disaster management

1. DISASTER MANAGEMENT
PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION
Dr. Pooja Sethi (PT)
Senior Physiotherapist
Member Secretary
Safety Committee
ABVIMS & Dr. RML Hospital

2. DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Disaster management is a process of effectively preparing for and
responding to disasters. It involves strategically organizing resources
to lessen the harm that disasters cause. It also involves a systematic
approach to managing the responsibilities of disaster prevention,
preparedness, response, and recovery.

4. Disaster management cycle
● Mitigation: Measures put in place to minimize the results from a disaster.
Examples: building codes and zoning; vulnerability analyses; public
education.
● Preparedness: Planning how to respond. Examples: preparedness plans;
emergency exercises/training; warning systems.
● Response: Initial actions taken as the event takes place. It involves
efforts to minimize the hazards created by a disaster. Examples:
evacuation; search and rescue; emergency relief.
● Recovery: Returning the community to normal. Ideally, the affected area
should be put in a condition equal to or better than it was before the
disaster took place. Examples: temporary housing; grants; medical care.

7. capacity

9. Stage 1: Disaster Mitigation
● Structural mitigation – construction projects which reduce economic and
social impacts i.e. dams, windbreaks, terracing and hazard resistant
buildings.
● Non-structural activities – policies and practices which raise awareness of
hazards or encourage developments to reduce the impact of disasters

11. Disaster mitigation includes –
● Reviewing building codes.
● Vulnerability analysis updates.
● Zoning and land-use management and planning.
● Reviewing of building use regulations and safety codes.
● Implementing preventative health measures
● Political intervention and commitment
● Public awareness

12. Strategies
● Various mitigation strategies or measures- For instance, varieties of crops
that are more wind, flood or drought resistant can often be introduced in
areas prone to floods, drought and cyclones, Economic diversification.

13. Stage 2: preparedness
Preparedness measures include:
● Preparedness plans
● Emergency exercises/training
● Warning systems
● Emergency communications systems
● Evacuations plans and training
● Resource inventories Emergency
● Personnel/contact list.
● Mutual aid agreements
● Public information/education

15. Important activities
● Develop and test warning systems regularly and plan measures to be taken
during a disaster alert period to minimize potential loss of life and physical
damage.
● Educate and train officials and the population at risk to respond to the
disaster.
● Train first-aid and emergency response teams.
● Establish emergency response policies, standards, organizational
arrangements and operational plans to be followed by emergency workers
and other response entities after a disaster.

16. Stage 3: Disaster Response
Aim of Disaster Response
● Evacuation, Migration, administrating first-aid, transportation of affected people to
hospital
● Discuss the restoration of essential services.
● Rescue work
● Ideal Command Centre
● Modern and traditional methods of response

18. Disaster medical response phases
● Notification (recognition)
● Search and rescue
● Triage
● Medical care of disaster victims
● Disaster communications
● Record keeping
● Transportation and evacuation
● Debriefing/CISD
● Recovery

19. WHAT IS TRIAGE ?
• French verb “trier” means to sort
• Assigns priorities when resources limited
• Do the best for the greatest number of patients

20. WHY IS DISASTER TRIAGE NEEDED?
• Inadequate resource to meet immediate needs
• Infrastructure limitations
• Inadequate hazard preparation
• Limited transport capabilities
• Multiple agencies responding
• Hospital Resources Overwhelmed

21. ADVANTAGES OF TRIAGE
• Helps to bring order and organization to a chaotic scene.
• It identifies and provides care to those who are in greatest need
• Helps make the difficult decisions easier
• Assure that resources are used in the most effective manner
• May take some of the emotional burden away from those doing
triage

22. WHO DECIDES IN TRIAGE
• Doctors on duty
• If nurses they are the most trained personnel the site, they are in
charge.
•All Health Care Professionals should be trained in triaging.

24. DISASTER AND HEALTH
●Injuries from the event
●Environmental exposure after the event (no shelter)
●Malnutrition after the event (feeding the population
affected)
●Excess NCD mortality following a disaster
●Mental health (disaster syndrome)

25. DISASTER AND HEALTH
●In a major disaster water treatment plants, storage & pumping facilities, &
distribution lines could be damaged, interrupted or contaminated.
●Communicable diseases outbreak due to:
○Changes affecting vector populations (increase vector),
○Flooded sewer systems,
○The destruction of the health care infrastructure, and
○The interruption of normal health services geared towards communicable
diseases

26. MENTAL WELLNESS
●Little attention is paid to the children
●Listen attentively to children without denying their feelings
●Give easy-to-understand answers to their questions
●In the shelter, create an environment in which children can feel
safe and secure (e.g. play area)
● In any major disaster, people want to know where their loved ones
are, health care professionals can assist in making links.
● In case of loss, people need to mourn:
Give them space,
Find family friends or local healers to encourage and support
them
Most are back to normal within 2 weeks
About 1% to 3%, may need additional help

27. Disaster response
The benefits and drawbacks of:
Internal (Local) Response
● most effective first 24 hour
● EMS driven
External (National or International) Response
● ultimate responsibility
● may designate lead agency
● health, foreign affairs, public works, agriculture, education

28. Internal Response Management
Strengths
• Rapid response
• Socially and culturally appropriate
• Family and community support
• Assists in immediate recovery
• Reduces dependency
• Builds upon local response mechanisms
• Develops internal capacity

29. Internal Response Management
Limitations
• Limited capacity
• Limited experience and planning
• Lack of large scale sectoral ability
• Lack of coordination on large scale
• Lack of large scale funding
•Lack of monitoring
• Limited ability to address prevention and preparedness

30. External Response Management
Strengths
• Large scale assistance
• Expertise in disaster response
• Dedicated disaster funding
• Sector specific support
• On site organization and coordination

31. External Response Management
Limitations
• Duplication of services
• Draws from local capacity building
• Non-sustained funding and dependency
• Culturally and socially problematic
• Lack of standardization of NGO response
• Difficult to coordinate and monitor
• Unrealistic expectations of donor assistance
• Local partners overloaded
• Program is poorly conceptualized

32. Security Issues
● It is vital to ensure the security of the most vulnerable population that is
women, children and the elderly.
● Generally, it is seen that security is not always a priority issue after a
disaster because rescue and relief operations are considered paramount.
● Along with police, military personnel are also deployed to respond to a
disaster.

