VARIOUS DISASTER AND

MITIGATION FACILITY

PRESANT BY SATYAM RAWAT

CLASS - 9TH M
A disaster is a natural or man-made (or technological) hazard resulting
in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or
destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment. A
disaster can be ostensively defined as any tragic event stemming from
events such as earthquakes, floods, catastrophic accidents, fires,
or explosions. It is a phenomenon that can cause damage to life and
property and destroy the economic, social and cultural life of people.
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 is the case
in uninhabited regions.[1]
Developing countries suffer the greatest costs when a disaster hits –
more than 95 percent of all deaths caused by disasters occur in
developing countries, and losses due to natural disasters are 20 times
greater (as a percentage of GDP) in developing countries than in
industrialized countries.[
Natural disaster[edit]
Main article: Natural disaster
A natural disaster is a consequence when a natural hazard affects humans and/or the
built environment. Human vulnerability, and lack of appropriate emergency
management, leads to financial, environmental, or human impact. The resulting loss
depends on the capacity of the population to support or resist the disaster: their
resilience. This understanding is concentrated in the formulation: "disasters occur when
hazards meet vulnerability". A natural hazard will hence never result in a natural
disaster in areas without vulnerability.
Various phenomena like earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornadoes,
blizzards,tsunamis, and cyclones are all natural hazards that kill thousands of people
and destroy billions of dollars of habitat and property each year. However, natural
hazards can strike in non-populated areas and never develop into disasters. However,
the rapid growth of the world's population and its increased concentration often in
hazardous environments has escalated both the frequency and severity of natural
disasters. With the tropical climate and unstable land forms, coupled with
deforestation, unplanned growth proliferation, non-engineered constructions which
make the disaster-prone areas more vulnerable, tardy communication, poor or no
budgetary allocation for disaster prevention, developing countries suffer more or less
chronically by natural disasters. Asia tops the list of casualties due to natural disasters.
Man-made disasters[edit]
Main article: Man-made disasters
Man-made disasters are the consequence of
technological or human 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. As with natural
hazards, man-made hazards are events that have
not happened, for instance terrorism. Man-made
disasters are examples of specific cases where man-
made hazards have become reality in an event.
Disaster Prevention and Mitigation

4.1 The Yokohama message emanating from the international decade for
natural disaster reduction in May, 1994 underlined the need for an emphatic shift
in the strategy for disaster mitigation. It was inter alia stressed that disaster
prevention, mitigation, preparedness and relief are four elements which contribute
to and gain, from the implementation of the sustainable development policies.
These elements alongwith environmental protection and sustainable development,
are closely inter related. Therefore, nations should incorporate them in their
development plans and ensure efficient follow up measures at the community,
sub-regional, regional, national and international levels. The Yokohama Strategy
also emphasized that disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness are better
than disaster response in achieving the goals and objectives of vulnerability
reduction. Disaster response alone is not sufficient as it yields only temporary
results at a very high cost. Prevention and mitigation contribute to lasting
improvement in safety and are essential to integrated disaster management
The Government of India have adopted mitigation and prevention as
essential components of their development strategy. The Tenth Five
Year Plan
document has a detailed chapter on Disaster Management. A copy of
the said
chapter is enclosed at Annexure – II. The plan emphasizes the fact that
development cannot be sustainable without mitigation being built into
developmental process. Each State is supposed to prepare a plan
scheme for
disaster mitigation in accordance with the approach outlined in the
plan. In brief,
mitigation is being institutionalized into developmental planning