write an essay on '' Don't e Scared ,be prepared". keeping in mind a earthquake that may occur anytime in your area.
class 9
Answers
Explanation:
‘We cannot stop natural calamities, but we can and must better equip individuals and
communities to withstand them.'
Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, October 2005
‘Don’t be scared, be prepared.’
Earthquake safety campaign slogan, India
‘If we had only ten minutes’ warning, we would have been saved. Even with five minutes, we
would have had a chance to escape. But by the time we saw the wave, it was just 20 metres
away.’
Tanonsak, 22, a hotel worker in Thailand
Summary
This has been the year of natural disasters. From the Boxing Day tsunami to the broken
levees of New Orleans to the shattered mountains of Pakistan, people worldwide have faced
unprecedented catastrophe. As the pace and intensity of disasters grows, fuelled by climate
change and lack of government foresight, Christian Aid believes that the poorest
communities must be better able to prevent their worst effects.
The headlines talk about the response: raising money, rescuing people from the rubble,
rebuilding homes washed away by tsunami waves. What is not a story is survival: what
happens when, because of simple steps, people are saved.
This briefing paper argues that this should be the story – how, in inexpensive and effective
ways, we can keep tragedy from hitting so hard. It argues that, had people been warned
along the coastlines of the Indian Ocean, tens of thousands would have been saved. With
simple ocean sensors costing not more than US$20,000, scientists could have sent out
warnings. For most people, safety was only a 15-minute walk away from the sea. But they
had no warning. Within hours, up to 250,000 of them died.
In the West, safety is something we take for granted: structural engineers arrive to inspect
our homes and office buildings, building on flood plains is prohibited. Yet the gulf between
safety and hazard is greater than ever before. Getting community-based early warning
systems in place in the Indian Ocean is urgent. The Sumatra fault will rupture again with
potentially equally devastating consequences to that of the Boxing Day tsunami, says a
leading geophysicist. ‘It's not a matter of if, but when,’ Barry Hirschorn of the Pacific Tsunami
Warning Center told us. ‘It’s an elastic band, waiting to snap.’
We in the West get better at constructing safe buildings while tens of thousands of people die
in Pakistan for lack of basic building standards. In San Francisco, where tall buildings stand
on rollers that move with the tremors, the last major earthquake caused the deaths of 62
people. In Turkey, an earthquake of similar magnitude killed 17,000.
Each year, an average of 258 million people suffer from disaster – most of them in the
developing world. As the pace and intensity of disasters rises, the poor are hit ever harder.
Disasters may be natural. But their consequences are not.
Many low-cost steps can be taken to reduce the impact of disasters. It is crucial that the local
community is involved in disaster risk reduction. Simple advance warning systems aressential. Buildings can be constructed to withstand earthquakes and crop diversification
can help ensure people have enough to eat.
The lesson of 2005 is that we can and must take steps that save money and lives:
• In Pakistan, 500 children in one school alone were crushed to death when the
building collapsed on them. £500 could have paid to make the school earthquake
resistant: just £1 per child.1
• While Japan warns its citizens of possible tsunamis within 30 seconds of a major
earthquake, there was no warning system for the Indian Ocean. But just £20 would
pay for a wind-up radio to help warn of cyclones, floods or tsunamis.
• Without a comprehensive disaster risk reduction strategy, the World Bank predicts
that the costs of helping people after disaster will rise to US$6-10 trillion over the next
ten years – up to 230 times more than it spent in post-disaster reconstruction in just
over two decades to 2003.
• Disasters in 2004 caused about US$123 billion worth of damage, much of this from
the Indian Ocean tsunami. But scientists say that even simple, inexpensive measures
would have enabled them to sound the warning and save tens of thousands of lives.
The cheapest form of disaster prevention is community organising. Without this, the new
Indian Ocean tsunami warning system, which will mirror the current Pacific Ocean warning
system, will just be the high-tech icing without the low-tech care..
hope it will help you dear