Disaster as a Non-traditional security and safety challenge, disaster mitigation and management

Disaster Management

• History shows that India is exposed to national disasters. Cyclones, floods, earthquakes, droughts and floods are major threats.
• About 60 percent of the landmass is prone to earthquakes of various intensities, over 40 million hectares is prone to floods and 68 percent of the area is susceptible to drought. This not only results in loss to thousands of lives, but also in terms of loss in private, community and public assets.
• While substantial scientific and material progress has been made, the loss of lives and property due to disasters has not decreased.
• Government of India has now brought about a paradigm shift in its approach to disaster management, from being relief centric to one with greater emphasis on preparedness, prevention and mitigation.
• This approach proceeds from the conviction that development cannot be sustained unless disaster mitigation is built into the development process. Another cornerstone of the approach is that mitigation has to be inter- disciplinary spanning across all sectors of development.
• Disaster Management occupies an important place in the policy framework as it is the poor and underprivileged who are worst affected on account of calamities and disasters.
• Disaster Management is a multi-disciplinary area in which a wide range of issues that range from forecasting, warning, search and rescue, relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation are included. It is multi-sectoral as it involves administrators, scientists, planners, volunteers and communities. Their roles and activities span the pre-disaster, during disaster and post-disaster plans. All these activities are complementary and supplementary to each other and here is a critical need for coordinating these activities.
• Natural disasters directly impact economies, agriculture, food security, water, sanitation, environment and health. It is therefore one of the single largest concerns for most of the developing nations.
• Apart from the economic aspect, such disasters also have social and psychological dimensions that needs to be studied and appropriate strategies for mitigation developed.
• Today, we have a range of early warning systems for a range of natural hazards. However, it is not enough to ensure that communities are safe from disasters. This is where disaster mitigation can play an important role.

What is disaster management?

• The United Nations defines a disaster as a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society. Disasters involve widespread human, material, economic or environmental impacts, which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.
• The Red Cross and Red Crescent societies define disaster management as the organisation 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.

Types of disasters

There is no country that is immune from disaster, though vulnerability to disaster varies. There are four main types of disaster.

1. Natural disasters: including floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcano eruptions that have immediate impacts on human health and secondary impacts causing further death and suffering from (for example) floods, landslides, fires, tsunamis.

Natural Types of Disasters

·         Agricultural diseases & pests ·         Damaging Winds ·         Drought and water shortage ·         Earthquakes ·         Emergency diseases (pandemic influenza) ·         Extreme heat ·         Floods and flash floods ·         Hail

·         Hurricanes and tropical storms ·         Landslides & debris flow ·         Thunderstorms and lighting ·         Tornadoes ·         Tsunamis ·         Wildfire ·         Winter and ice storms ·         Sinkholes

 

1. Environmental emergencies: including technological or industrial accidents, usually involving the production, use or transportation of hazardous material, and occur where these materials are produced, used or transported, and forest fires caused by humans.
2. Complex emergencies: involving a break-down of authority, looting and attacks on strategic installations, including conflict situations and war.
3. Pandemic emergencies: involving a sudden onset of contagious disease that affects health, disrupts services and businesses, brings economic and social costs.

 

Man-Made and Technological Types of Disasters

·         Hazardous materials ·         Power service disruption & blackout ·         Nuclear power plant and nuclear blast ·         Radiological emergencies

·         Chemical threat and biological weapons ·         Cyber attacks ·         Explosion ·         Civil unrest

 

• Any disaster can interrupt essential services, such as health care, electricity, water, sewage/garbage removal, transportation and communications.
• The interruption can seriously affect the health, social and economic networks of local communities and countries.
• Disasters have a major and long-lasting impact on people long after the immediate effect has been mitigated.
• Poorly planned relief activities can have a significant negative impact not only on the disaster victims but also on donors and relief agencies. So it is important that physical therapists join established programmes rather than attempting individual efforts.
• Local, regional, national and international organisations are all involved in mounting a humanitarian response to disasters. Each will have a prepared disaster management plan. These plans cover prevention, preparedness, relief and recovery

Phases of Disaster

• The National Governor’s Association designed a phase of disaster model to help emergency managers prepare for and respond to a disaster, also known as the ‘life cycle’ of comprehensive emergency management.
• The four phases of disaster:
  • Mitigation
  • Preparedness
  • Response
  • Recovery
• The model helps frame issues related to disaster preparedness as well as economic and business recovery after a disaster.
• Each phase has particular needs, requires distinct tools, strategies, and resources and faces different challenges.
• The issues addressed below relate to the resiliency and recovery of the local economy and business community before and after a major disaster.

