Understanding Mega Disasters And Disaster Management

Types of Mega Disasters and Their Impact

Activity 1.1

1. How is a mega disasterdefined?

An event of natural calamity of a very exceptional and large magnitude is known as mega disaster, which causes severe and critical damage to the infrastructure and people of the area.

Table 1: Prominent mega disasters in the last 20 years

Source: (Cred.be, 2018)

1. Conclusions

Earthquake is the major mega disaster that caused the largest number of deaths all over the world. The highest number of deaths are witnessed in countries which are of low income groups.

Activity 1.2

Table 2: Naturals disasters in 2016

Source: Emdat.be. 2018

1. Conclusions- The natural disasters that have affected the most number of people belonged to the Geophysical and Hydrological type. Earthquakes, storms and flood are some of the major natural calamities that have taken a toll on the people’s lives and damaged the largest number of physical properties throughout the world. The unpredictable nature of earthquakes has resulted in damages that could not be prevented.

Activity 1.3

1. Statement- “Disaster preparedness is the responsibility of both governments, the community and the individual.”

Thoughts- The statement is true and justifiable. The Government is composed of individuals from the society chosen by the community of people. Though the government has several tools and utilities at its disposal (Dell’Acqua& Gamba, 2012), the government cannot work efficiently if the citizens do not cooperate in the process. Apart from that the citizens and the community must be aware of the impending natural disasters that may pose a risk, this awareness will come from following closely the reports of the disaster management authorities of the government and following the recommendations and suggestions of the same. In addition cooperating during evacuation is important (Tamima&Chouinard, 2012)

1. Strategies- Some strategies that can help in improving the human resilience to natural disaster are-
2. Providing logistics and necessary support for the survival of people affected by the natural disaster. The Government must provide the population with temporary but safe places to stay and provide food of good nutritious quality in order to help them being resilient to the effects of natural disaster.
3. Providing health care facilities- The authorities must ensure medical relief in order to ensure that the health of the effected people is maintained. If there are any number of injured people, they must be provided with healthcare facilities in an emergency basis.

Activity 1.4

Statement- “The numbers and Trends found at https://emdat.be/sites/default/files/adsr_2016.pdf, the top 10 disasters in terms of economic damage in 2016 were all from high or upper-middle income economics, yet of the top 10 countries by people affected (%) consist of five countries classified as lower-middle income, four countries classified as low-income and two considered upper-middle income economies. “

Conclusion- The top 10 disasters considering the economic damages that have been observed in 2016 has happened in the upper or middle income countries, but because of their ability in providing relief and repairing the damages very soon and bringing back normalcy, the people affected are lesser (Emdat.be., 2018). However, in the low income countries where the damages have happened, the effort of bringing back normalcy is lesser because of scarcity of resources and money. Therefore, it has resulted in a larger human suffering though the number or the scale of natural disaster is low.  The human suffering is more because people do not get adequate support in terms of relief, food, health and accommodation because the countries are poor.

Activity 1.5

1. It is usually expected that that the psychological depression related with a few calamities may cause obsessive conditions, for example, intense pressure issue and “post traumatic stress disorder”(PTSD) (Lyons, Zink &Koenen, 2012). The fact is, be that as it may, for the larger part of survivors, gentle to direct misery response is the most widely recognized event. Trouble response is fleeting and ordinarily viewed as an ordinary reaction to an unusual occasion. Survivors additionally respond with sadness to the misfortune of friends and family, homes, and belonging. Poor focus, withdrawal, and discouraged temperament describe sadness responses and are normal and typical (North &Pfefferbaum, 2013). Sadness and stress reaction in the catastrophe consequence are normal and versatile, and ought not be marked obsessive unless it is drawn out, blocked, surpasses a decent quality, or meddles with standard working to a noteworthy degree. Remembering that the normal individual is “normal” previously and after the occasion and in this way psychological well-being marks must be maintained a strategic distance from the time of the depressed condition to being “normal” again.
2. Physical or Psychological responses

Activity 1.6

Activity 1.7

1. Three other legislations than “Disaster Management Act 2003 (Qld) and the Public Safety Preservation Act 1986 (Qld)” that provide special power during emergency situation are “Fire and Emergency Services Act 1990”, “Public Safety Preservation Act 1986”, “Transport Security Act 2008” (qld.gov.au., 2018). These legislations provide special power to the people in authority to act to deter any kinds of untoward situations that might increase the chances of fatalities and casualties (.
2. Officer’s roles and protective roles in disaster management-

• The officers are protected from lawful actions if they are acting to protect lives.
• The officers are protected from detention when they are performing their duty.
• The officers are expected to perform following duties.
• Aiding in clearing of populace to less risk zones relying upon the idea of catastrophe.
• Propelling rescue and protect activities.
• Giving emergency treatment to injured and transporting them to therapeutic focuses.
• Setting up ‘Data and Guidance Centres’ for giving data with respect to missing people (Legislation.qld.gov.au., 2018)
• Taking an interest in circulation of alleviation material to influenced individuals.
• Helping police/activity police in guaranteeing smooth development of crisis vehicles in the influenced zones.

Activity 1.8

External support is one of the most important source of help in many countries that are economically weak. The economically powerful countries should be actively providing economic and material support to contain the effects of natural disaster in weaker nations. Otherwise the plight of the people and the sufferings will become out of control. Apart from that there are several international organisations that work in a unifiedway to work for reducing the suffering of post disaster situations, by providing rescue, relief, accommodation, food and medicine. Some such organisations are Red Cross, Medicines San Frontiere, Oxfam International, United nations and the associated organisations like “Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair”, “Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), along with World Health Organization, World Food Programme and United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund. These organisations receive international funding for the purpose of rescue, relief, and support programs, therefore they must act when there is a necessary situation in economically poor countries.

