Descriptive essay on natural disasters
Answers
A natural disaster is unforeseen, severe and immediate. Pollution, ozone depletion in the stratosphere and global warming come in this category. Natural disasters include cyclones, earthquakes, floods, drought (though these two are now being increasingly considered ‘man- made’ disasters) heat and cold waves, landslides, avalanches, flash floods, severe thunderstorms, hail, low level wind shears, and microburst.The destructive potential of any natural hazard is estimated basically by its spatial extent and severity. Spatial extent upto which the effect of a disastrous event could be felt may easily be classified into small, medium and large scales. The phenomenon extending from a few kilometers to a few tens of kilometers are termed as small scale.
Growing industrialisation and unjustified exploitation of natural resources have brought our echo system to a verge of non-reversibility and imbalance. This has led to a threat from a set of natural hazards like pollution, global warming and ozone depletion on large or global scale.
There are two aspects of early warning system. One is the availability of an effective technique to forecast the disaster with its extent and the other is effective communication of the same to the civil authority responsible for rescue operations.
In some phenomena, such as cyclones, flood, etc. the time available to respond to the hazard is of the order of a few days. Hence early warning, communication, and rescue operations are possible. But, in a few cases like flash floods, microburst, etc., the response time is of the order of few minutes only, which calls for a very fast early warning and efficient communication system.Many regions in India are highly vulnerable to natural and other disasters on account of geological conditions. Disaster management has therefore emerged as a high priority. Going beyond the historical focus on relief and rehabilitation after the catastrophe, there is a need to look ahead and plan for disaster preparedness and mitigation. So, the development process needs to be sensitive towards disaster prevention, preparedness as well as mitigation to ensure that periodic shocks to development efforts are minimised.
About 60 per cent of the landmass in India is susceptible to earthquakes and over 8 per cent is prone to floods. Of the nearly 7,500 km long coastline, more than 5,500 km is prone to cyclones. Around 68 per cent area is also susceptible to drought. All this entails huge economic losses and causes developmental setbacks.
However, India’s commitment to mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into the process of development planning at all levels so as to achieve sustainable development is yet to be carried forward across sectors through actionable programmes for achieving the desired result.
Answer:
A natural disaster is unforeseen, severe and immediate. Pollution, ozone depletion in the stratosphere and global warming come in this category. Natural disasters include cyclones, earthquakes, floods, drought (though these two are now being increasingly considered ‘man- made’ disasters) heat and cold waves, landslides, avalanches, flash floods, severe thunderstorms, hail, low level wind shears, and microburst.The destructive potential of any natural hazard is estimated basically by its spatial extent and severity. Spatial extent upto which the effect of a disastrous event could be felt may easily be classified into small, medium and large scales. The phenomenon extending from a few kilometers to a few tens of kilometers are termed as small scale.
Growing industrialisation and unjustified exploitation of natural resources have brought our echo system to a verge of non-reversibility and imbalance. This has led to a threat from a set of natural hazards like pollution, global warming and ozone depletion on large or global scale.
There are two aspects of early warning system. One is the availability of an effective technique to forecast the disaster with its extent and the other is effective communication of the same to the civil authority responsible for rescue operations.
In some phenomena, such as cyclones, flood, etc. the time available to respond to the hazard is of the order of a few days. Hence early warning, communication, and rescue operations are possible. But, in a few cases like flash floods, microburst, etc., the response time is of the order of few minutes only, which calls for a very fast early warning and efficient communication system.Many regions in India are highly vulnerable to natural and other disasters on account of geological conditions. Disaster management has therefore emerged as a high priority. Going beyond the historical focus on relief and rehabilitation after the catastrophe, there is a need to look ahead and plan for disaster preparedness and mitigation. So, the development process needs to be sensitive towards disaster prevention, preparedness as well as mitigation to ensure that periodic shocks to development efforts are minimised.
About 60 per cent of the landmass in India is susceptible to earthquakes and over 8 per cent is prone to floods. Of the nearly 7,500 km long coastline, more than 5,500 km is prone to cyclones. Around 68 per cent area is also susceptible to drought. All this entails huge economic losses and causes developmental setbacks.
However, India’s commitment to mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into the process of development planning at all levels so as to achieve sustainable development is yet to be carried forward across sectors through actionable programmes for achieving the desired result.
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