MEANING AND CLASSIFICATION OF DISASTERS

1. Introduction




The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) of the United Nations (U.N.) defines a hazard as “a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.” Hazards could be, natural (geological, hydrometeorological and biological) or induced by human processes (environmental degradation and technological hazards). Hazards can be single, sequential or combined in their origin and effects. Accordingly, Hazard Analysis entails the identification, study and monitoring of a hazard to determine its potential, origin and characteristics.
A fine line separates environmental hazards and environmental resources, as between water out of control (flood hazard) and water under control (reservoir resources). Theatmosphere is considered ‘benign’ when it produces holiday sunshine but ‘hostile’ when
it produces damaging ‘loo’ (Smith, 1996).
A disaster is a result of natural or man-made causes that leads to sudden disruption of normal life, causing severe damage to life and property to an extent that available social and economic protection mechanisms are inadequate to cope. Even at the outset, the conceptual distinction between ‘hazards’ and ‘disasters’ needs to be brought out clearly. Floods, Cyclones, et al are events in nature until a configuration of factors, which could be man-made or natural or both, cause the hazard to turn to a disaster. Disaster is the
actual occurrence of the apprehended catastrophe.
Disasters proceed by cause-effect due to endogenous (inherent) and exogenous (external) factors, which combine to excite the phenomenon into a large-scale destructive event.
Disasters are a result of vulnerabilities, which go on unabated/unchecked over time, which crystallises finally in a destructive event of great magnitude, which is a disaster.
Disaster is disturbance of ‘equilibrium’ which can be restored/ remedied by proactive policy in this regard. Hence, traditional perception of disasters as natural phenomena outside the realm of human intervention is misconstruing the problem; it is giving way to a ‘systems perspective’, which encompasses, ecological and social perspective to disasters, whereby disasters are understood as totalising events in which all dimensions of a social-structural formation involving organised human action in the environmental context in which it takes place is studied” (Oliver Smith and Hoffman, 1999). As a society interacts with its environment with its values and perceptions and engages in a series of processes over which it has incomplete control and knowledge of, for example, development and planning processes involving production and distribution of goods over long periods of time; underlying hazards turn to disasters (Oliver Smith, 1999). By systemic understanding,
hazard simply acts as a ‘catalyst’ in that it brings forth underlying tensions that are always present as potential pressures. Systems’ perspective is therefore rightly applied to understanding the phenomenon underlying disasters (Watts, 1983). With this understanding, Disaster Management is an attempt to inquire into the process of a hazard turning to disaster, to identify the causes and rectify the same through public policy. Administrative factors, such as poor building in an earthquake prone zone, poor land use planning in flood prone areas which lead to housing critical facilities in at- risk zones; allowing habitation in such zones, poor laws that fail to regulate facilities leading to disasters, such as the Bhopal gas leak, general low risk perception among people, more significantly policy-makers that hinders interest articulation for preventive policy fo disaster management create conditions that lead to low lying /inherent hazards turning to disasters. This leads us to the issue of sustainable development since study and research
in the area of disaster management is increasingly revealing human causatives behind disaster phenomena.
Hence, disaster management is a policy issue. Accordingly, the Tenth Plan included a full chapter on Disaster Management. Hitherto, it had been treated as a subject of ‘calamity relief’, hence, classified under non-plan expenditure. There has been a policy shift, post Yokohama Conference(1994), in that plan allocations would henceforth be made under respective sector plan heads for disaster mitigation. The reasoning is simple; if disasters are inherent in the socio-physical circumstances/environment, their manifestation could be controlled through better management of the environment by reducing the potency of socio- economic and physical variables that contribute to disaster losses over time
Disasters are classified as per origin, into natural and man-made disasters. As per severity, disasters are classified as minor or major (in impact). However, such classifications are more academic than real as major disasters could simply be events that received
relatively more media coverage (Parasuraman and Unnikrishnan, 2005). High Powered Committee (HPC) was constituted in August 1999 under the chairmanship of J.C.Pant. The mandate of the HPC was to prepare comprehensive model plans for disaster management at the national, state and district levels. This was the first attempt in India towards a systematic comprehensive and holistic look at all disasters. Thirty odd disasters have been identified by the HPC, which were grouped into the following five
categories, based on generic considerations:
1) Water and Climate