MITIGATION Pre-Disaster Mitigation Efforts	PREPAREDNESS Education, Outreach and Training Business Continuity & Emergency Management Planning
RESPONSE Immediate Response to Stakeholders Establish Business Recovery Center	RECOVERY Post-Disaster Economic Recovery Plan

 

Phases of Disaster

Mitigation

• Mitigation involves steps to reduce vulnerability to disaster impacts such as injuries and loss of life and property.
• This might involve changes in local building codes to fortify buildings; revised zoning and land use management; strengthening of public infrastructure; and other efforts to make the community more resilient to a catastrophic event.

Preparedness

• Preparedness focuses on understanding how a disaster might impact the community and how education, outreach and training can build capacity to respond to and recover from a disaster.
• This may include engaging the business community, pre-disaster strategic planning, and other logistical readiness activities.
• The disaster preparedness activities guide provides more information on how to better prepare an organization and the business community for a disaster.

Response

• Response addresses immediate threats presented by the disaster, including saving lives, meeting humanitarian needs (food, shelter, clothing, public health and safety), cleanup, damage assessment, and the start of resource distribution.
• As the response period progresses, focus shifts from dealing with immediate emergency issues to conducting repairs, restoring utilities, establishing operations for public services (including permitting), and finishing the cleanup process.
• Triage efforts assess and deal with the most pressing emergency issues. This period is often marked by some level of chaos, which can last a month or more, depending on the nature of the disaster and the extent of damage. Federal resources, such as action from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (in the case of a major disaster declaration) and non-profit resources such as the Red Cross are deployed immediately
• Business re-entry into the economy begins during this phase. Businesses initially may face issues with access to their site, preliminary damage assessment, and communications with staff, vendors, suppliers and customers. Ongoing issues may include access to capital and workers, the repair of damaged property or inventory, and a diminished customer base. It is in this phase that long-term future of a region’s business base will be saved or lost.
• Business Recovery Centers are quickly set up in a community to centralize small business recovery resources (e.g. SBA, SBDC, SCORE, CDFI, etc), local bank officers, technical assistance providers, and other critical assistance for maintaining business continuity and/or get businesses up and running.
• Federal resources from SBA, FEMA, HUD, EDA, USDA, etc., as well as state programs, start to arrive; temporary housing goes up; and the planning for the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, facilities, and areas begins. The response phase typically continues through the sixth month, again depending on the nature of the disaster.
• It is not uncommon for disasters to reveal a weakened economic development landscape, with significant gaps in organizational capacity, staff and resources. Thus, economic development agencies and stakeholders may need additional staff, capacity building assistance, and training.

Recovery

• Recovery is the fourth phase of disaster and is the restoration of all aspects of the disaster’s impact on a community and the return of the local economy to some sense of normalcy.
• By this time, the impacted region has achieved a degree of physical, environmental, economic and social stability.
• The recovery phase of disaster can be broken into two periods. The short-term phase typically lasts from six months to at least one year and involves delivering immediate services to businesses.
• The long-term phase, which can range up to decades, requires thoughtful strategic planning and action to address more serious or permanent impacts of a disaster.
• Investment in economic development capacity building becomes essential to foster economic diversification, attain new resources, build new partnerships and implement effective recovery strategies and tactics.
• Communities must access and deploy a range of public and private resources to enable long-term economic recovery.

Highlights of the National Disaster Management Plan

The National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) is the first ever national plan prepared in the country.

