Disaster management in India: are we fully equipped?

Abstract

Disasters occur with almost unpredictable probability, even though some ideas about the regions of incidence and likely impact on likelihood are available in the scientific literature. In this lecture, I have taken a full view of six disasters that include hydro-geological, meteorological, climate based like floods and droughts as well as the biological holocaust of Covid-19 pandemic. The approach followed in this lecture is to analyse the occurrences, incidence, history and devastation caused by the disaster. The impact and policies to alleviate the effects are also discussed. The culture of disaster reliance is discussed at the end.