INSIGHTS: Natural Disaster Mitigation: A Calamity Unites Humanity

{Editor's Note: This first in a new ENS series of opinion articles entitled "Insights" is a speech given by Indian Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee on February 19, 2004 in New Delhi at the opening of the World Congress on Natural Disaster Mitigation.}

By Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee

We are meeting in the shadow of a major earthquake in Iran. It took a huge toll of human lives, besides resulting in a colossal loss of property. The whole world shared in the grief and pain of the people of Bam. We in India also did.

The disaster in Bam evoked in us a special feeling of sympathy and solidarity, because the memory of the catastrophic earthquake in Kutch in Gujarat three years ago still resonates in our minds.

Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been Prime Minister of India since March 1998. (Photo courtesy Office of the Prime Minister)

This natural instinct should be given full play and integrated into our strategies for disaster mitigation. The spontaneous manner in which other countries and international organizations rushed to provide assistance in Bhuj and now in Bam is a salutary example of international brotherhood.

With proper care, planning and transparent execution of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction operations, it is possible to keep alive the participation of the people beyond the phase of initial response. This is borne out by our experience in dealing with the Gujarat earthquake. I congratulate the people and the government of Gujarat for having implemented the task of rehabilitation and reconstruction in an exemplary manner. Together with the central government, this spirit of partnership has produced heartening results.

By way of an illustration, I would like to share my own recent experience. I had been to Bhuj soon after the earthquake and I went there again last month. Today Kutch reveals few traces of the devastation it suffered three years ago. The contrast is perhaps best demonstrated by the district hospital which had been razed to the ground by the earthquake. Today, on the same spot stands a magnificent multi-specialty hospital, which has been built with small contributions from tens of thousands of ordinary people.

Friends, the history of mankind is in many ways a history of man’s struggle against natural calamities. Man may not have succeeded fully in this struggle. But neither has he lost it, nor has he given up trying.

An earthquake struck the Indian state of Gujarat on January 26, 2001, killing 20,000 people and leaving 500,000 homeless. Some 90 percent of the buildings in the town of Bhuj were destroyed. (Photo by Denis McClean courtesy IFRC)

If there is one area where there cannot ever be barriers to international cooperation, it is disaster management. I, therefore, commend this Congress to expanding the global knowledge network in this critical field.

In recent years the imperative of international cooperation in disaster mitigation has been receiving greater attention in many world forums. It figures prominently in the UN Millennium Development Goals announced in 2000. The World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg in 2002 also emphasized it.

The focus on disaster management has emerged from concern about the adverse impacts natural disasters have on development. Approximately 75 percent of the world’s population currently lives in areas that have been affected at least once by earthquake, tropical cyclones, flood or drought between 1980 and 2000. Annual economic losses associated with natural disasters are steadily growing.

The developed countries accounted for the bulk of these economic losses; but it was the developing countries that bore the brunt in terms of lives and livelihoods lost or affected. Within the developing countries, it is the poor more than the rich who suffer the most. A single natural calamity can make their meager and fragile means of livelihood vanish, driving them deeper into deprivation.

This is where we see an organic link between disaster mitigation and other tasks enjoined on us by the UN Millennium Development Goals. The overarching goals of halving extreme poverty by 2015 and improving the educational and health status of the poor have a chance to be realized, only if the poor are spared the ravages of natural disasters.

An earthquake hit Bam, Iran in December 2003. Some 28,500 bodies have been officially recovered from the ruins and buried and thousands more are missing. Here, one woman expresses her grief at the loss of loved ones. (Photo courtesy Iranian Red Crescent)

India has been active in all these efforts. We are ever ready to do more.

My government looks at disaster management as an important component of national development. We believe that flawed, inappropriate and unbalanced development is in itself responsible for contributing to disaster risk. While humanitarian action to mitigate disaster impact continues to be vitally important, a critical challenge facing the international community is to reduce disaster risk by adopting modes of development that lead to its sustainable reduction.

Over the past couple of years, we in India have brought about a paradigm shift in our approach to disaster management. This new approach emanates from the premise that while there can be no absolute control over hazards, disasters are preventable. Even when they do occur, we can reduce the loss of lives and assets with appropriate mitigation and preparedness measures.

Our new policy, therefore, stipulates that mitigation has to be built into the development process itself. Guidelines have been issued that wherever there is a shelf of projects, those that address mitigation will be given a priority. Similarly, projects in vulnerable areas will have disaster mitigation as an essential term of reference.

Women draw water from a well in the Ghodra district, eastern Gujurat, India. (Photo by Patrick Fuller courtesy IFRC)

India now possesses highly enhanced capabilities in space research, weather forecasting and other areas of science and technology. India is one of the select group of countries which have developed a state-of-the-art meteorological system capable of forecasting weather patterns 20-25 days in advance. This helps farmers in having a greater flexibility in agricultural practices.

Institutional arrangements are the heart of any disaster management system. We propose to set up a National Emergency Management Authority for handling of emergencies/disasters with a holistic, cross-sectoral approach. Similar authorities will be established by the states.

Experience all over the world has underscored community involvement to be a key requirement in the success of any disaster management strategy. This is because communities are almost always the first responders. In India, we are in the process of constituting village disaster management committees and setting up village disaster management teams in the multi-hazard prone districts with the involvement of the Panchayati Raj Institutions.

As engineers you have a vital role to play in disaster risk reduction. Design of buildings and quality of structures is very important.

During the Gujarat earthquake we found that, whereas more than 10,000 houses were damaged, well designed and properly constructed structures with quality materials could withstand the earthquake with minimum loss. I would like your Congress to contribute to enlarging the range of engineering solutions to risk reduction.

I am sure that the output and the outcome of this conference will be of much value in developing India’s plan for natural disaster mitigation. At the same time, it would also help in developing a regional and a global plan for natural disaster mitigation.

With these words, I am pleased to inaugurate your Congress and wish it success. Thank you.