Political Diary
New Delhi, 2 May 2015
Nepal, A Wake-up Call
DISASTER
MANAGEMENT, ANYONE?
By Poonam I Kaushish
A humungous human tragedy of anguish, despair and
desperation, morbidity and mortality struck Nepal last week resulting in a
trail of death and destruction, over 6200 dead and counting, scores of bodies buried
under a ravaged landscape and the living crying out for relief. Accentuating
the horoscope of time wherein vivacious life met the dance of death. All
leaving it to the Gods.
Clearly, the devastating Nepal
earthquake has once again underscored the need to take measures in India to
prevent a similar catastrophe. Happily, hands-on Prime Minister Modi was
baptized by the Bhuj earthquake which struck during his Gujarat Chief
Ministership in 2001 and Kashmir recently. His
post-haste hands-on response to Kathmandu
devastation has immediate
Yet, that alone is not enough. Think. India has been
struck by at least nine major earthquakes since 1975, the last in Andaman
Nicobar Islands on 25 April last but our preparedness to deal with calamity is
woefully lacking. Given that almost 85
per cent of the country is vulnerable to one or more hazards such as
earthquakes, floods, droughts, cyclones, landslides etc according to the South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
Worse, in the past 25 years, over 25,000 people died in
major earthquakes in India and 95% of them were killed due to building collapse
as over 90 per cent of buildings in any city are built without permission and more
than 50 million people are affected by these adversities annually, states the
National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM).
This is partly due to the fact that disaster management is
not seen as an essential part of good governance and integral to development planning.
“Sadly, no long-term responses have been developed, as it is assumed that by
sanctions monies their job is done,” adds disaster risk reduction specialist of
the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Who will
be held accountable? Whose head will roll?
More scandalous, though a National Disaster Management
Authority was created in 2005 with the power to allocate resources and
supervise disaster management across the country along-with a disaster response
force for rescue and evacuation, it exists only on paper in a few States.
The national disaster management plan is still awaiting
approval from the Prime Minister's Office. Moreover, this toothless tiger does
not have the authority to carry out studies in the highest seismic zones in the
country. All it can do is issue guidelines on how to make India
disaster-resilient.
Further, alongside the NDMA the three other agencies,
National Institute of Disaster Management, Meteorological Division and the
Ministry of Earth Sciences' (MoES) work independent of each other. While the
NIDM deals with policy planning and creating awareness exercises, both MD and
the Ministry do topographical surveys of 30 cities.
Succinctly, all are clueless about the state of preparedness
be it risk management, know-how for assessing risks at local levels,
enforcement of standards and regulations, early-warning systems and risk
mitigation in the country, rural and urban. Never mind every State boasts of
departments of disaster management or relief and rehabilitation set-ups.
An example. India
is divided into five seismic zones with Delhi
located in Zone 4. Thanks to its slums, unauthorized colonies, illegal
construction and protruding balconies especially in Old Delhi and Yamuna
floodplain, calamity is waiting to strike. According to the IIT Roorkee lakhs
would fall like a house of cards. Topped by narrow streets making it impossible
to carry out search and rescue operations.
In fact, a 2013 disaster management plan reveals that 98 per
cent of the Queen of Hills Shimla would either collapse or suffer substantial
damage if an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude occurs. The story of apathy compounded
by bureaucratic indifference and political passivity is chillingly common
across the national landscape as over 90 per cent of buildings in any city are
built without permission."
True, the lack of resources accounts for a large part of India's lack of
preparedness. Woefully, there are no emergency operations centres or trained
personnel to search and rescue people. Shockingly, this is not due to lack of
money, since 2010 till date the Central Government has budgeted over $5 billion
to prepare for disasters with the Centre contributing 75 per cent.
However, primarily this is due to the attitude of policy
makers, implementers and Government towards investing in people-oriented
preparedness at different levels vis-a-vis
risk management systems, stated an expert at the Asian Disaster Preparedness
Centre. For reasons best known to it, the Earth Ministry has unilaterally shut
down the sensor project.
Shamefully the Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2010 report
lamented the country’s disaster management preparedness and warned of impending
disaster including severe natural ecology hazards. Resulting from de-forestation
and erosion of hill slopes along river-beds and spread of unregulated buildings
along river banks.
Undeniably, the rising death toll from Nepal urgently
underscores that we need to shed our indifference put checks and balances in
place and focus on the most vulnerable areas. The first and foremost task is to
restructure the National Policy on Disaster Management reflecting a holistic
approach involving prevention, mitigation and preparedness in pre-disaster
phase with appropriate additional funding, along with the so far existent
policy of the post-disaster relief and rehabilitation under crisis management.
Simultaneously, create awareness for disaster reduction
amongst policy makers, administrators, professionals (architects, engineers’ et
al) and financial institutions. Bring appropriate regulatory instruments (State
laws, master plans, development area plan rules, building regulations and
bye-laws of local bodies) along with strengthening of the enforcement
mechanisms at different levels.
The powers-that-be need to involve experts and
environmentalists with a genuine track record of research and policy making.
Who would evaluate the ecological problems, study its context and be involved
in decision and policy-making. With special emphasis on problems created by
burgeoning population and its impact on the local eco-system, growth of
hap-hazard housing, environmental
insanitation and decay.
Towards that end, we need to conduct micro-zonation surveys
of large urban areas falling in the disaster prone regions, build
earthquake-resistant building, educate people how to handle an earthquake,
cyclone or flood, where they should run to take shelter.
Setting up an effective communication network, create an
institutional mechanism at both the national and State level to advise and help
relief operations, updating short and long term action plans and relearn the
value of every life. Else we would pay a stiff mortality price.
Asserts an IIT Delhi Earthquake expert, “As India continues
to push northwards into Tibet,
massive devastation is foreseen from Afghanistan to Arunachal Pradesh
right down to the Andamans, especially along the over-crowded Gangetic basin
till 2020.” Adding, “We can predict where an earthquake will occur, what its
intensity and magnitude will be. But what we still cannot tell is when it will
take place.”
Plainly, the Nepal
shock is a warning from earth: There's more to come. Can, more important will India be able
to withstand the shift in the tectonics plates? Will the wheel of life continues
to twirl or will we celebrate the dance of death? What gives? ---- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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