Essay on Disaster Management: Humans generally do not have any hold on the disaster in a natural calamity situation. They can do very little to avert the situation or prevent them. To preserve lives and protect them from danger, safety measures and emergency guidelines need to be implemented. These planning strategies should be ready in place before the occurrence of a natural disaster. Robust policies on disaster management could save many lives and property.
Essay on Disaster Management 500 Words in English
Below we have provided Disaster Management Essay in English, suitable for class 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.
A disaster is defined as any large scale occurrence that disrupts human society’s normal functioning and leads to widespread loss of life, property, and environment that exceeds the surviving population’s capability to cope with their resources. Every country is prone to disasters, and India is no exception to them. In general, disasters can be classified into two types, natural and human-made disasters.
While the latter can be prevented by cautious actions, the former can only be mitigated to an extent. Disaster management is the organisation and management of resources and services that deal with humanitarian aspects of emergencies caused by disasters, specifically involving the preparedness, response, and recovery to lessen the impact of disasters.
As per the estimates in the vulnerability atlas, about 60% of area is prone to earthquakes, 12% region risks flooding and 8% of the total landmass is vulnerable to cyclones. Furthermore of the 159.7 million hectares of agricultural land, 68% is prone to drought. While these are the conventional natural disasters listed, there are many more that have occurred due to wars, human negligence and civil disharmony.
Natural Disasters: These disasters occur naturally and we do not have any control over it. The most common of all the natural disasters is earthquakes. It is defined as sudden turbulent shaking of the earth. The origin of earthquake is known as the epicentre from where the shock waves traverse outwards. Earthquakes are primary disasters which combining with the environmental factors can give rise to secondary disasters like landslides, floods, fires, etc. When it occurs inside oceans, it gives rise to giant tidal waves called tsunamis.
Draughts occur due to shortage of groundwater, scarcity of rainfall and drying up of local water bodies. Draughts are the leading cause of crop failure and lead to food shortages, dehydration and malnutrition. Economically, it affects the farmers adversely as they become unemployed. This further makes them tumble into the hideous cycle of poverty, hunger and insanitation.
Man-made Disasters: These types of disasters can be easily prevented if we practice our profession and day to day activities responsibly and cautiously. On a bigger scale, political and economic factors also play a crucial role in the origin of man-made disasters.
Industrial disasters are primary type of man-made disasters. These include gas leak, chemical leak, explosions, fires, radioactive breakdown, etc. Depending upon the product or substances involved in the disaster, it can have both long and short term effects on human and ecological factors of the environment.
Another deliberately caused disaster is war and use of weapons of mass-destruction. Wars are one man’s victory and a million men’s loss. Other than loss of lives in the form of soldiers and civilians involved, wars also scar the environmental factors of the area where they are fought on.
Management and Mitigation of Disasters
Proper disaster management of natural disasters can be executed keeping in mind the following points:
- Identification of factors of a disaster
- Classification of threat levels
- Public awareness about the disasters
- Pre-emptive measures
- Preparedness to effectively combat disaster
- Well-knitted coordination of mitigation and relief organisation
- Enactment and enforcement of government and administrative policies
India is a signatory of the Hyogo Framework of Action, 2015 under the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction which prescribes the following five-fold process for mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction in a country’s socioeconomic and developmental activities-
- Political Process: This encourages effective governmental policies and institutional frameworks along with allocation of funds and resources for limiting risks of disaster.
- Technical Process: Its goal is to utilise R&D in the field of science and technology for better assessment, monitoring and identification of disaster and improve the existing early warning systems to manage disasters.
- Socio-Educational Process: This seeks to achieve mass awareness and skill development of the citizens of a country to tackle disasters effectively and ensure safety and resilience at personal level.
- Development Process: It includes integrating disaster risk reduction activities among all sectors of development planning and programs.
- Humanitarian Process: This comprises of the activities undertaken to rehabilitate loss- an integral part of risk reduction and ensure rapid response and recovery.
The Disaster Management Act, 2005 encapsulates the institutional, legal, financial and co-ordination mechanisms at central, state, district and local levels. Under this law, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was established under the chairmanship of the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. All the state and district disaster management organisations fall under this establishment.
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