The crisis may be defined as an emergency situation arising out of natural or human activity which poses a threat to human life and property or leads to large scale disruption of normal life. A crisis may degenerate into disaster if it is not properly managed resulting in avoidable loss of human life and property on a large scale.
Classification of crisis:
1. Crisis caused by nature:
2. Climatic events: floods, cyclones, draughts, storms
3. Geological events: landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches.
4. Crisis caused by environmental degradation and disturbance of the ecological balance
5. Crisis caused by accidents. These can be further classified as industrial and nuclear mishaps and fire related accidents
6. Crisis caused by biological activities: public health crises, epidemics etc.
7. Crisis caused by hostile elements: terrorism, extremism, war, insurgency etc.
8. Crisis caused by disruption /failure of major infrastructural facilities including communication lines, large scale strikes; and
9. Crisis caused by large crowds getting out of control
Scale of crisis:
Depending on the intensity and area of impact the crisis situations can be labeled as local, sub district, district, state and national levels. The scale of crisis determines the nature and level of response.
Phases of crisis management:
1. Pre-crisis : preparedness
Long term measures like constructing embankments to prevent floods, plantations to prevent landslides, construction of earthquake resistant structures, augmenting irrigation facilities including watershed management to counter drought etc.
Short term measures like enforcing building codes, better awareness and public education to reduce the risk, maintaining proper drainage system etc.
1. During crisis: emergency response
Evacuation, search and rescue, providing basic facilities like food, clothing, shelter, drinking water, medicines etc to bring back the life of effected persons to normalcy.
1. Post crisis: recovery, rehabilitation, reconstruction.
The disaster risk depends upon nature and intensity of the hazard on the one hand and the vulnerability of the community on the other.
Disaster risk reduction framework
1. Policy towards risk management
2. Assessment of risk including risk analysis and vulnerability.
3. Risk awareness and preparation of plans for risk mitigation
4. Implementation of plan
5. Early warning systems
6. Use of knowledge
Indias key Hazards, vulnerabilities and the crisis response mechanism:
Every dollar spent on mitigation saves three to five dollars on relief and rehabilitation.
Earthquakes:
In our present state of knowledge, earthquakes can neither be prevented nor predicted in terms of their magnitude, or place and time of occurrence. Therefore, the most effective measures of risk reduction are pre-disaster mitigation, preparedness and preventive measures for reducing the vulnerability of the built environment combined with expeditious and effective rescue and relief actions immediately after the occurrence of the earthquake.
Cyclones:
An effective cyclone disaster prevention and mitigation plan requires:
1. efficient cyclone forecast - and warning services;
2. Rapid dissemination of warnings to the government agencies, particularly marine interests like ports, fisheries and shipping and to the general public and
3. construction of cyclone shelters in vulnerable areas, a ready machinery for evacuation of people to safer areas and community preparedness at all levels to meet the exigencies.
Floods:
The incidence of floods is the direct result of unauthorized construction activities in flood plains and river beds, poor urban planning and implementation, lack of investment in storm water drainage and sewerage for several decades as well as inadequate planning and response mechanisms.
The country has to shift towards efficient management of flood plains, disaster preparedness, response planning, flood forecasting and warning.
Landslides:
Measures to control landslides include micro zonation so as to regulate settlements in hazard prone areas, non interference with the natural water channels, and construction of retaining walls against steep slopes and strengthening of weak areas with grouting.
Avalanches: snow slides along slopes of mountains.
The mitigation measures for avalanches can be classified into structural and non-structural measures:
1. Structural measures:
a) Planting (Avalanche Prevention Forest)
b) Stepped Terraces
c) Avalanche Control Piles
d) Avalanche Control Fence
e) Suspended Fences
f) Snow Cornice Control Structures
g) Protection structures such as stopping, deflecting and retarding structures.
2. Non-structural measures - removing snow deposits on slopes by blasting, predicting avalanches and evacuating people from vulnerable areas.
Desertification: any kind of land degradation can be termed as desertification.
Sea erosion: Prevention measures against sea erosion include (i) sea walls, (ii) gabions, (iii) boulders, (iii) revetments, (iv) steel piles, (iv) rock groynes and (v) offshore rock bars.
