Development Matters

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Case6-July-2017

Addressing the gaps in disaster management

Coastal Conservations and Livelihoods Programme (CALL) of DHAN Foundation in association with Centre for Research and Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction (ACEDRR) in Tata-Dhan Academy undertook a study focusing on addressing the gaps in disaster management in Balasore district of Odisha.

Study area

The study focused on documenting best practices and assessing gaps at the levels of individuals, communities and mainstream institutions to mitigate disaster hazards and improve the resilience community. It was carried out in Bahanaga, Balasore, Baliapal and Bhograi blocks in Balasore district, which has a coastline of 81 kilometres and five major river basins such as Subarnarekha, Budhabalanga, Jalaka, Kansabansa and Sono. Geographically, these blocks are prone to natural disasters, viz., flood, cyclone, heat wave, drought and other conditions such as salinity and hailstorm.

Methodology

The study used qualitative methods such as structured interviews to document the best practices among individuals, community and mainstream as well as quantitative approach of conducting case studies, focus group discussions, block and regional workshops to validate the survey responses and prioritise identified best practices in disaster management for scaling up. Snowball sampling method was used for identification of samples. The study focused on finding out gaps observed in disaster management and local best practices to overcome disaster hazards in the areas of early warning, livelihood activities such as agriculture, livestock, fishing, standard of living, health and nutrition, community and mainstream stakeholder practices.

Context

Balasore district is located on the eastern coast of Odisha and has constantly been at the centre stage of natural calamities such as floods, cyclones, etc. These events pose serious threat to lives and livelihoods of the people of this district. The central government has estimated the losses caused by cyclone Phailin and subsequent floods as Rs. 21,770 crore, which is more than the state's annual plan outlay of Rs. 21,467 crore1 .

Odisha has been encountering a disaster almost in every alternate year. The Super cyclone in 1999 took 10,000 lives, but, the same velocity of natural hazard Phailin could not eliminate human lives because of preparedness, strong early warning system and timely mass evacuation. However, the asset loss was huge, the state administration was unable to offer relief to the 3.9 million people who were rendered homeless by Phailin. The loss can be minimised by Community Based Disaster Management (CBDM) approach. The aim of CBDM is to reduce vulnerabilities and strengthen people’s capacity to cope with hazards. This bottom-up approach has considered communities to be the best judges of their own vulnerability and can make the best decisions regarding their well-being and disaster management2. Community involvement is essential during preparedness, response and rescue, which is envisaged in Balasore district disaster management plan in 2014-15 by forming Disaster Volunteer Force at village level. Odisha government recommends multihazard disaster management prospective to mitigate impact of natural hazards3.

Government and other stakeholders have been providing a number of facilities during and after the disasters, but could not promote resilience among the vulnerable communities. Mitigation efforts were limited to few stakeholders, and no efforts were made to promote community-based organisations to sustain disaster management. Indigenous practices which are effective in mitigation were sporadic and those proven practices were not scaled-up.

Best practices to address the gaps in disaster management

The outcome was analysed in the areas of early warning with livelihood activities such as agriculture, livestock, fishing, standard of living, health and nutrition, community and mainstream stakeholder practices.

Early warning

The early warning information was propagated through various modes, but the vulnerable communities did not realise that the wind speed of 260 km/h would create such a heavy asset loss. Even though, 96% of the people were not willing to move into the shelter after receiving the early warning, mass evacuation of the vulnerable community by the stakeholders has minimised life risk.

Livelihoods

Agriculture: Seventy-two percent of the respondents’ lands were in submerged areas, which are prone to floods. Irregular pattern of rain during flowering and harvesting stage destroyed entire paddy crops. Farmers, who were mostly small and marginal in nature, faced triple losses by way of losing income from the destroyed crop, losing investments made on standing crop and revival of damaged land.

Livestock rearing: The study showed that 68% of the people reared cattle followed by goat rearing (14%). Thirty percent of the people reported livestock loss due to disaster. Among them, only 14% of the people received compensation against the loss, which was also not enough to meet the entire loss. During the disaster, they set free their livestock and few people allowed their cattle inside their house. Freed cattle drank contaminated flood water that caused diarrhoea. Stored paddy straw stored became wet and could not be fed to the cattle. The government supplied cattle feed @ 500g per cattle, which was inadequate and unequally distributed.

Fishing livelihood: Thirty-two percent of the respondents were dependent on both inland and marine fishing. The cyclone season coincided with the fish breeding/off season, hence, the loss due to disaster was minimal for marine fishing. Cyclones in seasons usually affect fishing nets and damages boats. Inland fishing always carries risk due to disasters.

