DISASTER MANAGEMENT AN OVERVIEW

Sanjay Kumar Singh *

Abstract: A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society

involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts,
which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own
resources. This paper gives an over-view on disaster prediction, protection, mitigation and
management with focus on earthquake.

Introduction

The root of the word disaster ("bad star" in Greek) comes from an astrological sense of a
calamity blamed on the sight of planets. In Hindu mythology, it is also known as an act of
Lord Shiva when the superficial third eye opens. In simple word, a disaster is a major
accident which causes great loss of life and property at a particular place.

In contemporary academia, disasters are seen as the consequence of

inappropriately managed risk. These risks are the product of a combination of both
hazard/s and vulnerability. Hazards that strike in areas with low vulnerability will never
become disasters, as in the case of uninhabited regions.

Developing countries suffer the greatest costs when a disaster hits more than 95 percent
of the deaths caused by hazards occur in developing countries, and losses due to natural
hazards are 20 times greater (as a percentage of GDP) in developing countries than in
industrialized countries (Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster).

Classifications
Natural Hazard
Human-Instigated Disasters
A Natural Hazard is a natural process or phenomenon that may cause loss of life, injury or
other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and
economic disruption, or environmental damage.

Human-Instigated disasters are the consequence of technological hazards. Examples

include stampedes, fires, transport accidents, industrial accidents, oil spills and nuclear
explosions/radiation. War and deliberate attacks may also be put in this category. In
comparison with natural hazards, man-made hazards are events that are still not happened,
for instance, terrorism. Man-made disasters are examples of specific cases wherein man-
made hazards have become reality in an event.

A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural processes of the Mother
Earth; examples include floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other
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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
geological processes. A natural disaster can cause loss of life or property damage, and
typically leaves some economic damage in its wake, the severity of which depends on the
affected population's resilience, or the ability to recover.

Elements of Disaster: Commonly known as 5 Elements

EARTH AIR WATER FIRE LIFE

Earthquake, Tornado, Tsunami, Volcano, Population explosion,

Drought, Typhoon, Floods/flash Meteorites, Epidemic, Pandemic,
Ice/snow storm, Hurricane, floods, Rising Forest fire, Superbug, AIDS
Floods, Sand storm, of sea level, Asteroids (Acquired Immuno
Mudslides, Noxious cloud, Acid rain etc. etc. Deficiency
Avalanche, Smog, Syndrome), Swine
Heat wave, Global flu, Avian flu, Ebola
Sand storm, warming, virus etc.
Cold storm etc. Ozone layer
depletion etc.

An adverse event will not rise to the level of a disaster if it occurs in an area without
vulnerable population. In a vulnerable area, however, such as Metro cities like Delhi
(Political capital in Zone IV), Mumbai (Business capital in Zone III) & Kolkata (Densely
populated in Zone III), an earthquake can have disastrous consequences and leave lasting
damage, requiring years to repair.

In 2012, there were 905 natural disasters worldwide, 93% of which were weather-related
disasters. Overall costs were US$170 billion and insured losses $70 billion. The year 2012
witnessed the natural disaster among which 45% were meteorological (storms), 36% were
hydrological (floods), 12% were climatological (heat waves, cold waves, droughts,
wildfires) and 7% were geophysical events (earthquakes and volcanic eruptions). Between
1980 and 2011 geophysical events accounted for 14% of all natural catastrophes (Source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster).

India has witnessed many disasters earlier, the eye-opening incident was Bhopal gas
tragedy which turned into human-instigated disaster on the night of 2nd December, 1984
which cannot merely be seen as failure of technology but as a failure of knowledge. The
impact could have been greatly lessened, if the right people had obtained the right
information at a time when they were capable of appreciating it and taking appropriate
preventive action. Reconstruction of the events in Bhopal show that there were striking
gaps both in information available about MIC (Methyl iso-cyanide) and in the process of
communicating this information within and outside the Union Carbide organization. This
incident forced the Indian Government to enact the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986
(EPA) under Article 253 of the Constitution and the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986
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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
thereof. The purpose of the Act is to implement the decisions of the United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm in 1972 attended by former
Prime Minister Late Smt. Indira Gandhiji. The decision was related to the protection &
improvement of Human Environment and the prevention of hazards to human beings,
other living creatures, plants and properties. The scope of EPA is broad, with
environment defined to include water, air and land and the inter-relationships which exist
among water, air and land, and human-beings and other living creatures, plants, micro-
organisms and property [Section 2(a) of EPA].

