Hazards, Disasters And Your Community - United Nations ...

The figure on the right illustrates essentially the four
factors essentially hazards, location, exposure, and
vulnerability which contribute to risk. They are:
• Hazards (physical effects generated in the naturally
occurring event),
• Location of the hazards relative to the community at
risk,
• Exposure (the value and importance of the various
types of structures and lifeline systems such as watersupply,
communication network, transportation network
etc in the community serving the population, and
• Vulnerability of the exposed structures and systems to
the hazards expected to affect them during their useful life.
Risk reduction can take place in two ways:
1. Preparedness
This protective process embraces measures which enable governments, communities and individuals to respond
rapidly to disaster situations to cope with them effectively. Preparedness includes the formulation of viable
emergency plans, the development of warning systems, the maintenance of inventories and the training of
personnel. It may also embrace search and rescue measures as well as evacuation plans for areas that may be at
risk from a recurring disaster.
Preparedness therefore encompasses those measures taken before a disaster event which are aimed at minimising
loss of life, disruption of critical services, and damage when the disaster occurs. All preparedness planning needs to
be supported by appropriate legislation with clear allocation of responsibilities and budgetary provisions.
2. Mitigation
Mitigation embraces all measures taken to reduce both the effect of the hazard itself and the vulnerable conditions
to it in order to reduce the scale of a future disaster. Therefore mitigation activities can be focused on the hazard
itself or the elements exposed to the threat. Examples of mitigation measures which are hazard specific include
modifying the occurrence of the hazard, e.g. water management in drought prone areas, avoiding the hazard by
siting people away from the hazard and by strengthening structures to reduce damage when a hazard occurs.
In addition to these physical measures, mitigation should also be aimed at reducing the physical, economic and
social vulnerability to threats and the underlying causes for this vulnerability.
DISASTER MANAGEMENT CYCLE
Disaster management can be defined as the body of policy and administrative decisions and operational
activities which pertain to the various stages of a disaster at all levels. Broadly disaster management can
be divided into pre-disaster and post-disaster contexts. There are three key stages of activity that are
taken up within disaster management. They are:
“ t o w a r d s s a f e r I N D I A ” 7