Housing

Seventy-two percent of the respondents’ households were pucca. Almost, all the people had undertaken proactive steps to protect their houses from disaster hazards. The steps taken were increasing the plinth level (86%), laying bricks in a row to prevent damage of plinth area by rainwater falling from the roof’s edge (30%), tying roof to mud walls of the house (34%), tying roof of a house with veranda and mud walls with wooden pegs fixed to ground (30%), converting houses from Kutcha to pucca/ semi-pucca (42%) and 2% of the people did not take any proactive steps to protect their houses. However, 44% of the people could not take sufficient proactive steps due to shortage of financial resources. Even, after taking these proactive steps, only 28% of the people stayed in their own houses during Phailin, remaining persons moved to the disaster shelter, village common places and homes of relatives with good houses. The disaster shelter was not accessible to the entire needy population in all the areas.

Electricity

Ninety-six percent of the households were electrified and they faced 15-20 days power supply cut during the disaster. The electricity substitutes during the disaster were kerosene lamp, candle, LED lamp and solar lamp. Most of the people stored kerosene prior to rainy season. During the disaster, candle and kerosene were provided by the government to the affected persons. Availability of generator was limited to 41% of the shelter houses, out of which only 71% of the generators were in working condition. Seventeen percent of the shelters have not had enough electrical fittings.

Water

Most of the people have stored water in pots prior to the disaster. About 92% of the people stored sufficient quantity of water and remaining people managed by using tube wells in elevated places or flood water after filter treatment. The disaster shelters had proper water arrangements in drums, water pots and cans; few shelter houses had tube wells, but they were submerged in the flood.

Sanitation

Only 38% of the households have Individual Household Latrine (IHHL) in their premises, out of which, only 22% of the latrines were constructed in high elevated places, which could be accessed during disasters. Latrine usage by the women was higher than the men. Most of the persons resorted to open defecation during disaster which caused outbreak of diseases. If financial assistance was provided, 97% of the people showed willingness to construct latrines.

Food

Ninety-eight percent of the households stored dry food items such as puffed rice (98%), flattened rice (68%), biscuits (47%) and bread (31%), and few people stored mixture, snacks, sugar and salt also. Sixty-nine percent persons collected fish from canals and consumed it. They also managed with food packets given by aid agencies. The main concern of the people was the increasing prices of food items during the disaster and sufficient relief materials were not evenly distributed to the needy people.

Health

Ninety-two percent of the villages reported disease outbreaks during Phailin, major diseases were common cold, fever followed by diarrhoea. Over 57% of the household members were affected by these diseases. Absence of first aid kit and lack of knowledge about the indigenous treatment was the major concern during a disaster. Only 12% of the people had first aid kits in their houses and other persons depended on village health nurses.

Disaster Emergency Kit

Frequent disasters have encouraged the community to have disaster emergency kits4 with them, nearly, 94% of the people had disaster emergency kits, which consisted of dry food (Mudhi, Chuda, Gur, etc.) (100%), candles (70%), torch light with spare batteries (60%), match box (100%), valuables such as jewellery (19%), certificates, pass books wrapped in polythene (75%), land pass book, land record wrapped in polythene (81%), minimum clothes (98%), emergency cash (45%), list of emergency telephone numbers (15%), other urgent and relevant items (11%), medicines (6%) and other (2%). Fifty-eight percent of the respondents had babies with them, out of which, 50 percent of the persons stored baby food prior to the disaster in the disaster emergency kit.

Now-a-days, the government and other stakeholders have realised the importance of community participation in disaster management. Likewise, they have promoted disaster management committees at village level, which are constituted of mainstream stakeholders and villagers. Here, the major challenge is in maintaining the liveliness of the existing committee. Committees exist in records, but, not in action. Roles and responsibilities framed to the committee members are in book form. There are no monthly meetings to ensure the liveliness of the committee. Even distribution of relief material to the needy people is a challenge to the government.

Way forward!

Community involvement is essential during preparedness and response and rescue, which is envisaged in the Balasore district disaster management plan in 2014-15 through promoting the Disaster Volunteer Force at village level. Mitigation efforts limited to few stakeholders, involving community-based organisations (CBOs) in disaster management, facilitates building a resilient community. Communities have created their coping mechanisms gradually, which is expressed in the form of local practices, which are sporadic with no scaling up of effective practices. CBOs can identify these practices for scaling up.

DHAN Foundation is involved in nested institution promotion in Balasore District, Odisha with the objective of village-level disaster management committee promotion and seeding self-help group concept to inculcate savings habit among poor women, apt credit support and capacity building on livelihood initiation, social security coverage and fulfilling health needs. The prescribed action plan will strengthen community resilience in disaster preparedness and risk reduction.

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