Disaster Management and Problems – An Indian Perspective

1. Disaster Management and Problems – An Indian Perspective APOSHO 26 & Australasian Safety Conference November 23, 2011. Perth Ashok Huria Honorary Secretary, National Safety Council North Zone Chapter, Chandigarh, India

2. Introduction: Disaster by definition is an occurrence that causes a major and serious loss and damage of human lives, environment and property. This includes both natural and man made disasters. India has been traditionally vulnerable to natural disasters on account of its unique geo-climatic conditions. Floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides have been a recurrent phenomena. About 60% of the landmass is prone to earthquakes of various intensities; over 40 million hectares is prone to floods; about 8% of the total area is prone to cyclones and 68% of the cultivable area is susceptible to drought.

3. In the decade 1990-2000, an average of about 4344 people lost their lives and about 30 million people were affected by disasters every year. The loss in terms of private, community and public assets has been astronomical. Rapid industrialization during last three decades poses additional risks of chemical, nuclear and biological disasters. Evolution: A concerted effort for some disaster control was made only after Bhopal disaster in 1984. A number of statutes were enacted to cover handling, transport and management of hazardous chemicals and addressed the areas of prevention of accidents and emergency preparedness and community awareness.

4. DGFASLI- a department of the Government of India – took up a project in 1988, with ILO on establishing and initial operation of Major Accident Hazard Control System in India. UNEP developed APELL process was institutionalized in the form of Chemical Accidents(Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response) Rules in 1996. National Safety Council successfully implemented APELL-LAMP (Awareness and Preparedness at Local Level –Local Accident Mitigation Programme) Project from 92 to 1997 in the industrial belt of Kerala.

5. The super cyclone in Orissa in October, 1999 and the Bhuj earthquake in Gujarat in January, 2001 underscored the need to adopt a multi dimensional endeavour involving diverse scientific, engineering, financial and social processes; the need to adopt multi disciplinary and multi sectoral approach and incorporation of risk reduction in the developmental plans and strategies. • Thereafter, the Government of India brought about a paradigm shift in the approach to disaster management. The new approach proceeds from the conviction that development cannot be sustainable unless disaster mitigation is built into the development process.

6. Another corner stone of the approach is that mitigation has to be multi-disciplinary spanning across all sectors of development. The new policy also emanated from the belief that investments in mitigation are much more cost effective than expenditure on relief and rehabilitation. • The Government of India, in recognition of the importance of Disaster Management as a national priority, had set up a High-Powered Committee in August 1999 and also a national committee after the Gujarat earthquake, for making recommendations on the preparation of Disaster Management plans and suggestions for effective mitigation mechanisms.

7. The Tenth Five-Year Plan Document also had, for the first time, a detailed chapter on Disaster Management. Similarly, the Twelfth Finance Commission was also mandated to review the financial arrangements for Disaster Management. • Finally, on 23 December 2005, the Government of India enacted the Disaster Management Act, which envisaged the creation of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), headed by the Prime Minister, and State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs) headed by respective Chief Ministers, to spearhead and implement a holistic and integrated approach to Disaster Management in India.

8. Structure: The mandate for NDMA is to build a safe and disaster-resilient India by developing a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster and technology-driven strategy for DM. This is to be achieved through a culture of prevention, mitigation and preparedness to generate a prompt and efficient response at the time of disasters. The entire process will centre-stage the community and will be provided momentum and sustenance through the collective efforts of all government agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations.

9. Essentially, the role of NDMA is to prepare guidelines for mitigation and prevention of different disasters, create a pool of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to help in rescue operations and create an infrastructure for awareness and training in the field of disaster management. • A force created so far constitutes eight battalions, two each from the BSF, CRPF, CISF and ITBP. Each battalion provides 18 self-contained specialist search and rescue teams of 45 personnel each including engineers, technicians, electricians, dog squads and medical/paramedics. The total strength of each battalion is approximately 1,158.

10. These have been located at different locations in the country based on the vulnerability profile to cut down the response time for their deployment. During the preparedness period/in a threatening disaster situation, proactive deployment of these forces is to be carried out by the NDMA in consultation with state authorities. • The actual immediate rescue and damage control measures have to be taken by different agencies and as a follow up, rehabilitation measures are taken by yet another agency. For man made disasters, Crisis Groups at central, state, district and local levels had been set up much earlier. However, though the head is invariably a common person, the members are different for natural and man made disasters.

11. Problems: There are two categories under which various problems can be put. One, that are common to all disasters; and two, the ones peculiar to a particular disaster. • Improved disaster prevention and preparedness requires a greater awareness of how disasters arise, and an expanded set of response options. With very low literacy rate coupled with extreme poverty of almost half the population- specially those living in vulnerable areas- it becomes difficult to create a level of awareness required for effective implementation of necessary measures.

