Disaster Management: Pre-disaster and Post-disaster Phases
Disasters are serious disruptions of functioning of a community causing widespread human, material, or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community to cope using its own resources.
Disasters can be classified based on causes (natural disasters like earthquakes, floods; man-made disasters like wars, industrial accidents) or speed of onset (sudden vs slow-onset disasters).
Classification of Disasters
Disasters may be grouped into several major categories such as:
- Geophysical disasters (earthquakes, landslides)
- Hydrological disasters (floods, cloudbursts)
- Climatological disasters (heat waves, cold waves)
- Meteorological disasters (cyclones, storms/dust storms)
- Biological disasters (pandemics and epidemics)
- Man-made technological and sociopolitical disasters.
India, due to its size and geography, is vulnerable to a variety of natural as well as man-made disasters.
Vulnerability Profile of India
India’s large population, unique geographic features, climate variability and low per capita income levels lead to high levels of vulnerability to disasters.
With a long coastline, India is prone to cyclones and tsunamis. Other major natural disasters in the Indian sub-continent include earthquakes, floods, landslides, droughts etc. Changing demographics, unplanned urbanization, environmental degradation are key underlying risk factors.
Disaster Management – Phases
Disaster management is fundamentally disaster risk management. Sum total of all activities, programmes and measures which can be taken up before, during and after a disaster with the purpose to avoid a disaster, reduce its impact or recover from its losses is called Disaster Risk Management. There are three stages of the disaster risk management which are collectively called Disaster Management Cycle. Broadly, there are six phases in Disaster Management Cycle viz. Prevention, Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, Recovery and Reconstruction.
While Prevention, Mitigation and Preparedness include Pre-disaster activities focussed on reducing the human and property losses caused by a potential hazard; Response, Recovery and Reconstruction include the Post-disaster initiatives taken in response to a disaster with a purpose to achieve early recovery and rehabilitation of affected victims and communities.
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation
Disaster prevention and mitigation refers to the activities which are undertaken to prevent or mitigate the adverse effects of a disaster in short and long term. On the one hand they include political, legal, administrative and infrastructural measures; while on the other hand it includes educating vulnerable communities influencing their lifestyle and behaviour in order to reduce their disaster risk.
Disaster Preparedness
The intention of Disaster preparedness is to prevent or minimize the losses and damage in case of a disaster. This would include the preparedness of all civic bodies such as civil administration, fire-brigade, hospitals, police etc. Preparedness denotes the third phase of emergency management.
Response, Recovery and Reconstruction
The response phase includes the search and rescue; fulfilling basic humanitarian needs of victims ; assistance by regional, national and international bodies etc. Recovery phase starts after the immediate threat to human life has subsided. The immediate goal of the recovery phase is to bring the affected area back to some degree of normalcy. During reconstruction, the location or construction material of the property is considered.
