Disaster Management and Problems – An
Indian Perspective
APOSHO 26 & Australasian Safety
Conference
November 23, 2011.
Perth
Ashok Huria
Honorary Secretary,
National Safety Council North Zone Chapter,
Chandigarh, India
Disaster by definition is an occurrence
that causes a major and serious loss and damage of
human lives, environment and property. This includes
both natural and man made disasters. India has been
traditionally vulnerable to natural disasters on
account of its unique geo-climatic conditions. Floods,
droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides have
been a recurrent phenomena. About 60% of the
landmass is prone to earthquakes of various
intensities; over 40 million hectares is prone to
floods; about 8% of the total area is prone to cyclones
and 68% of the cultivable area is susceptible to
drought.
Introduction:
2

In the decade 1990-2000, an average of about 4344
people lost their lives and about 30 million people
were affected by disasters every year. The loss in
terms of private, community and public assets has
been astronomical. Rapid industrialization during last
three decades poses additional risks of chemical,
nuclear and biological disasters.
Evolution: A concerted effort for some disaster
control was made only after Bhopal disaster in 1984.
A number of statutes were enacted to cover handling,
transport and management of hazardous chemicals
and addressed the areas of prevention of accidents
and emergency preparedness and community
awareness.
3

DGFASLI- a department of the Government of
India – took up a project in 1988, with ILO on
establishing and initial operation of Major Accident
Hazard Control System in India. UNEP developed
APELL process was institutionalized in the form of
Chemical Accidents(Emergency Planning,
Preparedness and Response) Rules in 1996. National
Safety Council successfully implemented APELLLAMP (Awareness and Preparedness at Local Level –
Local Accident Mitigation Programme) Project from
92 to 1997 in the industrial belt of Kerala.
4


The super cyclone in Orissa in October, 1999 and
the Bhuj earthquake in Gujarat in January, 2001
underscored the need to adopt a multi dimensional
endeavour involving diverse scientific, engineering,
financial and social processes; the need to adopt multi
disciplinary and multi sectoral approach and
incorporation of risk reduction in the developmental
plans and strategies.
Thereafter, the Government of India brought about a
paradigm shift in the approach to disaster
management. The new approach proceeds from the
conviction that development cannot be sustainable
unless disaster mitigation is built into the
development process.
5


Another corner stone of the approach is that
mitigation has to be multi-disciplinary spanning
across all sectors of development. The new policy
also emanated from the belief that investments in
mitigation are much more cost effective than
expenditure on relief and rehabilitation.
The Government of India, in recognition of the
importance of Disaster Management as a national
priority, had set up a High-Powered Committee in
August 1999 and also a national committee after the
Gujarat earthquake, for making recommendations on
the preparation of Disaster Management plans and
suggestions for effective mitigation mechanisms.
6


The Tenth Five-Year Plan Document also had, for the
first time, a detailed chapter on Disaster Management.
Similarly, the Twelfth Finance Commission was also
mandated to review the financial arrangements for
Disaster Management.
Finally, on 23 December 2005, the Government of
India enacted the Disaster Management Act, which
envisaged the creation of the National Disaster
Management Authority (NDMA), headed by the
Prime Minister, and State Disaster Management
Authorities (SDMAs) headed by respective Chief
Ministers, to spearhead and implement a holistic and
integrated approach to Disaster Management in India.
7
Structure: The mandate for NDMA is to
build a safe and disaster-resilient India by
developing a holistic, proactive, multi-disaster
and technology-driven strategy for DM. This is
to be achieved through a culture of prevention,
mitigation and preparedness to generate a
prompt and efficient response at the time of
disasters. The entire process will centre-stage
the community and will be provided
momentum and sustenance through the
collective efforts of all government agencies
and Non-Governmental Organizations.
8


Essentially, the role of NDMA is to prepare
guidelines for mitigation and prevention of different
disasters, create a pool of National Disaster Response
Force (NDRF) to help in rescue operations and create
an infrastructure for awareness and training in the
field of disaster management.
A force created so far constitutes eight battalions, two
each from the BSF, CRPF, CISF and ITBP. Each
battalion provides 18 self-contained specialist search
and rescue teams of 45 personnel each including
engineers, technicians, electricians, dog squads and
medical/paramedics. The total strength of each
battalion is approximately 1,158.
9


These have been located at different locations in the
country based on the vulnerability profile to cut down
the response time for their deployment. During the
preparedness period/in a threatening disaster
situation, proactive deployment of these forces is to
be carried out by the NDMA in consultation with
state authorities.
The actual immediate rescue and damage
control measures have to be taken by different
agencies and as a follow up, rehabilitation measures
are taken by yet another agency. For man made
disasters, Crisis Groups at central, state, district and
local levels had been set up much earlier. However,
though the head is invariably a common person, the
members are different for natural and man made
10
disasters.
Problems:
There are two categories under which
various problems can be put. One, that are common
to all disasters; and two, the ones peculiar to a
particular disaster.
 Improved disaster prevention and preparedness
requires a greater awareness of how disasters arise,
and an expanded set of response options. With very
low literacy rate coupled with extreme poverty of
almost half the population- specially those living in
vulnerable areas- it becomes difficult to create a level
of awareness required for effective implementation of
necessary measures.
11


