Disaster Management, Disaster? & Types Of Disaster

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

What is Disaster Management:

The actions taken by an organization in response to unexpected events that are adversely affecting people or resources and threatening the continued operation of the organization.”

Disaster/emergency management is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It involves preparing for a disaster before it happens, disaster response (e.g. emergency evacuation, quarantine, mass decontamination, etc.), as well as supporting, and rebuilding society after natural or human-made disasters have occurred.

DISASTER?

Defination:-

“A disaster can be defined as any occurrence that cause damage, ecological disruption, loss of human life, deterioration of health and health services on a scale, sufficient to warrant an extraordinary response from outside the affected community or area”.   

                                                                                                  (W.H.O.)

‘Disaster’ is defined as a crisis situation causing wide spread damage which far exceeds our ability to recover

Types of Disaster :-

Natural disaster

A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from natural process of the Earth; examples include floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis  and other geologic processes.

      A natural disaster can cause loss of life or property damage, and typically leaves some economic damage in its wake, the severity of which depends on the affected population's resilience, or ability to recover and also on the infrastructure available.

      An adverse event will not rise to the level of a disaster if it occurs in an area without vulnerable population.

Natural disaster include:-

Geological disasters

Avalanches and landslides

A landslide is described as an outward and downward slope movement of an abundance of slope-forming materials including rock, soil, artificial, or even a combination of these things.

During World War I an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 soldiers died as a result of avalanches during the mountain campaign in the Alps at the Austrian-Italian front. Many of the avalanches were caused by artillery

 fire.

Earthquakes

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by vibration, shaking, and sometimes displacement of the ground. 

Earthquakes are caused by slippage within geological faults. The underground point of origin of the earthquake is called the seismic focus. The point directly above the focus on the surface is called the epicenter. Earthquakes by themselves rarely kill people or wildlife. It is usually the secondary events that they trigger such as building collapse, fires, tsunamis (seismic sea waves) and volcanoes. Many of these could possibly be avoided by better construction, safety systems, early warning and planning.