Principles and Practical Strategies of Disaster Management

Activity 2.1

1. Helping the elderly and vulnerable in the community to prepare for cyclone season

Activity 2.2

Activity 2.3

1. I would want to include important people of the locality and the leaders of the communities in order to ensure that there is a unified decision about disaster management and so that all the sections of the community can express their opinions through their leaders (Shaw, 2012). The forum panel will be engaged by holding regular meetings and closely connected information sharing mediums.
2. The top five priorities are- How to prevent disaster damages, how to ensure that proper warning system is enforced, how to ensure that the evacuation process takes place in time, how to conduct relief operations, how to provide relief and medicines to the affected.
3. The strategy that will be taken up to increase participation of more people of the community are, the leaders of the community people will be engaged, awareness programs will be held, campaign will educate people about the need to learn about disaster management, and finally people will be personally motivated through email campaigns and news letters.

Activity 2.4

Activity 3.1

What other critical assets need to be considered during a bushfire and what expertise would you want in your incident room if you were the Incident Commander / Manager.

In order to take the preventive strategies during the bushfire, identification of hazardous areas of bushfire is needed. The staffs should segment into fire risk classifications that would be based on fire risk modelling. Then, the staffs should investigate the condition of bushfire through monitoring. This inspection is associated to the routine ground-based pole and radial transmission. As stated by Asokan et al., (2016), special operations conditions are associated to reduce the fire risk and employees are given equipment and water. The staffs take vegetation management plan that has close proximity to the area. When the bushfire starts, the level of risk exposure needs to understand. Bushfire mitigation index monitors the risk levels.  The state emergency team will be sent to the place and fire agency relations should be good in order to prepare and plan for the emergency management structure (De Albuquerque et al., 2015). In addition, compliance requirements should be managed through Bushfire Risk Management and Electricity Network and Safety Management.

Summarise the components of an Incident Management System you would like to see operationalised during an earthquake/tsunami response.  Provide a brief explanation of why you believe these units/cells are important.  

Incidents Management System may have the component of Command and Management department. This department can have ICS; it is the operating characteristics that structure the incident management.

In addition, Multiagency Coordination Systems is the interactive management components that support the incident entities with the team.

Public Information refers to the procedures, process and systems for communicating to the public with accurate and timely information of Tsunami (Akgun et al., 2015).

Preparedness is the components that begin with the host of preparedness activities.

In addition, Resource Management is the mechanism and it establishes the requirements for the inventory, description and dispatch for recover resources.

Another component can be Communication and Information Management that recognizes the requirements for a framework of the communication and information management to analyse collect and disseminate the data of Tsunami.

Ongoing Management Maintenance is about the component that can establish the activity to give strategic direction to review the continuous refinement of the system.

Activity 4.1

Develop a table outlining practical strategies for achieving each of the 10 principles of disaster recovery; include a column that identifies the systems and structures required for achieving your strategies.

Include another column that provides a timeframe of when these strategies should commence and the duration you believe they would be required.

References:

Akgün, ?., Gümü?bu?a, F. and Tansel, B., 2015. Risk-based facility location by using fault tree analysis in disaster management. Omega, 52, pp.168-179.

Aronson, S. S., &Shope, T. R. (2016). Managing infectious diseases in child care and schools: A quick reference guide. American Academy of Pediatrics.

Asokan, A., Pothen, A.J. and Vijayaraj, R.K., 2016, December. ARMatron—A wearable gesture recognition glove: For control of robotic devices in disaster management and human Rehabilitation. In Robotics and Automation for Humanitarian Applications (RAHA), 2016 International Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Cred.be. (2018). Poverty & Death: DISASTER MORTALITY | Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. Cred.be. Retrieved 10 March 2018, from https://www.cred.be/poverty-death-disaster-mortality

De Albuquerque, J.P., Herfort, B., Brenning, A. and Zipf, A., 2015. A geographic approach for combining social media and authoritative data towards identifying useful information for disaster management. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 29(4), pp.667-689.

Dell’Acqua, F., &Gamba, P. (2012). Remote sensing and earthquake damage assessment: Experiences, limits, and perspectives. Proceedings of the IEEE, 100(10), 2876-2890.

Emdat.be. (2018). Cite a Website – Cite This For Me. Emdat.be. Retrieved 10 March 2018, from https://emdat.be/sites/default/files/adsr_2016.pdf

Emdat.be. (2018). Emdat.be. Retrieved 10 March 2018, from https://emdat.be/sites/default/files/adsr_2016.pdf

Legislation.qld.gov.au. (2018). Home – Queensland Legislation – Queensland Government. Legislation.qld.gov.au. Retrieved 10 March 2018, from https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/

Legislation.qld.gov.au. (2018). Legislation.qld.gov.au. Retrieved 10 March 2018, from https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/pdf/inforce/current/act-2003-091

Lyons, M. I., Zink, T., &Koenen, K. C. (2012). Post-traumatic stress disorder. Principles of Psychiatric Genetics, 134.

Méheust, D., Le Cann, P., Reboux, G., Millon, L., &Gangneux, J. P. (2014). Indoor fungal contamination: health risks and measurement methods in hospitals, homes and workplaces. Critical Reviews in Microbiology, 40(3), 248-260.

North, C. S., &Pfefferbaum, B. (2013). Mental health response to community disasters: a systematic review. Jama, 310(5), 507-518.

Shaw, R. (Ed.). (2012). Community based disaster risk reduction. Emerald Group Publishing.

Tamima, U., &Chouinard, L. (2012). Framework for earthquake evacuation planning: Case study for montreal, Canada. Leadership and Management in Engineering, 12(4), 222-230.

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