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Hydro-meteorological hazards like cyclones, floods, drought and storms account
for about 90% of all global natural disasters. Geophysical hazards like volcano
eruptions, landslides and earthquakes account for remaining 10%. Factors likely to
augment the frequency of natural hazards include environmental degradation, climate change and rise in the number of people living in flood-prone river basins and
coastlines exposed to cyclones. With the global urban population set to increase
from 3.6 billion to 5.6 billion between 2010 and 2040, the risk of fatal disasters is
expected to augment accordingly (Maurice 2013).
Delay or inability to curb hazards at the initial stage can affect all global citizens.
After the first case of infection with a SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus) was notified in December 2019 in Wuhan (China) (WHO 2020a) and spread across many
countries, the WHO announced COVID-19 as a pandemic on 11 March 2020
(2020b). The zoonotic disease that started in a wet market of Wuhan was the cause
for economic hardship and 12,79,722 confirmed cases of COVID-19 (in more than
100 countries) with 72,614 deaths as on 7 April 2020 (2020c).
To combat COVID-19, India invoked the National Disaster Management Act and
placed the whole country under lockdown for 21 days from 25 March 2020. The
lockdown sealed the state borders halting transport services that affected the livelihoods of millions of workers and many were left stranded without source of income
(Business Standard 2020).
The epidemic also demanded international effort to suppress the effect with the
Operations Support and Logistics (OSL) unit at WHO has shipped more than
900,000 surgical masks, 62,000 N95 masks, one million gloves, 115,000 gowns,
17,000 goggles and 34,000 face shields to 133 countries. OSL has also shipped
COVID-19 testing kits to 126 countries since the start of the outbreak (2020c).
The lockdown in India left thousands of migrant labourers across India hit the
roads on foot to reach their homes hundreds of kilometres away resulting in many
deaths (Telegraph 2020; Joy 2020; India Today 2020). After a nationwide lockdown
to combat with COVID-19 in last week of March, the jobless rates reached 23.4%
for the week ended April 5 (Nag 2020).
The pandemic that started in China affected the harvesting and marketing of
agricultural crops in India due to shutdowns in the retail markets, disturbance in the
transportation, trading apart from shortage of labours and truck drivers. The pandemic resulted in fall in prices of fruits and vegetables due to its low shelf life.
Labour shortages affected cold storage units, milk processing plants and warehouses.
Large-scale return of migrant workers affected harvest operations with farmers
leaving the crop in the fields. Shutdown of rice mills lead to reduction in purchase
of paddy from farmers. Supply chains were disrupted across India as about 5,00,000
trucks were reportedly stranded on roads and state borders.
The supply disruptions and global trade shrinks resulted in the rise of food prices
in western world due to panic buying while the decrease in food price in India due
to severe decline in food consumption by the poor and falling farm gate prices
besides lack of access to markets (Ramkumar 2020).
Disaster management has four phases: preparedness, mitigate, respond and
recover. Any community that is not prepared for disaster will suffer damage of
10 Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Management
Hydro-meteorological hazards like cyclones, floods, drought and storms account
for about 90% of all global natural disasters. Geophysical hazards like volcano
eruptions, landslides and earthquakes account for remaining 10%. Factors likely to
augment the frequency of natural hazards include environmental degradation, climate change and rise in the number of people living in flood-prone river basins and
coastlines exposed to cyclones. With the global urban population set to increase
from 3.6 billion to 5.6 billion between 2010 and 2040, the risk of fatal disasters is
expected to augment accordingly (Maurice 2013).
Delay or inability to curb hazards at the initial stage can affect all global citizens.
After the first case of infection with a SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus) was notified in December 2019 in Wuhan (China) (WHO 2020a) and spread across many
countries, the WHO announced COVID-19 as a pandemic on 11 March 2020
(2020b). The zoonotic disease that started in a wet market of Wuhan was the cause
for economic hardship and 12,79,722 confirmed cases of COVID-19 (in more than
100 countries) with 72,614 deaths as on 7 April 2020 (2020c).
To combat COVID-19, India invoked the National Disaster Management Act and
placed the whole country under lockdown for 21 days from 25 March 2020. The
lockdown sealed the state borders halting transport services that affected the livelihoods of millions of workers and many were left stranded without source of income
(Business Standard 2020).
The epidemic also demanded international effort to suppress the effect with the
Operations Support and Logistics (OSL) unit at WHO has shipped more than
900,000 surgical masks, 62,000 N95 masks, one million gloves, 115,000 gowns,
17,000 goggles and 34,000 face shields to 133 countries. OSL has also shipped
COVID-19 testing kits to 126 countries since the start of the outbreak (2020c).
The lockdown in India left thousands of migrant labourers across India hit the
roads on foot to reach their homes hundreds of kilometres away resulting in many
deaths (Telegraph 2020; Joy 2020; India Today 2020). After a nationwide lockdown
to combat with COVID-19 in last week of March, the jobless rates reached 23.4%
for the week ended April 5 (Nag 2020).
The pandemic that started in China affected the harvesting and marketing of
agricultural crops in India due to shutdowns in the retail markets, disturbance in the
transportation, trading apart from shortage of labours and truck drivers. The pandemic resulted in fall in prices of fruits and vegetables due to its low shelf life.
Labour shortages affected cold storage units, milk processing plants and warehouses.
Large-scale return of migrant workers affected harvest operations with farmers
leaving the crop in the fields. Shutdown of rice mills lead to reduction in purchase
of paddy from farmers. Supply chains were disrupted across India as about 5,00,000
trucks were reportedly stranded on roads and state borders.
The supply disruptions and global trade shrinks resulted in the rise of food prices
in western world due to panic buying while the decrease in food price in India due
to severe decline in food consumption by the poor and falling farm gate prices
besides lack of access to markets (Ramkumar 2020).
Disaster management has four phases: preparedness, mitigate, respond and
recover. Any community that is not prepared for disaster will suffer damage of
10 Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Management