Crisis or disaster response mechanism in India:
Over the centuries, local communities have developed their own indigenous survival mechanisms. This rich storehouse of knowledge is a part of our countrys legacy. The Arthashastra, (a treatise on public administration by Chanakya in the 4th century B.C), devoted a section to mitigation measures to combat famines.
Legal framework: national level disaster management act, 2005.
Response mechanism: the community is usually the first responder in case of a disaster. Rural areas: local police station, revenue functionary like karanam etc. urban areas : local police station, fire stations, civic authorities. At district level: collector.
Disaster management does not find any mention in the three lists of seventh schedule.
Role of state government:
In India the basic responsibility to undertake rescue, relief and rehabilitation measures in the event of natural disasters rests with the State Governments. Most states have relief commissioners who are the in charge of relief and rehabilitation measures. Relief commissioners work under the secretary of revenue department.
Every state has a Crisis Management Committee under the chairpersonship of the Chief Secretary, consisting of secretaries in charge of concerned departments, which reviews crisis situations on a day-to-day basis at the time of crisis, coordinates the activities of all departments and provides decision support system to the district administration. At the ministers level, a Cabinet Committee on Natural Calamities under the chairpersonship of the Chief Minister takes stock of situations and is responsible for all important policy decisions.
The District Magistrate/Collector has the responsibility for the overall management of disasters in the district.
Role of union government:
Union Government plays a key supportive role in terms of physical and financial resources and providing complementary measures such as early warning and co-ordination of efforts of all Union ministries, departments and organizations.
At the apex level cabinet committee on natural calamities reviews the crisis situations. If the crisis is concerned with agriculture it will be taken care by Min of Agriculture. If the crisis is concerned with nuclear, biological, chemical emergencies it will be taken care by cabinet committee on security.
The Cabinet Secretary, as the highest executive officer, heads the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC). Secretaries of ministries and departments concerned and heads of other organizations are members of NCMC, which reviews and monitors crisis situations on a regular basis and gives directions to the Crisis Management Group as deemed necessary.
The Central Relief Commissioner in the Ministry of Home Affairs is the Chairman of the Crisis Management Group (CMG) consisting of nodal officers from various concerned ministries. The CMGs functions are to review annual contingency plans formulated by various ministries, departments and organizations in their respective sectors, measures required for dealing with a natural disaster, coordinate the activities of the Union Ministries and State Governments in relation to disaster preparedness and relief, and to obtain information from the nodal officers on all these issues.
The above discussion is all about rescue and rehabilitation or during crisis activity. There is a paradigm shift of disaster management to prevention, mitigation and preparedness. The institutional support for this will be explained below.
Union government national disaster management authority under PM
Ministry of home affairs national institute of disaster management, national disaster response force
National executive committee secretaries of all relevant ministries
State government state disaster management authority under CM
State executive committee secretaries of all relevant ministries
District administration district disaster management authority under district magistrate.
Important measures taken by India to revamp disaster management are
1. Disaster management is moved under the purview of Ministry of home affairs from ministry of agriculture. Min of agriculture retains control regarding draughts, pest attacks, and hailstorms.
2. State governments are advised to reorganize their relief and rehabilitation department into disaster management department.
3. States are advised to constitute state disaster management authority under CM and district disaster management authority under collector(district magistrate).
4. National disaster response force will be constituted with the state of art technology and training to respond to natural and manmade disasters
5. An advanced fail-proof disaster communication network would be set up through Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) at national, state and district levels
6. National institute of disaster management is to be set up in Delhi for training, capacity building, research and documentation on various aspects of disaster management in the country.
7. Basics of disaster management to be introduced in school education, disaster resistant technologies to be introduced in engineering and architecture courses and emergency health management to be introduced in medical and nursing education
8. A community based disaster risk management programme to be launched in multi-hazard districts throughout the country
Legal and institutional framework
Disaster management encompasses all activities including preparedness, early warning, rescue, relief and rehabilitation.
What should a law on crisis management provide?
1. Focus should be on management of crisis so that their degeneration into a disaster is prevented.
2. Certain functions are to be centralized and some are decentralized for effective implementation.
3. Rescue, relief, rehabilitation by district administration is working fine and this bottom up approach of responsibilities need not be disturbed.
4. NDMA as well as the National Executive Committee (NEC) have been given the role not just of planning, coordinating, monitoring and providing assistance during a disaster but also executive functions related to implementation of the emergency relief and disaster response.
What amendments need to be done to disaster management act 2005?