Following are the highlights of the NDMP:

• The NDMP has been aligned broadly with the goals and priorities set out in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
• The Vision of the Plan is to “Make India disaster resilient, achieve substantial disaster risk reduction, and significantly decrease the losses of life, livelihoods, and assets – economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental – by maximizing the ability to cope with disasters at all levels of administration as well as among communities.
• For each hazard, the approach used in this national plan incorporates the four priorities enunciated in the Sendai Framework into the planning framework for Disaster Risk Reduction under the five Thematic Areas for Actions:
  • Understanding Risk
  • Inter-Agency Coordination
  • Investing in DRR – Structural Measures
  • Investing in DRR – Non-Structural Measures
  • Capacity Development
  • The Response part of the Plan has identified eighteen broad activities which have been arranged into a matrix to be served as a ready reckoner:
  • Early Warning, Maps, Satellite inputs, Information Dissemination
  • Evacuation of People and Animals
  • Search and Rescue of People and Animals
  • Medical Care
  • Drinking Water/ Dewatering Pumps/ Sanitation Facilities/ Public Health
  • Food & Essential Supplies
  • Communication
  • Housing and Temporary Shelters
  • Power
  • Fuel
  • Transportation
  • Relief Logistics and Supply Chain Management
  • Disposal of Animal Carcasses
  • Fodder for livestock in scarcity-hit areas
  • Rehabilitation and Ensuring Safety of Livestock and other Animals, Veterinary Care
  • Data Collection and Management
  • Relief Employment
  • Media Relations
  • The Plan has also incorporated a Chapter on Strengthening Disaster Risk Governance.
  • The generalized responsibility matrix given in this section summarizes the themes for strengthening Disaster Risk Governance and specifies agencies at the Centre and State with their respective roles.
  • The matrix has six thematic areas in which Central and State Governments have to take actions to strengthen disaster risk governance:

 

• Mainstream and integrate DRR and Institutional Strengthening
• Capacity Development
• Promote Participatory Approaches
• Work with Elected Representatives
• Grievance Redress Mechanism
• Promote Quality Standards, Certifications, and Awards for Disaster Risk Management
• The National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) provides a framework and direction to the government agencies for all phases of disaster management cycle.
• The NDMP is a dynamic document in the sense that it will be periodically improved keeping up with the emerging global best practices and knowledge bases in disaster management.
• Globally, the approach towards post-disaster restoration and rehabilitation has shifted to one of betterment reconstruction. The NDMP provides a generalized framework for recovery since it is not possible to anticipate all the possible elements of betterment reconstruction.
• The Plan also highlights that the disaster risk reduction will be achieved by mainstreaming the requirements into the developmental plans.

 

Disaster Management Support Programme in India by ISRO

• India has been traditionally vulnerable to natural disasters on account of its geo-climatic conditions.
• Floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides have been recurrent phenomena.
• About 60% of the landmass is prone to earthquakes of various intensities; over 40 million hectares is prone to floods; close to 5,700 km long coastline out of the 7,516 km, is prone to cyclones; about 68% of the cultivable area is susceptible to drought.
• The Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the East and part of West coast are vulnerable to Tsunami.
• The deciduous/ dry-deciduous forests in different parts of the country experience forest fires.
• The Himalayan region and the Western Ghats are prone to landslides

DMS programme

• Under the DMS programme, the services emanating from aerospace infrastructure, set up by ISRO, are optimally synthesized to provide data and information required for efficient management of natural disasters in the country.
• The Geostationary satellites (Communication and Meteorological), Low Earth Orbiting Earth Observation satellites, aerial survey systems together with ground infrastructure form the core element of the observation Systems for disaster management.
• The Decision Support Centre established at National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of ISRO is engaged in monitoring natural disasters such as flood, cyclone, agricultural drought, landslides, earthquakes and forest fires at operational level.
• The information generated from aero-space systems are disseminated to the concerned in near real time for aiding in decision making.
• The value added products generated using satellite imagery helps in addressing the information needs covering all the phases of disaster management such as, preparedness, early warning, response, relief, rehabilitation, recovery and mitigation.

