Natural disaster preparedness
Dr Manamohan Das
Disaster means simply an adverse or unfortunate event. In the process of the evolution of the earths surface, series of natural events have been occurring continuously and they happened even before the advent of man on the earths surface. During those times, it was meaningless to call those events natural disasters. It is a value-added concept used in relation to man. When men are adversely affected by such events, then only we call it natural disaster, otherwise it is simply a natural event. In spite of all such natural events, it must be admitted that our planet earth with its natural environment is the only favourable planet for human habitation in the universe so far known. In order to collect food from nature, the primitive men had to face varieties of adverse natural phenomena, such as ferocious animals, epidemics, climatic hazards, landslides, earthquakes, volcanoes, heavy flood, deluge created by melting of expansive ice-sheets, sometimes at the continental scale, etc. Being helpless, they had to believe such natural disasters as the creation of gods and goddesses when science and technology were not developed. There is no record of how many people were eliminated by such natural disasters. As a result, the number of people on the earth could not increase much for thousands of years. A small group of people who could survive by their hard struggle against natural calamity accidentally invented agriculture from which they could derive sufficient food and other essential commodities.
As a result of the invention of agriculture, three kinds of revolutionary changes took place in the life of men. Firstly, along with food security, security of life also increased. Secondly, there had been rapid population growth and thirdly, it was the most significant revolutionary change that the people could develop the intellectual and cultural faculty during sufficient leisure time that they could gain from the practice of sedentary agriculture. Gradually science and technology had also evolved. In spite of such wonderful development, man could not be free from natural disasters. As a result of the development of science and technology, there had been industrial revolution leading to rapid economic development based on the huge exploitation of natural resources. Science and technology helped men to derive natural resources more than what they needed. Consequently, tremendous pressure on natural environment for fulfilling the greed of the people leads to the occurrence of natural disasters. Now most of the natural disasters are the result of mans interference in the natural system.
With the help of science, we have come to know that nature follows certain rules as a result of which the natural environment has been continuing to be habitable for mankind, even though from time to time, happening of some events led to the evolutionary and revolutionary changes on the face of the earth. At the time of structural change and readjustment of isostatic balance, natural disasters have been created and the people living within the areas of natural disasters had to face extreme calamity. As the people in the ancient times were helpless in the face of natural disasters and did not know how to be escaped from such calamities, so also the present day people, in spite of the spectacular development of science and technology, are helpless against natural disasters and have not been able to device such a technology by which they may be saved from the disasters. Being the most intelligent and influential among all the animals, man has invited some unexpected disasters by excessive mastery over nature with the application of various technologies. As a result of the keen competition among the different nations of the world in the fields of industrialisation and economic development, the natural resources are plundered and depleted rapidly leading to the loss of equilibrium of natural environment. Consequently, natural disasters are becoming more acute and violent.
In the history of human civilization, there were a large number of examples of severe natural disasters, as- a result of which many centres of civilization were obliterated. Without referring to the disasters of early periods, we may cite only some examples of natural disasters occurred during the last four decades, such as the devastating flood of Bangladesh in 1970, when about two lakh people died, the earthquake of Tangsen of China, that occurred in 1976 causing death of about two lakh 42 thousand people, the earthquake of Gilan Province in Iran that occurred in 1990 causing death of 50 thousand people and in the earthquake of Luzon Island of Philippines occurred in 1990, two thousand people died. Severe damage to houses and different properties besides the loss of thousand of people were made in the earthquakes of Uttar Kashi in 1991, Latur in 1993 and Jabbalpur in 1997. The catastrophic earthquake of Bhuj in Gujarat that happened in 2001 causing destruction of the buildings and other properties besides loss of thousands of people in Bhuj City is still fresh in our memory. On October 8, 2005 the devastating earthquakes occurred in Jammu and Kashmir and Pak-occupied Kashmir as a result of which thousands of people died. Who can forget the great Tsunami of 2004 that happened in South Asia extending from Sumatra to the east coastal region of India, causing the death of more than 1.5 lakh people, rendering severel million homeless, besides extensive damage to houses and other property in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Andaman-Nicobar Island and Tamil Nadu in India.
Since the natural disasters are the phenomena occurred abruptly, it is generally very difficult to make the people prepared to face them without any loss. Yet we must take certain measures as precaution before their occurrence. Firstly, identification of the specific areas where natural disasters have been frequently occurring and also the areas where they may occur in the near future. People should be prohibited from settlement in such dangerous areas and if there are any settlement already made, the people should be rehabilitated elsewhere in disaster free zone. Secondly, reckless destruction of natural environment should be strictly stopped and a planned effort should be made to conserve and preserve the natural environment. Thirdly, people should be made aware of the measures to be taken before and after the incidence of natural disasters.
Whatever may be the development of science and technology, it has been remaining beyond the control of the men to prevent the occurrence of natural disasters. But we can mitigate to some extent the extensive damage. In order to do so, the U.N.O. in 1987 adopted a significant proposal. According to this proposal, the decade 1990 was declared as the International Natural Disaster Mitigation Decade.
The people of Assam have been facing two kinds of natural disasters such as: flood and earthquake. While flood is a perennial disaster and aggravated by human interference, the earthquake is a natural disaster that occurs occasionally. We can take certain measures for the mitigation of flood havoc. But it is very difficult to be prepared for the occurrence of earthquake, which is an unpredictable and sudden event. The experts have predicted that a severe earthquake of magnitude more than 8 on the Richter scale may occur in Assam at any time, though the exact date and time of occurrence cannot be correctly predicted. The people should therefore be prepared to take some measures before the happening of the earthquake. Generally it is observed that earthquake does not kill man. It is the man who, by his irrational action against nature, kills himself. As or example, the casualty of human lives was not high in the Great Earthquake of Assam in 1897 and 1950 with a high magnitude of 8.7 Richter Scale in both the cases, because of the reason that the density of population was low and there were a few urban centers with concrete jungles as of today. Therefore, there is every possibility that a large number of casualty of human lives and loss of huge property may be caused in the coming devastating earthquake of higher magnitude because of high density of present day population, tremendous growth of unplanned towns and cities with mostly high-rise buildings constructed without following the BIS rules and recommendation of the High Rise Building Committee, and also the constricted roads within the cities and towns, earth cutting in the surrounding hills of Greater Guwahati and construction of houses on precarious hill slopes.It is very unfortunate that there has been rapid growth of high rising flats and apartments in Guwahati sity even in the residential areas along with very constricted bye lanes through which fire brigades and ambulances will not be able to enter at the time of earthquake.
(The writer is former Head of Geography, Gauhati University)
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