1. Crisis/ disaster management should be the main responsibility of state government and central government has to play supporting role
2. There should be stringent punishment if the funds are misused
3. Law should cast a duty on every public functionary to inform the concerned authority about the crisis if he or she feels that that the concerned authority does not have such information.
4. Law should categorize the disasters as local, district, state and national level. This categorization is helpful to fix the level of authority primary responsible for dealing with the disaster.
5. The law should create uniform structure at apex level to handle all crisis. Such a structure should be headed by PM at national level and CM at state level. At the administrative level the structure should be headed by cabinet secretary at national level and chief secretary at state level.
6. The role of state governments should be brought to forefront for crisis or disaster management
7. The task of implementation of mitigation/prevention and response measures may be left to the State Governments and the district and local authorities with the line ministries/departments of Government of India, playing a supportive role.
Documentation of best practices followed by foreign countries is essential for disaster management. Professionalize the disaster management.
Risk reduction
Disaster risk can be reduced by forecasting occurrence of hazards as accurately as possible and well in time, and preparing in advance for their onset and even manipulating those natural hazards, which lend themselves to manipulation.
Assessment of risk Hazard and vulnerability analysis:
The first step in planning for mitigation measures for any crisis in an area is an understanding of the potential hazards in that area. Closely linked with this is assessing the vulnerability of society to such hazards.
Hazard and vulnerability analyses should be made an essential component of all crisis/disaster mitigation plans
Generating awareness about risk:
A healthy partnership between the media and the disaster management machinery has to be there.
Awareness generation programmes should be undertaken using tools of social marketing.
Details of past accidents and disasters and the lessons learnt, should be documented and kept in the public domain. The Disaster Management Authorities have to take up this task.
Making crisis/ disaster plans as a part of development plans:
Long term disaster mitigation/prevention plans include major capital intensive activities such as training of water courses, construction of protective bunds, afforestation, plantation of drought resistant vegetation, construction of shelters, raising embankments, retrofitting of buildings, permanent relocation of vulnerable settlements etc, which can sometimes have inter-district or even inter-state ramifications.
Instruments for the mitigation of disasters: These can be categorized as
Proper environmental management: Environment management must be factored into all planning and development activities.
Hazard reduction measures: Different disasters require different mitigation measures. For Ex: Flood mitigation requires measures like training the rivers, building embankments, raising level of habitations etc.
National building code in India mainly contains administrative regulations, development control rules and general building requirements; fire safety requirements; stipulations regarding materials, structural design and construction (including safety); and building and plumbing services.
Effective implementation of laws and regulations.
Early warning systems:
The objective of an early warning system is to alert the community of any impending hazard so that they can take preventive measures. An early warning system basically has four components - capturing the precursor events, transmission of this data to a central processing facility, alert recognition of an impending crisis and warning dissemination.
Communications networks, with sufficient redundancies should be established between the data collection point to the points where hazard is likely to occur. The communication channels from the point of alert generation to the point of disaster should have enough redundancies so as to maintain line of communication in the event of a disaster striking. Care has to be taken to put in place systems to disseminate warnings to all sections of the people.
Sensing the precursors transmission of data processing the data and alert recognition dissemination of warning
Building community resilience:
The community is also a repository of knowledge and skills which have evolved traditionally and these need to be integrated in the risk reduction process. It is necessary to educate the community about the entire disaster risk reduction and even to impart skills and assign specific roles to the members of the community, so that the first response from the community is a well coordinated one. This could be achieved by:
Undertaking location specific training programmes for the community
Mainstreaming crisis management in education
Mainstreaming crisis management in training programmes
Insurance is better option in the vulnerable areas.
Research and use of knowledge:
Disaster management plans should attempt to integrate traditional knowledge available with the communities.
NIDM should coordinate with research institutions and universities on the one hand and field functionaries on the other and identify areas where research is required.
Emergency response system
Since the initial response in any crisis/disaster should be timely and speedy, the Emergency Response Plans should be up-to-date and should lay down the trigger points in unambiguous terms.
Standard operating procedures should be developed for each disaster at the district and community level, keeping in mind the disaster vulnerability of the area.