33. Security Issues
● Given the state of vulnerabilities of the affected community, physical
security and public order in the disaster-affected areas should be
established.
● It helps prevent the public order from turning into an undesirable state of
panic and chaos.

34. Evacuation and Migration
● Evacuation involves the relocation of individuals and members of the affected
community from risk-zone to a safer location.
● Evacuation can help individual and communities avoid the aftermath of
disasters such as building collapse, outbreak of diseases, etc.
● This type of migration is temporary in nature and after the crisis is over the
families return to their homes.

35. Administering First-Aid
● When addressing the first-aid after disasters, there are certain aspects that
need to be taken care of –
1.Check the surroundings.
2. Seek help whenever necessary.
3. Remain with the victim.
4. Stay Calm.
5. Determine responsiveness.
6. Help to stop bleeding first.
7. Psychological support.

36. Administering First-Aid
● Training in first-aid should be made compulsory at School and College level.
● The kind of first-aid differs according to the nature of disaster.
● First-aid training must be packaged in a way that ‘clearly outlines its aims,
mechanism, when it is used, where it can be applied and who benefits from
its use, who can deliver it’.

37. Mobilization and restoration of essential services
● To ensure effective command and control of an emergency situation, it is
crucial that essential services are organized.
1. Telephone Lines
2. Electricity and power supply
3. Drinking water supply & non-perishable food
4. Alternate roads

38. Search and rescue Work
● Disaster response activities begin with the detection of the crisis and end
with the normalization of the situation following impact.
● The response activities entail triggering search and rescue mechanism to
find the injured, providing emergency medical care and transferring them to
safe places.
● The response phase differs from other phases of disaster management in
the sense that there are two important aspects namely, uncertainty and
urgency.
● The emergency response actions should be well coordinated with disaster
recovery as they form the foundation for carrying out recovery activities.

39. Modern and Traditional Methods of Response
● They entail assistant provided in the form of food, shelter materials,
blankets, etc.
● Money is also provided so that affected people can buy things according to
their needs.
● Charitable organizations offer help to communities that have suffered a
disaster.

40. Modern and Traditional Methods of Response
● New technologies can be very useful and powerful in disaster response.
● These basically form the basis of the modern methods of disaster
response.
● Mobile phones can act as warning devices.
● SMS provided by operators can prove to be useful medium to send
warning signals of immediate threat.
● GPS for tracing location of victims.
● The disaster management team also uses the potential of mapping
technologies, such as geographic information system (GIS), remote
sensing (satellite imagery) and global positioning system (GPS), to aid
emergency response operations

41. Modern and Traditional Methods of Response
1. Remote Sensing: the scanning of the earth by satellite or high-flying aircraft
in order to obtain information about it.
● Visible and Reflective Infrared remote sensing.
● Thermal Infrared Remote sensing.
● Microwave Remote sensing.
2. GIS – GIS is a system that collects, displays, manages and analyzes
geographic information.
3. Other Methods – Social Media & Social networking.

42. A Model of an Ideal Command Centre
● Incident command center is a standardized, on-scene, all-hazard incident
management concept.
● The primary role of this center is the coordination of efforts for effective and
efficient management of incident.
● When any disastrous event occurs, they first identify and assess the situation.
● The functions of an Incident Command Centre are:
1. Development of objectives.
2. Preparation of Incident Action Plan to meet incident objectives, collection and
evaluation of information.

43. Reconstruction
The reconstruction involves
● building the confidence,
● self-respect, self- esteem, self-dependency,
● mutual support, and mutual trust and
● rebuilding of communities.
● rebuild essential infrastructure,
● institutions, services
● restore the means of production destroyed or made
non-operational by a disaster

44. Recovery/Reconstruction

46. Development initiatives for countries faced disaster
● Partnership-close collaboration among donors, governments, communities,
nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and universities
● Flexibility-. Development agencies must be efficient and flexible; adaptable
to local environments and capable of adjusting to changing conditions and
seizing opportunities when they arise.
● Selectivity-resources are the public asset that must be invested prudently
to achieve maximum impact.

47. Rehablitation
Physical Rehablitation: reconstruction of physical infrastructure, such as,
houses, buildings, railways, roads, communication network, water supply,
electricity etc.
Social Rehablitation:vulnerable groups would need special social support to
survive the impact of disaster. Thus, construction of infrastructure such as
community centres, day care centres, anganwadis, balwadis, old age homes,
etc., is a vital part of social rehabilitation

48. Rehablitation
Psychological Rehablitation:
The psychological trauma of losing relatives and friends, and the scars of
overall shock of the disaster event can take much longer to heal than the
stakeholders ,in disaster management often assume. It is, therefore, essential,
that social welfare and psychological support programmes be considered
immediately after a disaster event so that they could be made a vital part of
recovery programme

50. THANK YOU