National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM)

• National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) has been entrusted with the nodal responsibility for human resource development, capacity building including training & education, research, documentation and policy planning in the field of disaster management.
• Upgraded from the National Centre for Disaster Management of the Indian Institute of Public Administration on the 16th October, 2003, NIDM is steadily marching forward to fulfill its mission to make a disaster resilient India by developing and promoting a culture of prevention and preparedness at all levels, and emerge as a Centre of Excellence.
• Union Home Minister is the President of the Institute and, its Governing Body is chaired by Vice Chairman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

Mission and Objectives

• Mission of NIDM is to strive relentlessly towards making a disaster free India by developing and promoting a culture of prevention and preparedness at all levels, provide assistance in policy formulation and to facilitate in reducing the impact of disasters through achieving the following objectives:
• Planning and promoting training and capacity building services including strategic learning.
• Research, documentation and development of national level information base.
• System development and expertise promotion for effective disaster preparedness and mitigation.
• Promoting awareness and enhancing knowledge and skills of all stakeholders.
• Strengthening institutional mechanisms for training and capacity building of all stakeholders.
• To become National Resource Centre for the Central and State Governments in the field of Disaster Management in collaboration with other premier institutions
• Disaster manangement: some case studies
• Aspects of Disaster Management
• Disaster Prevention
• Disaster Prevention is the concept of engaging in activities which intend to prevent or avoid potential adverse impacts through action taken in advance, activities designed to provide protection from the occurance of disasters.
• Disaster Preparedness
• Disaster preparedness activities embedded with risk reduction measures can prevent disaster situations and also result in saving maximum lives and livelihoods during any disaster situation, enabling the affected population to get back to normalcy within a short time period.
• Minimisation of loss of life and damage to property through facilitation of effective disaster response and rehabilitation services when required. Preparedness is the main way of reducing the impact of disasters. Community-based preparedness and management should be a high priority in physical therapy practice management.
• Disaster Response / Relief
• Focused predominantly on immediate and short-term needs the division between this response/relief stage and the subsequent recovery stage is not clear-cut. Some response actions, such as the supply of temporary housing and water supplies, may extend well into the recovery stage. Rescue from immediate danger and stabilization of the physical and emotional condition of survivors is the primary aims of disaster response/relief, which go hand in hand with the recovery of the dead and the restoration of essential services such as water and power.
• Chernobyl Atomic Plant Tragedy 1986
• The Chernobyl Power Complex, lying about 130 km north of Kiev, Ukraine, and about 20 km south of the border with Belarus, consisted of four nuclear reactors of the RBMK-1000 design (see information page on RBMK Reactors). Units 1 and 2 were constructed between 1970 and 1977, while units 3 and 4 of the same design were completed in 1983.
• The accident caused the largest uncontrolled radioactive release into the environment ever recorded for any civilian operation, and large quantities of radioactive substances were released into the air for about 10 days. This caused serious social and economic disruption for large populations in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Two radionuclides, the short-lived iodine-131 and the long-lived caesium-137, were particularly significant for the radiation dose they delivered to members of the public.
• The casualties included firefighters who attended the initial fires on the roof of the turbine building. All these were put out in a few hours, but radiation doses on the first day were estimated to range up to 20,000 millisieverts (mSv), causing 28 deaths – six of which were firemen – by the end of July 1986.
• The next task was cleaning up the radioactivity at the site so that the remaining three reactors could be restarted, and the damaged reactor shielded more permanently. About 200,000 people (‘liquidators’) from all over the Soviet Union were involved in the recovery and clean-up during 1986 and 1987. They received high doses of radiation, averaging around 100 millisieverts. Some 20,000 of them received about 250 mSv and a few received 500 mSv. Later, the number of liquidators swelled to over 600,000 but most of these received only low radiation doses. The highest doses were received by about 1000 emergency workers and on-site personnel during the first day of the accident.
