Page 307 - fourth year book

DISASTER MANAGEMENT

Introduction

Think globally and act locally holds true to disaster management.

Disaster occurrence is a global phenomenon. It can occur at anywhere at
any time. It affects countries health and economic conditions. Most types

of natural disaster are apt to reoccur in the same areas or countries.

Furthermore with the changing ecosystem, deforestation, misuse of

land we have every reason to believe that frequency of disasters such as
floods, droughts will increase in the coming decades.

Definition of terms

Hazard: “Is the potential for a natural or human-caused event to occur
with negative consequences”

A hazard can become an emergency; when the emergency moves
beyond the control of the population, it becomes a disaster.

Vulnerability: “Is the extent to which a community’s structure, services

or environment (geographic area) is likely to be damaged or disrupted
by the impact of a hazard”

Disaster is an occurrence that causes damage, economic disruption, loss

of human life and disorientation of health and health services on a scale

sufficient to warrant an extraordinary response from outside the affected

community or area.

DISASTER alphabetically means:

D - Destructions

I - Incidents
S - Sufferings
A - Administrative, Financial Failures.

S - Sentiments

T - Tragedies
E - Eruption of Communicable diseases.

R - Research programme and its implementation.

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