Disaster Management: Before and After

Cloud bursts, incessant rains and consequent crises on ground have thrown up new challenges on the front of disaster management. The recent spell of cloud bursts and consequent rising water levels, have once again strained our capacities to manage disasters. Now, and also in the recent spell of heavy rains in Jammu we have seen bridges getting damaged, entire road patches washed out, and transport services affected badly. We have seen people in multiple locations getting stranded, even the students in the hostels and campuses not spared. In fact State Disaster Response Force ( SDRF) teams had to carry out multiple rescue operations across Jammu to save lives. At IIM hostel Jammu, SDRF team evacuated 45 students.

The way rains and cloudbursts unleashed devastation across many regions in Jammu province in last some weeks, it calls for a deep thinking. The affected people are still struggling to find out how life can limp back to normal. There are many people who have been admitted to hospitals and the medical staff in these hospitals is trying hard to treat them. There are people who have got dislocated and are finding it difficult to get back to a sense of normal.

In all this, we have challenges that will unfold at multiple levels. The devastating climate events that have caused loss to life, limb and property will lead to disruptions in many sectors: societal, economic, and administrative. We need a comprehensive disaster management plan that takes care of everything, to the last detail. To this end there are certain requirements. One, the departments and agencies that are dedicated to this task need upgradation. We should equip agencies like SDRF with adequate human and material resource. Two, we should train the human resource, build their capacities regularly, and try to emulate global best practices. In fact, the humans resource engaged with the work can be sent outside, in global spaces, to upgrade their skills.

Besides this, we need societal engagement to bolster our defences against disasters. The people, especially youth, in vulnerable regions need to be sensitised and trained, to act as the first line of disaster management. Government's disaster management agencies themselves, and also roping in professionals from wider spaces, should impart training to youth, to have a very well laid out first line of defence.

If a disaster has to be managed effectively, it can't be all left to the time when disaster strikes. It needs advance action. We should always be in a state of readiness.