My dear friends, I was looking at various replies, it appears that most people look towards GOD when we either experience a small earthquake or hear about 2012 propaganda and similar other issues.
Strangely no one asked about how can we be prepared for an impending disaster!!!!!!!!!! It is true that we are sitting on an active seismic area. Chandigarh and most part of Uttaranchal, Himachal and J&K and our national capital region is seismically in Zone 4, which is highly vulnerable for earthquakes. In this area, earthquakes of magnitude 5.5 or more can occur. Even an earthquake occuring in Himalayas can also effect this region badly.
Let us talk a bit about Japan. It is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world for earthquakes. Very frequently earthquakes of different magnitudes occur in this country. But, do we ever hear about casualties (deaths and injuries)?????? Even if they are there, they are quite minimal. Their life comes to a standstill for 30 minutes or an hour and get back to normalcy.
The very reason is very simple - they are well prepared for earthquakes.
Already we have experienced major earthquakes in the last decade starting Gujarat Earthquake and J & K Earthquake. We have also experienced the human and economic losses. Can we afford to have one more earthquake of like that of Gujarat or J & K????
Are our past experiences still not sufficien to wake ourselves up and take some preparedness actions? Instead of talking about dooms day and end of kalyug, let us take some preparedness measures so that at least we keep our generations alive or we will again see a repeat of Gujarat.
Following are some of the reasons for lack of preparedness:
We do not follow building code and construct unsafe constructins in earthquake prone areas,
Lack of awareness on various preparedness measures,
Lack of awareness on hazard and vulnerability profile of our country,
Lack of political will to take up pro active measures,
It is difficult for the authorities to respond to an emergency of Gujarat earthquake magnitude. However, if the communities are ready by forming task forces within communities and also train themselves in first-aid, search and rescue methods, fire fighting, a lot many shall be saved before we receive any specialized response.
Incident Command Systen and coordination of emergency support agencies by district authorities, disaster management planning and identification of hazard and vulnerable areas and take appropriate measures to reduce impact of a disaster shall definitely reduce the number of casualties.
We also need to strengthen our existing communication systems and also response and rehabilitation schemes and bring in systemic changes across board.
Thanks to Disaster Management Act, 2005 that has brought in some proactive changes - courtesy Orissa Super Cyclone, Gujarat Earthquake and Tsunami.
Do we need to wait for another disaster to take place to implement these proactive measures??????
We Indians need to change our attitude and question our representatives and ourselves too.
There is a long way to go ahead, and I am sure, the way we have exploited our environment, we will have to pay for them during corrective measures in the form of earthquakes, floods, cyclones, etc.
IT IS NOT EARTHQUAKES THAT KILL PEOPLE BUT THE UNSAFE BUILDINGS THAT WE LIVE DO.
Some facts about Gujarat Earthquake:- 971 school children and 31 teachers were killed.
- 1,051 elementary school students, 95 teachers seriously injured.
- At least 1,884 school buildings collapsed.
- 5,950 school classrooms were destroyed.