Disaster management is an applied science which seeks, by the systematic observation

and Analysis is disaster, to improve measures relating to the Prevention, Mitigation,
Preparedness, Emergency Response and Recovery (Known as Disaster Management
Cycle).

Disaster has emerged as a major global challenge during the last few decades. This has
drawn serious attention of the United Nations (UN) and it has spelled out many goals for
disaster management and mitigation. The UN has declared 1990-2000 as International
Decade for Natural Disaster Management (IDNDM). Many governments are setting
National Strategies for achieving these goals aimed to minimize damages caused by
disasters.

It is strange coincidence that India had suffered the Uttarkashi & Latur earthquakes during
the same decade in the year 1991 & 1993 respectively. There were destructive earthquakes
in other country such as Japan, Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Columbia etc.
The importance of disaster management was felt by the Indian Government after Kutch
earthquake in year 2001 followed by Indian Ocean tsunami in the year 2004.

The Disaster Management Act (DMA) has been enacted by the Ministry of Law & Justice
on 26th December, 2005 to provide for effective management of disasters and for matters
connected therewith and incidental thereto. As per DMA, the disaster is defined as a
catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or man-
made causes, or by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human
suffering or damage to, or degradation of environment, and is of such a nature or
magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of affected area.

The Disaster management means a continuous and integrated process of planning,

organizing, coordinating and implementing measures which are necessary or expedient for:

(i) Prevention of danger or threat of any disaster

(ii) Mitigation or reduction of risk of any disaster or its severity or
consequences
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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
 (iii) Capacity-building
(iv) Preparedness to deal with any disaster
(v) Prompt response to any threatening disaster situation or disaster
(vi) Assessing the severity or magnitude of effects of any disaster
(vii) Evacuation, rescue and relief
(viii) Rehabilitation and reconstruction.

In current year, disaster in form of the Kashmir floods and then cyclone Hud-hud in
Visakhapatnam; India witnessed the fury of nature. But it is considered to be just a tip in
ice-berg. According to a recent research, Kolkata can see even bigger natural calamity,
where about 1.8 Crore lives can get affected. Due to changing climatic conditions, two
Indian cities viz. Kolkata and Mumbai, have the highest risk of submerging under water by
the year 2070, if the rate of rise in sea level is not reversed.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) studied 136
largest port cities in the world to estimate impact of coastal flooding due to storms and
damage due to high winds. Most of these largest port cities are in Asia (38 per cent), and
many of them (27 per cent) are located in deltaic settings.

Description KOLKATA MUMBAI

Rank 1 2

Country India India

Current exposed population 1,929,000 2,787,000

Future exposed population 14,014,000 11,418,000

The Swiss Reinsurance Company Limited (Swiss Re), Worlds second largest reinsurer
company, has come up with list of cities that can witness a large scale natural disaster.

Description TOKYO-YOKOHAMA KOLKATA

Rank 1 7

Country Japan India

No. of people at risk 5,710,000 1,790,000

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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
Amongst all the natural disasters, the earthquakes (EQs) are feared most. This is
probably due to the fact that there is no season for the earthquake. It is said that earthquake
is neither predicted nor prevented which is true to some extent as they do not know any
political boundaries. Unfortunately, the natural calamities do not occur in a tailor made
format.

Earthquake is nothing but the sudden release of accumulated strain energy within a
limited rock mass underneath. In order to understand the process of earthquake and the
physics of earthquake, it is necessary to understand the theory of seismic wave
propagation.

Seismic waves: The waves generated during an earthquake are different types. The waves
which travel through the earth are known as Body waves. These are further divided into P
waves (Primary waves that vibrate into direction of propagation) and S waves (Secondary
waves that vibrate at right angle to the direction of propagation). The waves which travel
on the surface of earth are known as Surface waves. The propagation of various waves is
useful in determining various sub-surface properties of the earth.

Seismic instruments are used for early detection or warning of earthquake. The major
instrument for measurement and monitoring are seismograph. Ancient Chinese
Seismometer, an earthquake detector, was invented by a Chinese Scholar, Mr. Chang Heng
in 132 A.D. Then in 1855, Mr. Luigi Palmieri of Italy designed Seismometer, which was
improved upon by the Seismological Society of Japan in the year 1880 by the British
Scientists working in Japan. The latest version of seismic instrument is micro-earthquake
& mini-micro scale recorder which are capable of recording earthquake up to magnitude of
3 & 2 on the Richter scale respectively.

