The exposure of inadequacies and flaws of our national system to deal with a nation-wide disaster like that of the earthquake of October 8, 2005 at 7.8 magnitude is a serious pointer to the need to set up a well organised system of disaster handling, mitigation of the havoc in the shortest time with minimum losses.
Incidents of earthquakes, road and rail accidents, rain and flood damages, building collapses are pertinent disasters that keep on occurring resulting in colossal losses of lives and properties. The government machinery has been providing only ineffective relief measures with nominal cash to the victims.
The recent earthquake relief has not been so fast responsive as needed resulting in lots of casualties due to delayed response system. Only the Armed Forces operations have been better organised.
ELEMENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM:
A Disasters Management and Control Authority (DMCA) needs to be established through a Presidential Ordinance and may function directly under the Chief Executive of the country - the Prime Minister. The broad objectives and functions of the organisation may inter alia be;
-- To establish provincial set-ups, including rescue units.
-- To develop a database for all government, non-government and NGO's concerned with the relief operations connected with disasters resulting from rain havocs, floods, rail/road accidents, earthquakes, fire etc or epidemics for fast co-ordination and mobilisation of relief work.
-- To equip the Federal and Provincial set-ups with modern technological backup comprising of machinery and equipment as well as trained core manpower in all areas.
-- To plan and monitor preventive measures to pre-empt and forestall manmade disasters.
-- To organise continuous preparedness, emergency response and act fast to manage and control relief operations in the event of disasters.
-- To help create such subsystems in utilities and public service organisations of the public sector.
The proposed DMCA or the like must include, public representation as well in its governing body.
OPERATIONAL STRATEGY:
The proposed DMCA or the like may study international practices to adopt the state of the art methods in disaster management and control. State of the art technology including telecommunication, IT and equipment may be utilised for operations of the DMCA.
The personnel to equip the Federal and Provincial set-ups of the DMCA may comprise a minimum number of professionals, executives, engineers and technicians and work force to move fast as a rapid taskforce using the other available agencies on the basis of the database established.
Preventive measures to check at least man-made disasters as far as possible can play an effective role in mitigating public tragedies. In this connection the rail and road accidents epidemics, floods and building collapses can be checked through preventive and monitoring measures.
Absence of vehicles, mechanical fitness monitoring systems, untrained drivers, lack of modern signalling and communication practices has resulted in serious mishaps in recent months.
The proposed organisation will have to devise proper systems and procedures to plug loopholes in the present system to prevent man-made disasters. Likewise the incident of building collapses can be checked through strict construction quality standards. The Pakistan Engineering Council can help in this respect.
PROCEDURAL FRAMEWORK:
A comprehensive set of procedural framework will have to be devised for carrying out various operations of managers and executives at various levels fixing responsibility for actions. This is imperative in view of the diversified nature of possible disasters. Preventive monitoring crew and emergency response staff will have to be separated in view of different areas of responsibilities and functions and training patterns.Funds management
Likewise the proposed organisation like DMCA may have a separate set-up for fund management with transparent procedures. The fund would comprise donations, government grants and international assistance.
This would necessitate a comprehensive set of financial management procedures to give confidence to the people at large and international donors of proper utilisation of funds and accountability.
The proposed organisation for Disaster Management and Control must have sufficient fiscal backing to organise preventive and operational performance effectively.