• The plant operators’ town of Pripyat was evacuated on 27 April (45,000 residents). By 14 May, some 116,000 people that had been living within a 30-kilometre radius had been evacuated and later relocated. About 1000 of these returned unofficially to live within the contaminated zone. Most of those evacuated received radiation doses of less than 50 mSv, although a few received 100 mSv or more.
• In the years following the accident, a further 220,000 people were resettled into less contaminated areas, and the initial 30 km radius exclusion zone (2800 km2) was modified and extended to cover 4300 square kilometres. This resettlement was due to application of a criterion of 350 mSv projected lifetime radiation dose, though in fact radiation in most of the affected area (apart from half a square kilometre) fell rapidly so that average doses were less than 50% above normal background of 2.5 mSv/yr. See also following section on Resettlement.
• Bhopal Gas Tragedy 1984
• In the early morning hours of December 3, 1984, a poisonous grey cloud (forty tons of toxic gases) from Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL’s)1 pesticide plant at Bhopal spread throughout the city. Water carrying catalytic material had entered Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) storage tank No. 610. What followed was a nightmare. The killer gas spread through the city, sending residents scurrying through the dark streets. No alarm ever sounded a warning and no evacuation plan was prepared. When victims arrived at hospitals breathless and blind, doctors did not know how to treat them, as UCIL had not provided emergency information.
• Since 1980, the Bhopal plant had caused death and injury to many. In December 1981, plant operator Mohammed Ashraf was killed by a phosgene gas leak. Two other workers were injured. In May 1982, three American engineers from the chemical products and household plastics division of UCC came to Bhopal. Their task was to appraise the running of the plant and confirm that everything was functioning according to the standards laid down by UCC.
• The issue of the danger posed by the pesticide plant to Bhopal was raised in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly in December 1982. However, T S Viyogi, labour minister in the Arjun Singh5 government allayed all fears saying, “A sum of Rs. 250 million has been invested in this unit. The factory is not a small stone, which can be shifted elsewhere. There is no danger to Bhopal, nor will there ever be.” Equally confident was Mukund: “The gas leak just can’t be from my plant. The plant is shut down.6 Our technology just can’t go wrong, we just can’t have such leaks,” he said.
• Within months after the disaster, the GoI issued an ordinance appointing itself as the sole representative of the victims for any legal dealings with UCC as regards compensation. The ordinance was later replaced by the Bhopal Gas Leak (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985. Armed with this power, the GoI filed its suit for compensation and damages against UCC in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
• Besides filing the suit, one of its prime responsibilities was to register the claims of each and every gas victim in Bhopal. Analysts felt that this job was never done, or rather, not with any seriousness for the next ten years. The government set up various inquiry commissions to investigate the causes of the disaster; they remained half-hearted initiatives at best. UCC, on the other hand, moved more quickly with its ‘investigations’: it announced by March 1985 that the disaster was due to ‘an act of sabotage’ by a Sikh terrorist. Then they shifted blame to a disgruntled worker.
• kutch earthquake 2001
• The 2001 Gujarat earthquake, also known as the Bhuj earthquake, occurred on 26 January, India’s 51st Republic Day, at 08:46 AM IST and lasted for over 2 minutes. The epicentre was about 9 km south-southwest of the village of Chobari in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District of Gujarat, India. The intraplate earthquake reached 7.7 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum felt intensity of X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale. The earthquake killed between 13,805 and 20,023 people (including 18 in southeastern Pakistan), injured another 167,000 and destroyed nearly 400,000 homes.
• Reconstruction
• Four months after the earthquake the Gujarat government announced the Gujarat Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Policy. The policy proposed a different approach to urban and rural construction with the estimated cost of rebuilding to be US$1.77 billion. The main objectives of the policy included repairing, building, and strengthening houses and public buildings. Other objectives included the revival of the economy, health support, and reconstruction of the community and social infrastructure.
• Housing
• The housing policy focused on the removal of rubble, setting up temporary shelters, full reconstruction of damaged houses, and the retrofitting of undamaged units. The policy established a community-driven housing recovery process. The communities affected by the earthquake were given the option for complete or partial relocation to in-situ reconstruction. The total number of eligible houses to be repaired was 929,682 and the total number of eligible houses to be reconstructed was 213,685. By 2003, 882,896 (94%) houses were repaired and 113,271 (53%) were reconstructed.
• City planning
