How to prevent natural disasters

Prevention is not as glamorous as treatment, because beneficiaries of prevention are anonymous men, women and children. This is what explains underestimation of lives saved from the devastating Cyclone Hudhud that hit India’s east coast last week. Cyclones of similar intensity have killed thousands of people in coastal states till late 1990s.

The fact that just a handful of deaths were reported in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha this time is a major achievement. Improved weather forecasting and disaster management have worked in a tango to make this happen. Chief Ministers of Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand — states that saw natural disasters in recent times — would do well to send their teams to Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to study how precious lives have been saved there. The two coastal states should also document their experience so that it can be shared with other states and also help themselves in fine-tuning their own disaster management plans.

Disaster preparedness can’t bear any fruits if it begins only when the met department issues cyclone warnings. It has to be a round the year activity to be able to save lives and prevent damage to property and crops. Evacuation of people to safer places is just one part of reducing the impact of a disaster. For evacuation to be successful, people have to be trained at all levels - from officials in state capital to villages in vulnerable areas.

In every cyclone prone village in the coastal belt, there should be at least one set of youth trained in disaster management. The other element is constructing cyclone shelters for people who are evacuated. These are buildings designed and built to withstand high wind speed and impact of rains. In addition, lifeline buildings — hospitals, government offices, telephone exchanges, offices of public utilities, schools, etc. — have to be made disaster-resistant so that they remain functional even when a disaster strikes and can double up as shelters.

Hospitals are most important lifeline buildings. In Kashmir, none of the hospitals in Srinagar barring one could remain functional after the flood. Simple measures like not locating any critical facilities on the ground floor or building hospitals on an elevated place can help. In earthquake prone areas, lifeline buildings have to be retrofitted to make them quake-resistant. This is an area of concern in coastal areas too.

While people were evacuated and cyclone shelters were functional, all lifeline buildings were not safe as demonstrated in extensive damage caused to Visakhapatnam airport. How could one construct such an unsafe airport in a city known to be in the cyclone belt? Why local authorities allowed large hoardings and other street furniture in the coastal city without any safety precautions?

We also need to rethink about hotels and resorts close to the coast and disallow any relaxation in the coastal zone regulations. Both the intensity and frequency of cyclonic storms in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean are set to go up, as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is time we start preparing our cities and villages to face the challenge.