disaster management
assessment
Post Disaster Impact Assessment and Funding
Mechanism
Santosh Kumar
keep thinking
about disasters
which are occurring
all across the globe
leading to deaths,
injury, devastation
leading to large scale displacement
and long term impact of the event.
Always, my mind wonders why it
all happens? Is there any method
to reduce its impact or it is a
completely natural phenomenon
so it is beyond the human capacity
to address and hence we leave
everything to God and become
fatalistic? Over the years, disasters
has been defined and understood
differently by different people
with the broader consensus that
hazards are natural but disasters are
un-natural. In the present paper I
would like to unfold the ‘Disaster’
and see how a natural hazard
gets converted into disaster? How
disaster impacts are being assessed?
What development implication
it has and how we should start
understanding and treating disasters
and its risk differently?
I
It is also important
to look into the
other new funding
options which may
further enhance the
process for disaster
risk reduction
and sustainable
development in a
more integrated
format
First let me explain that all
disasters are human induced. No
disaster is natural. Earthquakes,
Cyclone, Floods, Cloudburst,
Tsunami, Droughts and Landslides
are natural hazards or natural
activities which have been
occurring since the existence of
the mother Earth. If these events
takes place in no man’s land it is
not called as disaster or not even
noticed. However on the contrary,
if the same activity occurs where
it interfaces with human existence
and the entire infrastructure created
around by the people leading to lot
of damages, deaths and millions
getting affected, we call it a Disaster.
So it is not the natural activity (a
Hazard) that kills people and leads
to colossal damage of the property,
but it is the weak infrastructure
which has been created created by
us all around us in all the sectors for
achieving larger ‘developmental’
goals. And, this has been created
without the acknowledgement of
the natural activities which have
occurred or have being occurring
in the vicinity and hence facing the
consequences of natural activities
as disaster. Development planners
and society as a whole is not able to
The author is Professor & Head, Policy, Planning & Cross Cutting Issues Division, National Institute of Disaster Management,
New Delhi.
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YOJANA March 2012