Coordinating relief:
The emergency response phase can be divided into two distinct categories of activities. The first is rescue and the second is relief. The immediate response to any disaster should be launching of rescue operations which have the primary aim of saving human lives and thereafter animal lives and property. As the rescue operations are on, the phase for providing relief starts. Providing relief entails making immediate arrangements to ensure that the basic minimum necessities of life like food, clothing, shelter, security, and basic health and sanitation facilities are made available.
Role of specialized agencies:
Police, home guards, fire services: The police are among the first responders in any crisis. This response normally comes from the nearest police station or police outpost. Their immediate responsibility is to communicate the information and mount rescue and relief efforts with whatever resources those are available with them. The role of Home Guards is to serve as an auxiliary to the police in the maintenance of internal security, help the community in any kind of emergency such as an air-raid, fire, cyclone, earthquake, epidemic, etc., help in maintenance of essential services, promote communal harmony and assist the administration in protecting weaker sections, participate in socio-economic and welfare activities and perform civil defence duties.
Armed forces, Territorial Army and ex-service men: Armed forces have invariably played an important role in rescue and relief operations in all major disasters in the country. Territorial Army units should also be incorporated in crisis management planning and operations. The potential of ex-servicemen available throughout the country should also be tapped for disaster management.
Recovery
Recovery efforts following rescue and relief in any disaster can be classified into short term and long term. The short term activities for recovery are debris clearance, providing semi-permanent shelter and ensuring sanitation and restoring lifelines, while the long term activities involve building a safer and more sustainable livelihood.
Based on the assessment of the damage and the needs, a recovery strategy has to be formulated. The strategy should include all interventions - economic, social, political and psychological. The resources should be identified and the roles and responsibilities of all concerned should be defined.
Guiding Principles for Post-Disaster Recovery
1. Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in the recovery/ development process
2. Improving/maintaining coordination
3. Promoting participatory approaches and decentralized planning and programming for recovery
4. Enhancing safety standards and integrating risk reduction in reconstruction and development
5. Improving the living conditions of the affected communities and sectors
6. Building local and national capacities for increased resilience, risk management and sustainable development
7. Taking advantage of ongoing initiatives
8. Gender sensibility
9. Demonstrative effects
10. Monitoring, evaluating and learning
Section 46 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 envisages establishment of two funds, namely, National Disaster Response Fund and National Disaster Mitigation Fund. Similar funds are also to be established at the State and District levels.
Gender Issues and Vulnerability of weaker sections
The vulnerability analysis should bring out the specific vulnerabilities of women and these should be addressed in any mitigation effort. Disaster mitigation plans should be prepared, in consultation with womens groups. Similar steps should be taken for other vulnerable groups.
In the recovery phase, efforts should focus on making women economically independent by offering them opportunities of earning incomes, providing training in new skills, forming self-help groups, providing micro-finance, marketing facilities etc.
Drought management
Unlike floods, earthquakes, and cyclones, droughts have certain distinct features
1. the onset is slow giving adequate warning,
2. it affects livelihoods of people over a large area,
3. the duration of the disaster is much longer and so the relief efforts have to be sustained over this stretched time period,
4. it remains basically a rural phenomenon except that very severe drought may also impact on urban water supply by drying up sources and drastically reducing water table in regions with aquifers, and
5. There is a possibility that drought management efforts could reduce vulnerability by improving moisture conservation and vegetal cover etc.
A National Institute of Drought Management may be set up for networking on multi-disciplinary, cross-sectoral research on various aspects of drought, acting as a resource centre on droughts and carrying out impact evaluation studies of the drought management efforts. It needs to be ensured that the mandate and agenda of this proposed institute does not duplicate the efforts of the National Institute of Disaster Management.
The drought declaration process needs to be rationalized and made uniform in all states. It would not be appropriate to base such declaration upon the crop yields as it delays the commencement of drought relief measures. Therefore, the declaration would have to be based upon an estimate of the cropped area. To begin with, these would have to be eye estimates. With advances in satellite imagery, these estimates could be corroborated and ultimately the entire exercise could be based on remote sensing.
Satellite imagery and similar techniques are powerful tools in anticipating the occurrence and assessment of the effect of extreme weather events.
Management of specific crisis situations epidemics, disruption of essential services
With rapid development, industrialization and urbanization, the life of citizens depends on a wide range of essential services like power, transport, telecommunications and drinking water supply. Any disruption in these services would lead to large scale hardship to people.
References:
1. 2nd Administrative reforms commission reports on crisis management.
P.Bharath Kumar