• The Environmental Planning Collaborative (EPC) was commissioned to provide a new city plan for the city of Bhuj. The plan focused on creating a wider roadway network to provide emergency access to the city. The EPC used land readjustment (LR) in the form of eight town planning schemes.This was implemented by deducting land from private lot sizes to create adequate public land for the widening of roadways.The remaining land was readjusted and given back to the original owners as final plots.
• Relief
• In order to support the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the city, the Government of Gujarat created four assistance packages worth up to US$1 billion. These packages assisted about 300,000 families. The government also announced a US$2.5 million package to revive small, medium, and cottage industries. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank also provided loans worth $300 million and $500 million respectively. Assistance was received from many countries and organisations.
• Indian tsunami 2004
• The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on 26 December with the epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The shock had a moment magnitude of 9.1–9.3 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The undersea megathrust earthquake was caused when the Indian Plate was subducted by the Burma Plate and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000–280,000 people in 14 countries.
• A great deal of humanitarian aid was needed because of widespread damage of the infrastructure, shortages of food and water, and economic damage. Epidemics were of special concern due to the high population density and tropical climate of the affected areas. The main concern of humanitarian and government agencies was to provide sanitation facilities and fresh drinking water to contain the spread of diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, dysentery, typhoid and hepatitis A and B. There was also a great concern that the death toll could increase as disease and hunger spread. However, because of the initial quick response, this was minimized. In the days following the tsunami, significant effort was spent in burying bodies hurriedly due to fear of disease spreading. However, the public health risks may have been exaggerated, and therefore this may not have been the best way to allocate resources. The World Food Programme provided food aid to more than 1.3 million people affected by the tsunami.
• Fukushima Daiichi Japan Nuclear Disaster 2011
• 11 March 2011. A magnitude 9.0 offshore earthquake hit Japan. This was followed by a 14-metre tsunami which swept into the coastal towns, destroying multitudes of infrastructure in its path. Unfortunately, the waves also struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
• From the natural disaster, 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami it was truly unfortunately become a man-made disaster when the nuclear reactor melt-function cause many death in the country. The power plant shouldn’t have shut down automatically when the earthquake happen because when the plant was build it already have been consider to avoid this accident happen when the natural disaster happen.
• Japanese parliamentary panel challenged claims by the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), that the triple meltdown at the plant in north-east Japan had been caused solely by a 14-metre tsunami on 11 March last year. The panel said the magnitude-9 earthquake that preceded the waves could not be ruled out as a cause of the accident.
• It accused Tepco and regulators at the nuclear and industrial safety agency of failing to take adequate safety measures, despite evidence that the area was susceptible to powerful earthquakes and tsunamis.
• Since 2006, the regulators and Tepco were aware of the risk that a total outage of electricity at the Fukushima Daiichi plant might occur if a tsunami were to reach the level of the site. But it accused Tepco of ignoring warnings going as far back as 2006 that a tsunami could cause a blackout at the plant.
• Uttrakhand Flash Flood 2013
• In June 2013, a multi-day cloudburst centered on the North Indian state Uttarakhand caused devastating floods and landslides becoming the country’s worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami. The reason the floods occurred was that the rainfall received was on a larger scale than the regular rainfall the state usually received.
• The Army, Air Force, Navy, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Border Security Force, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Public Works Department and local administrations worked together for quick rescue operations. Several thousand soldiers were deployed for the rescue missions. Activists of political and social organisations were also involved in the rescue and management of relief centres. The national highway and other important roads were closed to regular traffic. Helicopters were used to rescue people, but due to the rough terrain, heavy fog and rainfall, manoeuvring them was a challenge. By 21 June 2013, the Army had deployed 10,000 soldiers and 11 helicopters, the Navy had sent 45 naval divers, and the Air force had deployed 43 aircraft including 36 helicopters. From 17 to 30 June 2013, the IAF airlifted a total of 18,424 people – flying a total of 2,137 sorties and dropping/landing a total of 3,36,930 kg of relief material and equipments.