 Floods
 Cyclones
 Tornadoes and hurricanes (cyclones)
 Hailstorms
 Cloudburst
 Heat wave and cold wave
 Snow avalanches
 Droughts
 Sea erosion
 Thunder/ lightning

2) Geological

 Landslides and mudflows
 Earthquakes
 Large fires
 Dam failures and dam bursts
 Mine fires

3) Biological

 Epidemics
 Pest attacks
 Cattle epidemics
 Food poisoning
20 Disaster Management

4) Chemical, industrial and nuclear

 Chemical and Industrial disasters
 Nuclear

5) Accidental

 Forest fires
 Urban fires
 Mine flooding
 Oil spill
 Major building collapse
 Serial bomb blasts
 Festival related disasters
 Electrical disasters and fires
 Air, road, and rail accidents
 Boat capsizing
 Village fire

Depending on the type of disaster, a nodal ministry has been assigned the task of coordinating all activities of the state and district administration and the other support departments/ministry. The following table below vividly gives the information
Type of Disaster/Crisis Nodal Ministry
Air Accidents Ministry of Civil Aviation
Civil Strife Ministry of Home Affairs
Major breakdown of any of the
Essential Services posing widespread and protected problems
Concerned Ministries
Railway Accidents Ministry of Railways
Chemical Disasters Ministry of Environment
Biological Disaster Ministry of Health
Nuclear Accident inside or outside the country which poses health orother hazards to people in India Department of Atomic Energy
Source: Manual on Natural Disaster Management in India: NCDM, IIPA.
It is not the classification but the understanding of the term ‘disaster’ itself that is important. As reported in the World Disasters Report, 2004, heat waves have been missing from disaster and public health policies, despite mounting death tolls, particularly
in Europe. This is probably because sudden high profile disasters, such as earthquakes evoke greater dread than road accidents, despite evidence that more people die in road accidents than earthquakes. The higher the dread factor, the more people want action to reduce those risks. During August 2003, between 22,000 and 35,000 people died due to heat waves across Europe. Economic losses totaled over US$ 13 billion. The challenge Meaning and Classification of Disasters 21 for health professionals and disaster specialists is to raise public awareness of the potential harm caused by extreme temperatures and treat the problem as a disaster.
 The problem of migrants is another example. They are an important development resource for their home countries, remitting about US$ 80 billion per year to developing nations (compared to US$ 50 billion in world aid). But while many opt to migrate, tens
of millions are forced to flee life-threatening conditions at home and become refugees.
Largely unprotected by international laws and institutions, their plight is a forgotten disaster. As observed in the World Disasters Report, 2003, over 175 million people live outside their countries of birth, double the figure in 1975. Many are economic migrants, who may be fleeing poverty or severe deprivation.
There is also increasing understanding of man-made causes behind most natural disasters, which calls for, and has, in fact, effected renewed understanding/perception of disasters.
For both natural and man-made disasters, there is increasing evidence to suggest that both are in fact ‘policy disasters’ rather than the results of nature’s vagaries or designs of fate.
Increasing evidence suggests that human fallacies, such as inadequate legal framework to regulate hazardous units, have resulted in tragedies like the Bhopal tragedy and the inhouse
Vizag steel accidents where minor fires and deaths of employees due to mishaps have been reported. Unrestricted felling of forests, serious damage to mountain ecology, overuse of groundwater, changing patterns of cultivation, etc., has precipitated recurring
floods and droughts. The spate of landslides in the Himalayas in recent years can be directly related to unchecked exploitation of forests and mountain vegetation and networks of roads that have been indiscriminately laid in the name of development. As articulated in the India Disasters Report (2005), lack of policy restricting tobacco and liquor sale has led to disasters by way of increasing mortality, globally, almost on epidemic proportions.
Tobacco related diseases are increasingly incident, such as oral cancer and heart disease in young people under 40. It is apprehended that each year, tobacco causes 3.5 million deaths worldwide, or about 10,000 deaths per day. One million of these deaths occur in developing countries. By 2020, it is predicted that tobacco will become the leading cause of death and disability, killing more than 10 million people annually; thus, causing more
deaths worldwide than HIV, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, motor vehicle accidents, suicide, and homicide combined. India has one of the highest rates of oral cancer in the world.
Similarly, experience of floods in Rajasthan (1996) and Mumbai (2005) suggests that more deaths are caused due to epidemic outbreaks following vector proliferation in accumulated waters rather than the natural disaster of the flood itself. This is clearly
system failure, rather than nature’s ‘retribution.’

