Nature is bountiful, full of resources used by the living organisms use for their survival and well-being. But nature has its own control systems. Resources used up are replenished excesses are checked, all naturally through the biogeochemical cycles, the food chains and webs and other natural phenomena. Thus equilibrium is maintained in nature. This is called ecological balance and has in recent times been disturbed by human activities.
Disaster is defined as a crisis situation causing wide spread damage which far exceeds our ability to recover. Disaster is a sudden, calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, destruction and devastation to life and property. The damage caused by disaster is immeasurable and varies with the geographical location, climate and the type of the earth surface. Natural disasters are relatively sudden and cause large scale, widespread death, loss of property and disturbance to social systems and life over which people have a little or no control. Thus, any event can be classed as disaster when the magnitude of destruction and damage caused by it is very high.
Communities will always face natural hazards, but today’s disasters are often generated by, or at least exacerbated by, human activities. At the most dramatic level, human activities are changing the natural balance of the earth, interfering as never before with the atmosphere, the oceans, the polar ice caps, the forest cover and the natural pillars that make our world a liveable home. But we are also putting ourselves in harm’s way in less visible ways
A natural disaster can occur at any time. Some disasters give a warning, such as a storm preceding a flood. Others, such as earthquakes, give little or no warning. But, once a disaster happens, the time to prepare is gone. The best way to cope with a natural disaster is to have a plan before it strikes. Whether it is Wayanad or Uttarakhand or Western Ghats, what were avoidable hazards if necessary precautions had been taken, became unavoidable, mainly because of inaction on the part of governments, Central and state.
Nature’s fury was recently unleashed across the country, from God’s own earth in Kerala to Uttarakhand in the Himalayas where the gods reside, though it was more severe in the pristine Western Ghats on account of human greed and apathy. Shiva chose his own abode to stage destruction’s dance, resulting in unprecedented devastation and untold misery with hundreds of lives lost.
There are different types on natural disasters and depending on different types of disasters the causes are also different. For example, the causes of earthquake cannot be same as that of forest fire. Natural disasters are caused due to different reasons like soil erosion, seismic activity, tectonic movements, air pressure, and ocean currents etc. natural disaster is not a new phenomenon, these natural events have occurred since the earth began forming and continue to cause serious damage and loss of life all over the globe from many years.
The root causes of most of the natural disasters that occur on earth can be attributed to the imbalance created in our environment. This imbalance may either be in the form of air pollution, noise pollution or water pollution and the collective effect of these imbalances are also one of the few reasons for natural disaster. Though it also a fact that we cannot blame anyone because this is just one of the few reasons. Natural disasters like earthquake, floods etc. have also occurred in past era when human was far away from modernization. So it would not be fair enough to blame modernization for the same.
Natural Disasters are a set of naturally occurring events which can directly or indirectly cause severe threats to human health and well-being and adversely affects the human life for quite some time. It has been witnessed that the natural disasters have their root causes in the normal activities of the earth. However, during past few years we have witnessed some rapid modernization and growth, man's increased knowledge and technology has served to trigger for some natural disasters.
Flooding and erosion can occur is really prone to the areas where mining, deforestation, and manufacturing have taken place. Global warming, which could eventually effect the ocean currents, has its roots in modern man's overuse of fossil fuels. Earthquakes resulting as a result of tectonic movements and movements of plates inside the earth’s crust can also be triggered by drilling, bombing, mining, and construction.
It has been estimated that rapidly growing modernization is leading to ignorance towards the environment. Today we are growing at rapid rate neglecting the harm that we are causing to our environment. Environmental bylaws are being neglected for personal gains by few businessmen. The dual forces of global warming as well as poor human management in the field of land and water resources combine to the cause of natural disasters. Humans have created a situation where ordinary events like earthquakes and hurricanes become increasingly elevated to the level of natural disasters which results in heavy losses in the terms of human life as well as property.
The main problem is global warming which is increasing the temperatures of Earth's oceans and atmosphere, leading to more intense storms of all types, including hurricanes and floods due to melting of these oceans. Climate change is also threatening cities and urban spaces. The intense heat earlier this summer, temperatures in Delhi touching almost 50 degrees C, ‘salubrious’ Bengaluru going without a drop of rain for two months in March and April, with consequent heat and water problems, the recurring floods in Mumbai and Chennai, and the relatively safer Pune experiencing unprecedented flooding this year, are just a few examples.
Then, we have the recent tragedy of three civil service aspirants trapped in a basement of a reputed coaching centre and losing their lives in Delhi, and a few months earlier, the driver of a cab being crushed under a roof of the much lauded airport building in the national capital. There are a lot of constructions coming up in flood-prone regions which has increasing the likelihood that their towns and villages will be affected by flash floods and coastal floods. Building collapses are becoming common across many urban areas, thanks to illegal and poor quality constructions. Concrete and steel infrastructure is destroying nature’s hydrological infrastructure, which if left unchecked, will cause serious damage to the city and its inhabitants.
A recent flood in Uttarakhand as well as in Imphal (Manipur) is one such example. Human greed is increasing day by day and people are not at all hesitant in ignoring the environmental laws and result is the destruction. In one way or the other we are hampering our environment, the rapidly growing industrialization has led to a lot of air as well as water pollution. Rapid construction has led to large land areas being covered with cement, which means that the flow of water becomes very strong, and the runoff from the water can't get absorbed by the soil anymore, so it keeps collecting and rushing down, getting heavier and faster, which may ultimately lead to much bigger floods.
These days, projects are overtaking plans. Bengaluru is without a plan after its last master plan expired in 2015. Yet, huge projects are being drawn up -- a long tunnel road costing a staggering Rs 33,000 crore; a sky deck tower intended to be the tallest in the country, as a tourism project, overtaking the Statue of Unity (of Sardar Patel), built at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore in Gujarat. And there is the ongoing mindless white topping of roads using concrete, considered harmful to the environment. The tunnel road is neither a priority nor will it solve traffic problems as it will only act as an incentive to add more private vehicles, adding to pollution and defeating the purpose of promoting public transport.
In the current scenario, environmental protection that includes supply of safe drinking water, sanitation, management of different types waste --solid, liquid, hazardous and electronic, assumes tremendous importance. Water conservation, waste water recycling, controlling reckless groundwater exploitation must receive highest priority. Identify eco-sensitive zones in and around the city such as lakes, grasslands, wetlands and ban all construction in their vicinity.
Control of air pollution has not received adequate attention. The National Clean Air Programme initiated five years ago in 131 cities was initially aimed at reducing two key air pollutants, viz., PM10 and PM2.5 (ultrafine particulate matter). A 2023 review of seven cities found that the pollution levels had remained the same or worsened in some cases. It is therefore necessary to implement a city-level action program to deal with air pollution which is the cause of several deaths and illnesses.
While contributing substantially to economic growth, cities are adding enormously to consumption of energy, water and other valuable resources on the one hand and to waste, pollution and health problems on the other. According to IPCC (2022), “urban areas are responsible for 70 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors”. We need to rethink urban planning and adopt creative and adaptive strategies like green infrastructure-green roofs, permeable pavements, waste water reuse and urban forestry, and build an urban future in balance with earth’s resources and ecosystems.
(The views expressed are personal)