Any natural disaster, including earthquake never occurs without any prior intimation or
precursory indicators. The destruction of Republic days Kutch earthquake of Gujarat in
the year 2001 was a lesson unlearnt earlier during previous occurrences in the Kutch region
on 16th June, 1819 of magnitude 8.3 followed by a moderate size earthquake of 6.5
magnitude at Anjar (Kutch) in July, 1956. The Kutch region was almost dormant for 180
years. The 1819 earthquake has generated an 80 Km long soil wall known as Allah bund
(Wall of God) partly located in India & Pakistan. Its height is about 50-60 meters and the
base is approx. 250-300 meters.

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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
Some great earthquakes of India:

Year Region Magnitude

1819 Kutch 8.3

1897 Assam 8.7

1905 Kangra 8.0

1934 Bihar-Nepal border 8.4

1941 Andaman > 8.0

1950 Assam 8.7

Source: Bapat, et al (Catalogue of Earthquakes in India & Neighbourhood, Published by

Indian Society of Earthquake Technology, Roorkee, 1983, pp 211).

Some recent earthquakes of India:

Year Region Magnitude

1967 Koyna 6.5

1988 Bihar-Nepal 6.6

1991 Uttar Kashi 6.6

1993 Killari, Latur 6.4

1997 Jabalpur 6.0

1999 Chamoli 6.5

2001 Bhuj 7.7

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquake_in_India

The above table shows that the Bhuj had highest intensity of magnitude 7.7. Since, other
previous earthquakes were of moderate size and in rural settings, these did not cause
adequacy in the country to trigger a serious effect towards better earthquake safety and has
clearly underlined the inadequate preparedness of the country to face damaging
earthquakes. However, the 26th January, 2001 Bhuj earthquake seems to have woken us up
to the reality of our seismic vulnerability. The World Bank and the Asian Development

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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
Banks Gujarat Earthquake (EQ) Assessment Mission visited Gujarat during 11-22
February, 2001 for assessing economic impact of earthquake. The Disaster loss estimated
to be Rs. 99 billion, Reconstruction cost estimated to be Rs. 106 billion and the Annual
loss of State Domestic Product (SDP) estimated around Rs. 20 billion for first 12 months
from the date EQ occurred. This resulted in the revision of Bureau of Indian Standards
code IS: 1893- 1984 Criteria for Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures in the year
2002 and the IS: SP 7- 1983 National Building Code of India in the year 2005 (Amended
in the year 2013) to include chapter on Approach to Sustainability containing Sections on
Disaster preparedness, Disaster risk assessment & mitigation during construction.

Earthquake Hazard Zoning Map of India (Source: BMTPC Vulnerability Atlas)

India has 56% of total area which are vulnerable to seismic activity, out of which 12% area
comes under Zone V (Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal
Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North Eastern States, Uttaranchal) and 18% of area comes in
Zone IV (Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir,
Lakshadweep, Maharashtra, Punjab, Sikkim, Uttaranchal, West Bengal). The remaining
26% of area comes in Zone III (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala,
Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttaranchal & West Bengal).

Accurate forecasting of earthquake would, of course, help to save thousands of lives and
there are often warning signs of an earthquake to come. Before the 1976 Tangshan quake
in China, the deadliest of the 20th century, leaving 6,50,000 people dead, many people
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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
reported strange happenings, such as water level rising & falling abruptly in the Citys
wells, sometimes several times a day. Slight movement in the Earths crust, the prelude to
a quake, often cause events like these. Before Tangshan quake, it seemed as if they had,
indeed, made a breakthrough when a quake struck another Chinese city Haicheng, on 4th
February, 1975, very few people died, because Officials, acting on seismic warning had
already evacuated the city. Since then, however, the results of earthquake forecasting have
been mixed there was no advance warning of the Kobe city (1995 in Japan) or Kashmir
valley (2005 in India).

Predicting earthquakes in any reliable way with the intention to save people and to
safeguard potentially dangerous industrial installations is a significant challenge for the
future. When survey is carried out post earthquake with various people, they narrate the
story prior to the disaster like unusual animal behavior of ant, rat, dog, donkey, birds,
aquatic animals etc. Anomalies in animal behavior and meteorological phenomena before
major earthquakes have been reported throughout history which is known as Bio-mimetics
or Bionics, aims at learning disaster anticipation from the animals (Animals 2013, pp 274).
Before the Tangshan earthquake, Qinglong has started massive education campaign in
anticipation of a major earthquake. While the instrument group (Electrical & magnetic
measurement) did not see any unusual changes, nocturnal animals like weasels & rats were
observed to move in full daylight. Also, water springs became muddy. The tragic
Tangshan earthquake experience does not disprove abnormal animal behavior as potential
earthquake precursor.