12. There are problems related to poor infrastructure in practically every component of disaster management. Large parts in our country are not easily accessible. • The recent earthquake of 6.8 magnitude on Ritcher scale in North Sikkim had resulted in a large number of fatalities and wide spread damage to buildings and roads. The immediate relief which is most essential to mitigate and control the damage could not be made available immediately. The specialized National Disaster Response Force could not reach the site for more than 24 hours after the happening.

13. The reason was that the only road connecting Sikkim to other parts had been blocked due to a number of land slides (due to earthquake). There is no rail or air connection with Sikkim. In fact the entire North East parts of India have very poor and vulnerable connectivity to other parts. Main reasons can be attributed to political set up. The allocation of resources and adequate funds to any part of the country are largely dependent on the size of the population living in the region. Since entire North East states have very low population density, the allocations are not enough to build the necessary infra structure.

15. Shortage of medical facilities for our population even in normal times can be gauged from the fact that even in bigger cities, the renowned hospitals are accommodating 2 patients on one bed. In such a scenario, planning for medical relief during time of a disaster becomes very difficult. • Communication systems in India have improved vastly during the last decade; but even now, a large part of our country does not have means to receive information during the time of a disaster as either there is no network or the people are so poor that they do not have access to radios.

16. Most of the rescue, control and relief operations are in the hands of Government officials who practically do not have any accountability. Unfortunately, a general perception is that a large percentage of them are neither efficient nor have a high integrity resulting in inadequate and timely response. • Then there are problems of insufficient funds and efficient utilization of the limited resources. • In view of the complexities and diversities of the disaster management, concrete, effective and practicable policy is needed for which political commitment and a pragmatic policy formulation is very necessary.

17. Urban Flooding: Till a few years ago, all floods were believed to have common reasons and hence a common approach. However, Mumbai floods of July 2005 turned out to be an eye-opener. • It was realized that the causes of urban flooding are different and so also are the strategies to deal with them. Urbanisation leads to developed catchments which increases the flood peaks from 1.8 to 8 times and flood volumes by up to 6 times. Consequently, flooding occurs very quickly due to faster flow times, sometimes in a matter of minutes. • In case of Mumbai floods, a key reason was that the effective capacity of a natural water body, ‘Mithi Nadi’, through which the rain water drains into sea, was said to be reduced significantly due to development of Bandra Kurla commercial area as also a large slum development.

18. Earthquakes: There are indications that areas hitherto considered safe from earthquakes are not all that safe. This indicates that the built environment in the country is extremely fragile and our ability to prepare ourselves and effectively respond to earthquakes is inadequate. Though all new buildings are required to comply earthquake resistant building codes and town planning byelaws, but a very large percentage of old buildings are not only highly vulnerable because of old and poor maintenance but also due to high occupation density in these buildings. • Even in new structures, inadequate monitoring and enforcement of earthquake-resistant building codes and town planning bye-laws result into serious contraventions.

19. Cyclones: A long coastline of about 7,516 km of flat coastal terrain, high population density, geographical location and physiological features of our coastal areas makes India, extremely vulnerable to cyclones and its associated hazards like storm tide, high velocity wind and heavy rains. • Though the frequency of Tropical Cyclones covering the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea is the least in the world (7% of the global total), their impact on the east coast of India is relatively more devastating. An estimated 400 million people, are vulnerable to cyclone related hazards. Climate change and its resultant sea-level rise can significantly increase the vulnerability of the coastal population.

20. Landslides: Landslides are one of the natural hazards that affect at least 15 per cent of the land area of our country—an area which exceeds 0.49 million km2. Landslides of different types are frequent in geodynamically active domains in the Himalayan and Arakan-Yoma belt of the North-Eastern parts of the country as well as in the relatively stable domains of the Meghalaya Plateau, Western Ghats and Nilgiri Hills. • In all, 22 states and parts of the Union Territory of Pudducherry and Andaman & Nicobar Islands are affected by this hazard. The phenomenon of landslides is pronounced during the monsoon period.

21. The phenomenon of landslides is pronounced during the monsoon period. Very little preventive work has been carried out till now in this area. Thus, every time a major land slide occurs, it’s intensity becomes severe. Land slide risks have increased because of illegal deforestation that is rampant due mainly to wide spread corruption. At the end I would say that in spite of the enormous obstacles, constraints and limitations, India has made a rapid progress in meeting the challenges of all types of disasters. The coming decade should take our country at par with developed nations as far as disaster management is concerned.

22. Thank you.