High time for all
alertness on both pre and post
disaster front
By Manohar Manoj, Edior, Economy
India
This is not development; it is greed
at the cost of annihilation of humanity
We should know these facts that India is a vast country
having variety of geographical character and natural structure, so here arrival
of natural calamities in various forms is almost inevitable. Therefore,
sometime we have extreme drought in some parts of the country, sometime heavy
rains in some part of the country, sometime cyclone in some part of the
country, sometime earthquake. We have long sea coast, so we should be always
ready for cyclone, storms and heavy rains in the coastal region. We have hilarious
mountains in the northern part, so we should be always ready for landslide,
cloud burst, earthquake in the said region. We
have big chains of rivers, so we should be always ready for the seasonal
floods. We are attached with Himalayas so we have variety of seismic zone, so
we should be ready for quakes.
But, when we talk about pre preparation for all kind of
disasters it is including not only the natural calamities, but also various
kinds of manmade disasters also or say development oriented disasters. Say for
example Bhopal gas leak event held in 1982 was in a way manmade disaster. The
Union Carbide insecticide plant was installed in residential area of city and
there MIC gas leak in the plant took thousands of lives and generations of
agony for the humanity.
At micro level on day to day basis what we see, we have
road-rail-air accidents, fire burning accidents, terrorist and naxal attacks
etc. Talking about manmade disasters, we face various type of epidemics and
mosquito- born diseases in form of dengue, chickengunia, plague, pneumonic
diseases etc. So in all we will have to prepare a pre plan to face all kind of
natural and manmade calamities.
For all these we need all alert 24 hour disaster control mechanism. A mechanism
instituted on all level of governance whether at central level, state level,
local administration level and also on private sector and NGO sector level.
Generally we need a group of all disaster management professionals including
anti bomb squads, fire fighters, swimmers, army persons, police persons,
doctors etc. For this we need a very broad structure to meet out all the
problems arising out of disasters whether of any kinds.
In year 2004 India faced tsunami waves in its southern and
south east coastal part. Latter on it was realized that if we have had pre
warning tsunami devices we could have protected thousands of lives and their
assets. Because the tsunami waves which came in year 2004 had epicenter in
Indonesia and it took around 45 mnts
time to come across south India. In the meantime if the pre warning devices had
been there, many lives could have been protected. Now India has such device,
but it was availed only after major tragedy took place in the country.
We say that smart and wise functioning of meteorological dept.
can warn the upcoming havoc and tragedy well before. In Uttarakhand case, even
Met. department confessed this fact, that they could not forecast the event in
an emphatic manner.
Talking about quake, we already know the seismic sensitivity
of different regions of the country; the whole countries have been divided on
the basis of various category of seismic zone. Normally the quake event mostly
affects the buildings and constructions. The building which are very old and
the one which have not been constructed following the quake proof technology;
they are affected most with quake events. So the preparation on such kind of
disasters requires strict formulation of quake proof building technology.
When we talk about
country specific disasters, we should adopt anti disasters measures
accordingly. It is true that to avert the effects of disaster and to operate
the post disaster operation, there requires huge amount of resources, manpower
and technology. The countries which have lack of resources or having poor
economy, they lack in relief operation also. But the general trend is that in
the circumstances of disaster and calamities, the whole world and international
organizations get united and they give donation and other help to the needy
country in magnanimous manner. Only thing is that how smart a country operates
the pre and post disaster operations with the help of modern anti disaster
technology and training.
Some people quote the famous example of Malthus, who had
said the over population of a country or a region get controlled by nature in
form of various disasters, so country or human should check their population
through preventive or natural checks. But, when we talk about disaster, we
cannot relate this issue with the issue of population control only. America is
richest country as well as wisest country of world, but in last 2-3 years
America witnessed numbers of disasters consisting numbers of storms from sandy
storm to katerina storm etc. But ultimately all country whether poor or rich,
prone or remote to disaster, they should be always ready to arrange the pre
disaster as well as post disaster preparedness in their respective zone
We know we have variety of disasters in terms of drought,
flood, cyclone, storms, tsunami, earthquake, landslide, cloud burst, toofans,
epidemics, and manmade events like terrorist event and mass killings by
criminals and naxals, accidents(road, railway, air) and fire burnings etc. And
these all disasters demand separate and different preparation. I think these
preparations should be started first through mass awareness about different
preventive measures for different disasters events. We have an institution like
NIDM(National institute of disaster management) which studies the various
technicalities attached with disasters. We should brought our all school,
colleges, offices and all public institutions under mass awareness about the
all possible disasters in the country and region in particular.