Experience of droughts in some pockets of Orissa suggests that unimaginative policy shifts, such as precocious exposure of farmers to market competition, falling overall standards of health and nutrition owing to reduced investments in education and health and other system weaknesses were the real causes of mortality rather than the natural feature of lack of enough rainfall. Policy-makers in third world countries allegedly seem to respond more to exogenous policy influences by way of international pressure to liberalise or ‘open up’ (markets) more than endogenous requirements, which is the real cause behind increasing vulnerability of people to death and disease in relatively impoverished parts of India, such as Orissa and Madhya Pradesh (Alternative Economic Survey, 2004-05).
Disasters, therefore, compel a re-look on developmental planning. It is obvious that the previous developmental policy has given us vulnerabilities in the form of slum creation 22 Disaster Management proliferation, insufficient jobs, ecological degradation; though, ostensible growth in sectors, such as, industry, energy et al could not be denied. It remains a fact and has to be
conceded that the basic needs of a large proportion of India’s population have remained
unmet despite schemes to provision the same. Though the Government of India, Economic Survey, 2004-05 indicates decline in the number of people below the poverty line (BPL), from 51.3 per cent in 1977-78 to 26.1 per cent in 1999-2000, it conceded that there are wide variations across states. Poverty is spatially concentrated in pockets in backward states such as Orissa though there may have been an overall decline in terms of averages.
Figures never tell the complete picture. These are gross estimations, at best averages that give only a broad outlook, not the real details. There is endemic malnutrition and numerous reported incidences of starvation deaths. As per the results of the 55th round of National Sample Survey Organisation, rate of growth of employment on current daily status (CDS) basis declined from 2.7 per cent per annum in 1983-94 to 1.07 per cent in 1994-2000. The decline is largely attributed to stagnation in the agriculture sector.
Share of agriculture in total employment dropped from 60 per cent in 1993-94 to 57 per cent in 1999-2000. Most growth has been recorded in the services sector.
Balanced regional development has also remained an unmet goal. Several states and regions in the country, such as Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, are relatively backward and suffer higher incidence of poverty compared to the national average.
Noticeably, poverty is also widespread in areas more prone to natural disasters, like flood-prone areas, such as in north Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh, and north Bengal, and drought-prone areas, such as Rajasthan, Marathwada, and north Karnataka. Poverty is also exacerbated due to excessive resource use/exploitation, which has caused depletion of ecological resources. As per the India Disasters Report, 2005, almost 40 per cent of India’s population currently is forced to survive on depleted resources. Driven to desperation, they migrate, which has created the problem of unsustainable cities and a conflict ridden city culture, typically pronounced in slums. Increased pressure has encountered a crumbling local government structure, inept to manage change. Consequently, vulnerabilities
have got complicated and harder to understand over time. They are increasingly manifest as conflicts along caste, religious, and ethnic lines and have assumed an endemic nature