Since the dawn of civilisation, human society, the natural environment, and disasters have been closely interlinked. These natural disasters lead to heavy losses of human lives and property and are serious environmental threats. In the past twenty years, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods, tropical storms, drought and other natural calamities have killed over 3 million people, inflicting injury, disease, homelessness and misery on another one billion people, and caused billions of dollars of material damage.

Statistically, 90% of the total disasters and 95% of the total disaster related deaths worldwide occur in developing countries whereas the fraction of GNP lost is estimated to be twenty times greater than in industrialised countries.

By the year 2025, 80% of the world's population will reside in developing countries, and it has been estimated that upto60% of these people are highly vulnerable to floods, severe storms and earthquakes.

Natural disaster areas are well known. Yet, the response to disasters and environmental threats are reactive and are characterised by increased defensive activities. As a result, when a disaster strikes there is an evidence of lack of trained persons to coordinate disaster relief activities.

The issues of immediate concerns are availability of potable water, restoring of food and fuel supply lines, re-establishing transport and commmunication links, providing medical relief and rebuilding of key infrastructure such as health centres, food storage godowns etc. The medium and long-term concerns of reconstruction and rehabilitation of disaster victims is a even more challenging task, since it involves continuous support for a number of years.

What is however needed to tackle natural disasters is a comprehensive approach to disaster management. The approach involves four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. A pro-active mitigation approach is more effective and economical compared to rebuilding efforts in the recovery phase. Further, the decentralisation of decision-making is important in strengthening of organisation for disaster preparedness, prevention and mitigation, particularly given the need for rapid and localised responses in the face of swiftly occuring catastrophes.

source : excerpted from article " Natural Disasters and Sustainable Development" by Mohan Munasinghe, Senior Advisor, World Bank, Washington D.C, USA.