintains that the application of certain measures (usually in the form of specific programs) can moderate or reduce disaster effects” (ADB, 2008)

    It can be classified in two categories:

i) Structural mitigation – These are structural (built environment) measures that are recommended to minimize hazard impacts. Structural mitigation measures are specific to hazard types based on multi hazard mapping.

e.g. drains, by pass channels in urban flood prone areas, building embankments and dykes where appropriate in flood prone areas, implementation of building codes during construction of buildings, retrofitting, site planning,

ii) Non structural mitigation – These include processes which are not related to the built environment but are more socio politically oriented. It includes:

Legal framework – Policies and legislations mandating land-use planning, application of building codes while construction, implementation of rainwater harvesting

Incentives – Government grants or subsidies to include mitigation measures, incentives by insurance providers

Awareness – generating community understanding of hazards and their potential impacts, risk areas, at risk population

Training and education – disaster awareness through training and education to public officials, technical students, builders and craftsmen, school children

Socio economic and Developmental trajectory – Mitigation measures incorporated in developmental activities like promotion of Livelihood diversification, agricultural mitigation etc.

It is to be noted that, active mitigation measures, i.e. incentive based measures work better than passive mitigation measures, which are restrictive laws and controls.

The overarching process of capacity building assists in the processes of prevention, mitigation and preparedness. The primary focus of capacity building is to develop in individuals and societies the abilities to perform functions, solve problems and set an achieve activities. (UNDP, 1997)

Though in the Indian context, capacity building is more oriented towards assisting in preparedness. It refers to

1. the identification of existing resources and resources to be acquired

2. acquiring or creating resources which are not existing, and

3. organization and training of personnel and coordination of such trainings for effective management of disasters. (Ministry of Law and Justice, India, 2005)

    Mitigation v/s Preparedness

Activities and measures for ensuring an effective response to the impact of hazards are classified as “Preparedness” (e.g. emergency drills and public awareness). These are not aimed at averting the occurrence of a disaster (ADRC Asia) Mitigation on the other hand aims to reduce the impacts of the hazard. Haddow, Bullock, and Coppola (2008) discuss the difference between mitigation and preparedness in their book Introduction to Emergency Management 3rd edition by stating, “Preparedness deals with the functional aspects of emergency management, such as the response to and recovery from a disaster, whereas mitigation attempts to lessen these effects through predisaster actions, as simple as striving to create “disaster-resistant” communities”.

2. During disaster– the main activity is to take prompt response to deal with the emergent situations and addressing the needs and requirements of victims or affected while the disaster is occurring or has just occurred. e.g. Running flood camps while a flood is occurring, Search & Rescue Operations, Rehabilitations etc.

(Some of the researchers have classified disaster management activities only in two phases- pre disaster and post disaster activities while ‘Syn disaster’ responses are also considered as post disaster activities)

3. Post Disaster –activities taken after a disaster has occurred with the objective to recover from the adverse impacts of the emergency situation as early as possible. It involves:

a) Response – The provision of emergency services and public assistance during or immediately after a disaster in order to save lives, reduce health impacts, ensure public safety and meet the basic subsistence needs of the people affected (UNISDR 2009). These are measures undertaken following disasters. (occasionally it is taken immediately prior to a disaster as well) Aspects of response include:

a.      Evacuation (post impact)

b.     Search and rescue

c.      Restoration of essential life support and community systems

Type of disaster

Severity and extent of disaster Efficient pre impact action

Effective identification of requirement

Key consideration in the response phase is the Logistical constraints, co-ordination and information flow. Response is undertaken in conjugation with the following activities:

i) Assessment – To identify the impacts of disasters, likely response requirements and needs that might emerge post disasters. It is also required to identify recovery requirements and provide base of transition from response to recovery phase

    e.g. Rapid Visual Screening, Post Disaster Impact Assessment , Post Disaster Needs Assessment etc.

ii) Immediate relief–It involves provision resources (which include but is not limited to provisioning of materials, services, provisions and human resources) to the affected area to restore normal functioning of the society as early as possible. The type of materials and services provided is described in other modules .

Response phase can take certain weeks to months.

b) Rehabilitation & Reconstruction – Resumption of services for the returning to normalcy while implementing preventive measures in order to minimize the impacts in case a disaster event recurs. It takes months to years depending on the response processes.

There is no specific entry to exit criteria of each phase, the transition is not distinctly perceivable but can be observed when monitored for a longer duration of time.

Unit 3 – Disaster Management – In the Indian Context

India is 7th largest country by area in the world, and the 2nd most populous country with over 1.2 billion people. In terms of disasters, India is one of the ten most disaster prone countries of the world. The country is vulnerable to a large number of natural and manmade disasters on account of its unique geo-climatic and socio-economic conditions. It is highly vulnerable to floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes, landslides and forest fires. Out of 36 States and Union Territories, 27 of them are more disaster prone. Almost 58% of landmass is prone to earthquakes of moderate to very high intensity, over 12% of land is prone to floods and river erosion; of the 7,516 km coastline, close to 5,700 km is prone to cyclones and tsunamis, 68% of cultivable area is vulnerable to drought and hilly areas are at risk from landslides and avalanches. Moreover, India is also vulnerable to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) emergencies and other man-made disasters.

Disaster risks in India are further compounded by increasing vulnerabilities related to changing demographics, unplanned urbanization, development with high risk zones, environmental degradation, climate change, geological hazards, epidemics and pandemics. Clearly all these contribute to a situation where disasters seriously threaten India’s economy, its population and sustainable development. As per the World Bank study the economic loss is accounted for 2% of GDP due to the disasters. India is highly prone to disasters. Few of the examples of different types of disasters affecting India are as under :

Earthquake – Latur earthquake (1993), Bhuj earthquake (2001)etc.

Flood – Chennai floods (2015), Mumbai floods (2005), Uttarakhand deluge (2013), Kosi flood (2008), Assam flood (2016) etc.

Cyclones & tsunamis – e.g Orissa super cyclone (1999), Cyclone Aila (2009), Cyclone Hudhud (2014), Indian Ocean tsunami (2004) etc.

Drought – e.g. Osmanabad drought (2016), Recurrent drought in Bundelkhand etc.

Landslides & avalanches – e.g. Malin landslide (2014) etc.

Anthropogenic disasters –e.g. Bhopal gas tragedy (1984), AMRI fire incident (2011),Thane building collapse (2013), Stampede (Datia, MP, 2013) etc.

Conflict – e.g. Ethnic conflict in Assam (2011), Gujarat riots (2002) etc. Biological diseases like Avian flu, Pest attack etc.

The risk is compounded by vulnerability. The prime reasons may be summarized as:

Changing demographics

Rapid, uncontrolled and unplanned urbanization Urban rural poverty

Degradation of environment and mismanagement of natural resources Lack of investment in proper infrastructure

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