Second part of pre preparation of disasters should be
adopting strict norms about quake proof buildings, constructions. Third, we
should have strong sense of road and traffic management and alike rail and air
traffic management with highest degree of security element. If we talk about
epidemics, we should have high degree of pre management about cleanliness and
all. For meeting out fire and house burning we already have good network of
fire fighting departments., the only thing lacks, that is alertness.
Talking about pre preparation about disasters, we should
take the issue of this recent uttarkhand disaster in a very serious way. As of
now there was tug of war between develop mentalist and environmentalist.
Sometime we perceived that environmentalists' motive were to only create hurdle
in the way of development. We used to say that environmentalists don't consider
the scientific and technological aspect of development and they
straightforwadingly condemns the various development project whether it is dams
or river valley project or cutting of jungles for the establishing rail, roads
etc. Untill now we considered that environmmentalists are insane and they do
everything on the basis of perception
not on the basis of science and technology meant for development. But
the Uttarkhand's tragedy episode has clearly proved that environmentalist
concern were right, because the developmentalists do not take project just
according to the development need of the people, rather according to the greed
of some vested interest groups.
The government
prepares programs like dams and river valley project just to garner the public
money,. I always feel that money spent over water whether for irrigation canal
or river barrage or dams, it actually goes into the water. Water is a free gift
of nature in form of river, sea, and reservoir. Actually we do not understand
when we try to construct dams; we try to control the almighty nature. It is
true that with the help of technology and resource, we become able to do things
in wayward manner, but the question is ultimately does it last? We commit wrong
not only on ecological terms, but we also do wrong in economic terms. To my
mind construction of dam is a shier misuse of public money. The law of
economics says the output should be always ahead of its cost, otherwise project
cannot be made sustainable. So the construction of dams is neither viable in
economic terms nor sustainable in ecological terms.
Construction of dams and any construction is not a need of
development, rather the greed of planners and engineers who spent huge amount
of public money to siphon out the money in to their pocket. In the same way the
neo corrupt and neo rich builders lobby, who have erected row of building on
the bank of various rivers over Uttarakhand ,without studying the composition
of soil and rock, they not only destroyed the ecology there, rather they are
responsible for the annihilation of humanity. The result is before us.
The coast of river could not tolerate the speed of water and
as a consequence,thousands of building, cars and life flown away into the
rivers. It is not a development, it is actually commercialization and greed of
business which brought builders there.
Science and technology is for the sake of humanity and its
development, it is not for the annihilation of humanity. But the modern path of
development have taken science and technologies under its clutches and just use
it or misuse it for the sake of commerce and business profit, that is why we
allow construction of dams, buildings in the hilly region. It is actually
insanity on the part of developmentalist and planners who are doing such kind
of things.
We know in plains area we can do some unavoidable
developmental work at the cost of environment. For example we construct roads,
railways line and bridges after cutting some trees, but it is re maintained by
plantation and a forestation. But we cannot make the bank of rivers in the
hilly region as strong after allowing construction there.
In conclusion, both the pre and post disaster management
require four cornered stragegy. First legislation and regulatory, second is
bringing institutional coordination between all direct and indirect disaster
management agencies, third is to make alert the anti disaster professionals
like meterologists, disaster scientist, Army, police, firefighters, Doctors,
swimmers etc. and fourth is to avail sufficient numbers of disaster management
equipments like ambulence(Road, air, water), moving trauma hospitals,
Hellicopter, accidents trains, artificial housing materials and food &
shelter items on demand.
Now the time has come when we should go for that kind of
policy which can allow developmental
activities within the periphery of sustainable environment and second
for the country this is high time to start a national campaign for both kind of
pre and post preparation for all kind of disasters at the optimum level. q
No comments:
Post a Comment