What are the measures of prevent the disaster? Suggest various long term activities to educate the school students to face disaster.
Answers
Answer:
Each year natural disasters kill thousands of people and inflict billions of dollars in economic losses. No nation or community is immune to their damage. In 1989, two disasters, Hurricane Hugo and the San Francisco area's Loma Prieta earthquake, caused direct losses of approximately $15 billion and indirect losses of $30-45 billion. Ninety people were killed, and more than a year later, thousands remained homeless as a result of these two events.
The World Health Organization estimates that between 1964 and 1983 natural disasters throughout the world killed nearly 2.5 million people and left an additional 750 million injured, homeless, or otherwise harmed. Unless action is taken to reduce the toll of natural disasters, these statistics can only be expected to rise as populations increase and concentrate in vulnerable urban and coastal areas.
The scientific and technological advances of the last half century provide unprecedented opportunities for responding to the urgent need to mitigate the impacts of natural hazards. Recognizing this fact, Dr. Frank Press, President of the National Academy of Sciences, proposed an international decade to address natural disaster reduction at the Eighth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in 1984. In 1987, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the 1990s the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR), “a decade in which the international community will pay special attention to fostering cooperation in the field of natural disaster reduction.” The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives endorsed the Decade concept in resolutions passed the following year. In 1989, the U.S. National Committee for the Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction was formed at the request of the federal government to develop a Decade program for the nation.
The U.S. National Committee believes that the trend of increasing losses to natural disasters can be reversed. This change can be achieved by integrating hazard reduction policy and practice into the mainstream of community activities throughout the nation and the world. The Decade presents an opportunity to reassess the approach to natural hazards and to develop strategies for reducing losses by stressing prevention and preparedness while sustaining and enhancing essential disaster response, relief, and recovery capabilities.
The Committee proposes a multidisciplinary program that integrates the following elements: hazard and risk assessments; awareness and education; mitigation; preparedness for emergency response, recovery, and reconstruction; prediction and warning; strategies for learning from disasters; and international cooperation. These seven elements must be developed in unison so that, collectively, they can provide a framework for hazard reduction over the next 10 years and beyond. This report sets forth recommendations for each element.