Disaster Management - Some Issues through Examples

Disasters – both natural and man-made have been occurring all over the world, causing huge loss of lives, apart from economic losses. Disaster management involves organizing resources (including human resources) for dealing with the immediate needs when disaster occurs, including the humanitarian aspects, and the long-term management, which involves mitigation and rehabilitation. The lessons-learnt in the wake of each disaster, after analysis of data collected, will help in planning for disaster preparedness. In this paper a few earthquake disasters, the recent tsunami of 2004 and the Uttarakhand cloudburst of 2013, and a couple of fire disasters have been discussed to illustrate the management principles involved in disasters. Besides, a special aspect of disasters, which is trauma, the mental shock faced by some victims has been discussed, to highlight the aspect of skilldevelopment of personnel involved in disaster mitigation.