disaster management is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks.

It is a discipline that
involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response, and supporting, and rebuilding
society after natural or human-made disasters have occurred. In general, any Emergency
management is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities
manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the
hazards. Actions taken depend in part on perceptions of risk of those exposed. Effective
emergency management relies on thorough integration of emergency plans at all levels of
government and non-government involvement. Activities at each level affect the other levels. It
is common to place the responsibility for governmental emergency management with the
institutions for civil defense or within the conventional structure of the emergency services.
However, emergency management actually starts at the lowest level and only increases to the
next higher organizational level after the current level's resources have been exhausted. In the
private sector, emergency management is sometimes referred to as business continuity planning.

Emergency Management is one of a number of terms which, since the end of the Cold War, have
largely replaced Civil defense, whose original focus was protecting civilians from military attack.
Modern thinking focuses on a more general intent to protect the civilian population in times of
peace as well as in times of war. Another current term, Civil Protection is widely used within the
European Union and refers to government-approved systems and resources whose task is to
protect the civilian population, primarily in the event of natural and human-made disasters.
Within EU countries the term Crisis Management emphasises the political and security
dimension rather than measures to satisfy the immediate needs of the civilian population. An
academic trend is towards using the term disaster risk reduction, particularly for emergency
management in a development management context. This focuses on the mitigation and
preparedness aspects of the emergency cycle

Disasters whether natural or man-made can strike at any time. In general, the general response to
a disaster is in terms of relief and rescue operations - after the event. However, if we are
adequately prepared, its possible to severely reduce the impact of a disaster. The impact can be
reduced through a good understanding of preventive actions, as well as having the knowledge of
certain life-saving tools and techniques, which when used at the time of the event of disaster can
control the total damage to life and belongings.

The biggest problem with the disasters is the suddenness and swiftness with which they arrive.
Hence, in order to reduce the severity of a disaster the response also has to equally swift.

Lets first understand, what is a disaster. Dictionary meaning of "disaster" may be taken as: "a
sudden accident or natural event that causes great damage or loss of life" - Oxford Dictionary.
So, as can be seen, disaster by definition itself is "sudden" and causes immense damage to
property and/or life.

Almost all of us can think of several disasters that have occurred in the recent past. Earthquakes,
industrial accidents, oil-spills, forest-fires, terrorist activities etc. are some of the more
commonly encountered disasters.
Disasters themselves are not limited to specific parts of world, though, certain areas might be
more prone to certain specific type of disaster, e.g. area around Pacific rim is more prone to
earthquakes, some countries are more prone to terrorist activities, some coastal areas are more
prone to cyclones, and, some areas are more prone to floods. However, the more advanced a
nation is, typically, their level of preparedness is higher. This higher level of preparedness allows
them to have a better control over the loss.

There are certain types of disasters, where, the loss during the actual event is not necessarily as
high, but, the losses become very high due to inability to manage the situation in a timely
manner. More often than not, it happens due to confusion and chaos in the context of too much
loss, and, inefficient utilization of resources - which are already strained.

Another thing which causes a lot of loss during certain kind of disasters is the inability to
properly manage and secure the utilities, like: electricity, gas, water etc. On one side, each of
these utilities are very important, and, on the other side, due to leakages/ruptures, some of these
might come in contact with each other, when they should not - causing further damage.

Thus, the main motivation behind disaster management is to minimize the losses at the time of a
disaster as well as ensure most efficient utilization of resources - which are already scarce.

Types of disaster

Though, all kinds of disaster require more or less similar skill-sets and rescue-efforts at least a
few days after the event, it is important to understand various kinds of disasters. Depending upon
the actual nature of disaster, the immediate reaction needs to be different.

Also, the first few moments of disasters are distinctly different for each kind of disasters. Thus,
understanding of each kind of disaster might also help in identifying the onset of a disastrous
event, so that a trained person can undertake some key actions, during the initial few moments.
This could have a major impact on the final outcome in terms of amount of final loss.

Natural
These are primarily natural events. It is possible that certain human activities could
maybe aid in some of these events, but, by and large, these are mostly natural events.

 Earthquakes
 Volcanos
 Floods
 Tornadoes, Typhoons, Cyclones

Man Made
These are mostly caused due to certain human activities. The disasters themselves could
be unintentional, but, are caused due to some intentional activity. Most of these (barring
coordinated terrorist activities) are due to certain accidents – which could have been
prevented – if sufficient precautionary measures were put in place.
 Nuclear Leaks
 Chemical Leaks/Spill over
 Terrorist Activities
 StructuralCollapse