Digital Video Session No.

__2__
Department of _____Life Sciences_______
Faculty Name: Prof.Vasantha.V.L _____________
Subject: _Environmental studies_________
Topic: _Disaster Management______________

Script:
Hello Students! In todays session lets learn about Disaster
Management.
Almost every day, newspaper, radio and television carry reports
on disaster striking several parts of the world.
India has been vulnerable to natural disasters on account of its
unique geo-climatic conditions. Floods, droughts, cyclones,
earthquakes and landslides have been recurrent phenomena.
About 60% of land mass is prone to earthquakes of various
intensities, over 40 million hectares is prone to floods, about 8%
of total area is prone to cyclone and 68% of area susceptible to
drought. Thus disaster management is very crucial for India.
Before we study in detail disaster management lets us define
disaster and disaster management. Certain areas
Disaster term originated from French word Desastre Des
meaning bad and aster meaning star. Thus term refers to bad or
evil star.
Disaster can be defined as A serious disruption in the
functioning of community or society and causes human, material,
economic or environmental losses which will exceed the
communitys or societys ability to cope using its own resources.
While Disaster Management can be defined as the organization
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 disaster.
Disasters themselves are not limited to specific parts of world,
though certain areas might be more prone to certain specific type
of disaster
Eg: areas around Pacific Rim is more prone to earthquake, some
countries more prone to terrorist activities, some coastal areas
are prone to cyclones however more advanced a nation their level
of preparedness will also be higher. This kind of preparedness will
allow them to have better control over loss and able recover soon.
Another thing which can cause a lot of loss during certain kind of
disaster is the inability to properly manage and secure important
utilities like water, food, electricity, gas etc. Thus the main
motivation behind disaster management is to minimize the losses
at the time of disaster as well as ensure effective utilization of
resources.
Though all kinds of disaster require more or less similar skill sets
and rescue efforts it is important to understand various kinds of
disasters so that depending on the actual nature of disaster
immediate action and needs can be planned.
Disasters are broadly classified in to natural and Man made
disasters.
Natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural
process of earth. Natural disaster can cause loss of life, property,
and economic damage the severity of which depends on affected
population or ability to recover.
Few examples for natural disasters are Cyclone, Floods,
earthquake, landslides.
Man made disasters: These are caused directly or indirectly by
human action.
Example: Oil spills, nuclear leakage, terrorist activities.
Now lets study earthquake, a natural disaster its causes,
protection and safety measures.
What is Earthquake?
An earthquake is a phenomenon that occurs without warning and
involves violent shaking of ground and everything over it. This
occurs due to the moving lithospheric or crustal plates. These
plates move at very slow rate at the rate of few millimeters in
magna inside earth. When these plates collide results in
earthquake.
what kind of effect it has when it occurs in highly populated area?
1. It inflict great damage to building, roads, factories, dams,
bridges, and thus cause heavy loss of properties.
2. There is great loss of life
3. It can also cause floods and land slides
4. When earthquake happens beneath the ocean can lead to
tsunami.
Earth quake prediction or forecasting is an immature science. It is
not currently possible to make deterministic predictions of when
where earthquake will happen. Most geoscientists do not believe
that there is a realistic prospect of accurate prediction in the
foreseeable future and principle focus of research is on improving
the forecasting of earthquake. Seismometers are the instruments
used to measure the intensity of earthquake which measure
motion of ground, including seismic waves generated during
earthquake.
Now lets see to the safety precautions one has to follow during
earthquake to minimize the losses.
Precautions for a person present inside the building
1. Take shelter under a table or bed stay there until the tremor/
shaking stops.
2. Protect your head and spine with pillow on your arms.
3. In case there are tremors when you are in some public
building then you should stay in the corner or near pillar. You
should not move about or create chaos and remain away
from heavy objects
4. When you are in outdoor find clear spot away from building,
trees, bridges and overhead power lines.
 5. In case there are tremors, when you are driving, you should
drive slowly and park in clear spot.
6. Damage to the building can be minimized by constructing
earthquake resistant buildings by keeping weak spot in
house to absorb vibrations or by making pads or floats
beneath the buildings.
7. Wooden houses can be constructed in seismic zones.
Now lets study about floods which is another kind of natural
disaster
What is flood?
A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land which is
usually dry. The European Union Floods Directive defines a flood
as a covering by water of land not normally covered by water.
Floods often cause colossal loss to human lives and property.
What causes floods?
Floods are caused by natural as well as anthropogenic or human
factors. Among the natural factors are prolonged high intensity
rainfalls, meandering courses of rivers, break in slope in the long
profiles of rivers, blocking the free flow of rivers due to enormous
debris provided by landslides or volcanic eruptions. The
anthropogenic activities such as building activities, deforestation
etc
Now lets understand major flood control measures:
Floods are natural phenomenon one cannot get rid of it but can
be minimized by following these steps
1. By hastening the discharge of water.
2. By diverting the flow of water.
3. By forecasting and warning and advising the people through
media to educate people about the steps to be taken in the
event of disaster.
4. Elderly people and children should be evacuated to safer
places.
5. Valuable household items, animals and other necessary
materials like food cloth should be shifted to safer places.
6. Government agencies and Non-governmental organizations
like NGOs should help flood affected people in the control of
epidemic disease and maintain proper sanitation.
Next cyclones
Tropical cyclones are the most powerful, destructive dangerous
and deadly atmospheric storms on earth. They move like
spinning top at the speed of 120-400km/hour. These can last
for a week or so and the diameter varying between 100-
1500km. They are called by different names like hurricanes in
USA, Typhoons in Japan, China, Cyclones in Bangladesh and
India. Willy in Australia. The destructions caused by cyclone
includes loss of human lives, and property in terms of building,
transport, communications system, agricultural crops and so
on.
Management in cyclone hit areas are as follows:
1. Identification of safe buildings in the area for providing safe
shelters to the people
2. Listening to the weather bulletins broadcasted/telecasted
over radio/Television
3. In coastal areas, warning should be sent to the fishermen not
to venture in to sea during storm.
4. Keep away from fallen electric poles, damaged poles, and
flood water areas
5. Transportation and movement should be stopped during the
storm
6. People evacuated from their places must wait for the official
declaration to return homes
7. Relief and rehabilitation should be immediately provided to
the affected people.
Another kind of natural disaster is landslides
Landslide is the moving down of coherent rock and soil mass
due to gravitational pull. Various human activities like
hydroelectricity projects, dams, construction of roads and
railways, mining, deforestation and so on makes mountain
slope fragile and leads to landslides.
Management of landslides
1. Afforestation in landslide prone areas
2. Providing slope support by stone blocks
3. Draining the surface and sub surface water
4. Providing concrete support at the base of slope..