The early Indian Scientist Varahamihira (505-587 A.D), by the way, already knew about
the abnormal animal behavior and interestingly also about strange weather anomaly
preceding an earthquake in his homeland. In his encyclopedic work Brihat Samhita, he
speaks of unusual cloud formation a week before EQs occurrence. It may be the same
phenomenon recognized now as infrared anomaly from satellites. Most earthquake
Researchers and Geologists today are still very reluctant to accept phenomena from the
popular tradition as credible. One reason for the reluctance is that they understand the
earthquake as a movement of plates, and cannot understand why there should be a
significant energy release before the occurrence of earthquake (Source:
www.mdpi.com/journal/animals). A considerable number of books and papers have been
published on this unusual biological behavior prior to earthquake. Such abnormal animal
behavior includes disappearance of rats from a house, birds crying etc. These abnormal
animal responses are generally called macroscopic anomalies of EQs. In well

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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
documented book by Rikitake (1998) [4], he concluded that one of the most probable
mechanisms of biological anomalies seems to be electromagnetic effects.

Most significant part of earthquake disaster mitigation is perhaps earthquake education

and creating awareness about earthquake amongst common people specifically rural folk.
Indian schools have also introduced lesson on Disaster awareness in primary school level
as a part of Environmental Studies in the form of Times of Emergency taking into
consideration various types of Natural/Man-made calamity or disaster. A good example
reported in book When Nature Turns Fury is of a 10 year old English schoolgirl Tilly
Smith titled A geography lesson saved lives. She was on a holiday with her family in
Phuket, Thailand near the beach. As the sea began to churn & retreat, exposing the seabed,
she recognized the first signs of a tsunami, which she had recently learnt about in school.
She noticed that when they went down to the sea, it was all frothy like on the top of a beer
and it was bubbling. She saw Hawaiian video two weeks before & told her mother about
the invading danger and became hysterical. Mother conveyed the same to her husband who
explained the danger to a security guard. The message spread and the beach began to clear.
Minutes later, the tsunami struck. Thanks to Tilly, the life-saver, no one was killed or
seriously injured. Further example of sharp observations of natural process is the Onge
tribe of Andaman & Nicobar Island living at Dugong creek fled to high ground when they
saw the sea-level fall and thereby survived the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26th December,
2004.

Indian Scientist, Dr. Shailesh Nayak, considered Japans tsunami warning system to be
effective and he helped in the development of Indias early warning system for tsunami.
As per Mr. KAZUSA Shuhei, Director for Disaster Management, Cabinet office,
Government of Japan, our country is considered to be Land of the Rising Sun and also
Land of Earthquakes because of frequent earthquakes it encounter. They have learnt
hard-way for managing the natural calamities by implementing Disaster Management at
every step of disaster prevention, emergency response to disaster, and recovery &
reconstruction following disaster. They have constituted a Special Board of Enquiry of the
Central Disaster Management Council for the study of large scale earthquakes within the
city and in the vicinity of Japan. They hope that entire nation will join in the work of
disaster preparation.

Conclusion: We cannot prevent earthquake but let us strive and hope that advanced
technology and efficient disaster management supplemented by the Bionics and systematic
observations of the changes in meteorological parameters will provide solutions in the
form of early warning so that these hazards do not turn into a National Disaster.

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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com
References:

1. A Better future for the Planet Earth, Lectures by the Winners of the Blue Planet
Prize, The Asahi Glass Foundation, October 1997.
2. Ambuja Technical Literature Series, Living with Earthquakes, Part-I & II.
3. Animals 2013, ISSN 2076-2615 (Pp 19-32, 228-337, 274-299).
4. Disaster Management Act of India, 2005.
5. Divan & Rosencranz, Environmental Law & Policy in India (Pp 158-160).
6. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster
7. Gandhi Jegadish P, Disaster Mitigation & Management Post-Tsunami
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Gujarat.ppt
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121-129)
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Amnesia in Gujarat, India, Oxford University Press, 2014.
20. Sitharam TG & Anbazhagan, Seismic Hazard Analysis with Local Site Effects: An
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21. The Week, Earthquake Resistance Building Dos & Donts, April 1, 2001.
22. Vij NC, Gen. (Retd), Inaugural address of Second Disaster Management Congress,
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24. www.mdpi.com/journal/animals.

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*Senior Environmental Engineer, M/s AECOM-URS INDIA, Hyderabad, E-mail: sanjay_env03@yahoo.com