• Indo Tibetan border Police (ITBP) a Force which guards the Indo China borders on the high himalayas with its 3 Regional Response Centres (RRCs) based at Matli (Uttarkashi), Gauchar (Chamoli) and Pithoragarh swung into action and started rescue and relief operation. 2000 strong ITBP force with its mountaineering skills and improvisation methods started rescue of stranded pilgrims. It was a simultaneous effort by ITBP at Kedar ghati, Gangotri valley and Govind ghat areas. According to official figures by ITBP, they were able to rescue 33,009 pilgrims in 15 days on their own from extreme remote and inaccessible areas.Before Army or Air Force called in, being deployed in the nearby areas, ITBP took the first call and saved many lives. They also distributed food packets to stranded pilgrims who were in a pathetic condition being not having any food for more than 72 hours at many places.
• Allahabad Kumbh Stampede 2013
• On 10 February 2013, during the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela, a stampede broke out at the train station in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, killing 42 people and injuring at least 45.
• According to initial reports, the stampede broke out after a railing on a footbridge collapsed at the Allahabad railway station. Eyewitnesses, however, said that the stampede was triggered after the railway police charged at the crowd with wooden sticks in order to control the huge rush at the station. 42 people were killed by the crush of people, including 29 women, 12 men, and an eight-year-old girl who died after waiting almost two hours for help. At least 45 people were injured in addition. In an unrelated event earlier that day, two people were killed in another stampede.
• Ujjain Tragedy 1994
• The Ujjain incident reportedly occurred because of a delay in opening the gates to the sanctum sanctorum, outside which nearly 20,000 devotees had gathered since the early hours of the morning.
• s the crowd surged forward, some people slipped and fell on the marble staircase leading to the main complex, sparking panic. Within a minute, there was a huge pile of people. It was only when we started helping them get on their feet that we realised that those at the bottom were dead.
• J & K Flood 2014
• On the afternoon of September 4 of 2014, two days before Jammu and Kashmir was ravaged by its worst floods in more than 50 years, three hydrological stations on the Jhelum river, which runs through the valley, had detected that serious danger was lurking. Less than 50 km upstream of Srinagar, the Sangam station, operated by the Central Water Commission (CWC), indicated that water levels had risen from 5.7 m on September 3 to 10.13 m on September 4. That’s more than the height of a storey in a regular house.
• Nearer the capital, the Ram Munshi Bagh hydrological station registered a jump of more than 3 m in the water level between the afternoons of September 3 and 4. Further downstream, the Safapora hydrological station also recorded readings of a similar jump in the same period.
• The information provided by these three stations should have set alarm bells ringing within the state administration which should have then prepared itself for a major flood hitting the area. It could have provided a 24-hour window to evacuate people from lowlying areas, deploy special response teams and to arrange for rationing supplies. Except that none of this happened.
• The explanation for this inaction is staggering-these CWC stations are not flood forecasting stations. They are merely supposed to monitor the flow of water from India to Pakistan under the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. When they detected the rise in water levels, the information was quickly passed on to the local administration but they simply looked past it, thinking it had nothing to do with flood management. No one bothered to join the dots.
• That role is supposed to be performed by the NDMA, headquartered in a plush building in New Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave. Since the NDA Government took office in May this year, it has secured the resignations of five of its members including its vicechairman, thereby rendering the body headless. While there are still technical experts housed in the building, an NDMA official explains that a lack of leadership means that no work has happened there for months now.
• The NDMA, however, is not directly involved with disaster management in each state. Its mandate is to frame policy and put structures in place. Disaster management in the states is supposed to be carried out by the state disaster management authority and district disaster management authorities, all of whom are supposed to have incident response teams in place to deal with such situations. Here again, both the NDMA and state government failed. In February 2012, the state government had approved a three-tier disaster management policy but it was never able to create a separate department which would only deal with disasters. The task was assigned to the respective divisional commissioners or deputy commissioners of the area who presumably had several other things to deal with.

 

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