There are problems related to poor infrastructure in
practically every component of disaster management.
Large parts in our country are not easily accessible.
The recent earthquake of 6.8 magnitude on Ritcher
scale in North Sikkim had resulted in a large number
of fatalities and wide spread damage to buildings and
roads. The immediate relief which is most essential to
mitigate and control the damage could not be made
available immediately. The specialized National
Disaster Response Force could not reach the site for
more than 24 hours after the happening.
12

The reason was that the only road connecting Sikkim
to other parts had been blocked due to a number of
land slides (due to earthquake). There is no rail or air
connection with Sikkim. In fact the entire North East
parts of India have very poor and vulnerable
connectivity to other parts. Main reasons can be
attributed to political set up. The allocation of
resources and adequate funds to any part of the
country are largely dependent on the size of the
population living in the region. Since entire North
East states have very low population density, the
allocations are not enough to build the necessary infra
structure.
13
14


Shortage of medical facilities for our population even
in normal times can be gauged from the fact that even
in bigger cities, the renowned hospitals are
accommodating 2 patients on one bed. In such a
scenario, planning for medical relief during time of a
disaster becomes very difficult.
Communication systems in India have improved
vastly during the last decade; but even now, a large
part of our country does not have means to receive
information during the time of a disaster as either
there is no network or the people are so poor that they
do not have access to radios.
15



Most of the rescue, control and relief operations are
in the hands of Government officials who practically
do not have any accountability. Unfortunately, a
general perception is that a large percentage of them
are neither efficient nor have a high integrity resulting
in inadequate and timely response.
Then there are problems of insufficient funds and
efficient utilization of the limited resources.
In view of the complexities and diversities of the
disaster management, concrete, effective and
practicable policy is needed for which political
commitment and a pragmatic policy formulation is
very necessary.
16
Urban Flooding: Till a few years ago, all floods were
believed to have common reasons and hence a
common approach. However, Mumbai floods of July
2005 turned out to be an eye-opener.
 It was realized that the causes of urban flooding are
different and so also are the strategies to deal with
them. Urbanisation leads to developed catchments
which increases the flood peaks from 1.8 to 8 times
and flood volumes by up to 6 times. Consequently,
flooding occurs very quickly due to faster flow
times, sometimes in a matter of minutes.
 In case of Mumbai floods, a key reason was that the
effective capacity of a natural water body, ‘Mithi
Nadi’, through which the rain water drains into sea,
was said to be reduced significantly due to
development of Bandra Kurla commercial area as
also a large slum development.
17

Earthquakes:
There are indications that areas
hitherto considered safe from earthquakes are not all
that safe. This indicates that the built environment in
the country is extremely fragile and our ability to
prepare ourselves and effectively respond to
earthquakes is inadequate. Though all new buildings
are required to comply earthquake resistant building
codes and town planning byelaws, but a very large
percentage of old buildings are not only highly
vulnerable because of old and poor maintenance but
also due to high occupation density in these buildings.
Even in new structures, inadequate monitoring and
enforcement of earthquake-resistant building codes
and town planning bye-laws result into serious
contraventions.
18

Cyclones: A long coastline of about 7,516 km of
flat coastal terrain, high population density,
geographical location and physiological features of
our coastal areas makes India, extremely vulnerable
to cyclones and its associated hazards like storm tide,
high velocity wind and heavy rains.
Though the frequency of Tropical Cyclones covering
the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea is the least in
the world (7% of the global total), their impact on the
east coast of India is relatively more devastating. An
estimated 400 million people, are vulnerable to
cyclone related hazards. Climate change and its
resultant sea-level rise can significantly increase the
vulnerability of the coastal population.
19

Landslides:
Landslides are one of the natural
hazards that affect at least 15 per cent of the land area
of our country—an area which exceeds 0.49 million
km2. Landslides of different types are frequent in
geodynamically active domains in the Himalayan and
Arakan-Yoma belt of the North-Eastern parts of the
country as well as in the relatively stable domains of
the Meghalaya Plateau, Western Ghats and Nilgiri
Hills.
In all, 22 states and parts of the Union Territory of
Pudducherry and Andaman & Nicobar Islands are
affected by this hazard. The phenomenon of
landslides is pronounced during the monsoon period.
20

The phenomenon of landslides is pronounced during
the monsoon period. Very little preventive work has
been carried out till now in this area. Thus, every time
a major land slide occurs, it’s intensity becomes
severe. Land slide risks have increased because of
illegal deforestation that is rampant due mainly to
wide spread corruption.
At the end I would say that in spite of the
enormous obstacles, constraints and limitations, India
has made a rapid progress in meeting the challenges
of all types of disasters. The coming decade should
take our country at par with developed nations as far
as disaster management is concerned.
21
Thank you.
22