Wrath of Nature on India's Future: A Critical Analysis

International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research_____________________________ ISSN 2277-3630 IJSSIR, Vol. 3 (10), OCTOBER (2014) Online available at indianresearchjournals.com

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WRATH OF NATURE ON INDIA’S FUTURE: A CRITICAL

ANALYSIS

RIA BANERJEE

STUDENT,

DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY,

UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA,

KOLKATA, WEST BENGAL.

ABSTRACT

India is one of the countries which lies in Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and sometimes also

called “World‟s Hazard Belt”. Every year India faces a host of events and processes which

turns out to be the major disasters of the world. Being a fast growing developing economy

of the world, it faces huge amounts of losses each year- both in property and lives. While

the disaster situation worsens in the country each year, relief agencies, media and even the

bureaucracies treat each disaster purely as an act of Nature. Disasters are attributed to the

floods, cyclones, earthquakes, droughts, landslides or whichever is the hazard of Nature.

Every time nature is blamed, while the Responsibility is seized.

KEY WORDS: Natural Hazards, Disaster, Disasters cape, Reliability, Resilience

Introduction: India, as one of the countries of South-Asia, is a part of Indian subcontinent.

India is the seventh-largest country by area in the world having 3,287,590 square

kilometers. It is the second most populous country of the world comprising 1.21 billion

(2011 census). A country having a broad physiographic division is located on one of the

world‟s most geologically and tectonically active zone. The country experiences a wide

variety of hazards, turned into disasters, every single year. Bounded by the three seas of

Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, the country lies in the Indian Ocean

Region (IOR), which is viewed as the „World‟s Hazard Belt‟, making the land and the

people more vulnerable…

On the other side, following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of

the fastest-growing major economies; it is considered a newly industrialized country. In

modern India, there is an increasing paradox between the growing economy in the world

panoramic view which somehow gives an impression of a promising future and the

continuing death and destruction associated with hazards and disorders. The paradox is

further complicated with the fact that our development in the world panorama is not

without hazards or disasters which get generated by „man-made‟ threats which ultimately

arise from the failure of technological systems and any mitigation measure.

Central Question: India is going through a fast pace of urbanization and industrialization.

The nation is also focusing on its faster growth of technology matching its step with its

growing economy. But with this fast growing economy, India also faces innumerable

natural hazards and disasters which are further aggravated by anthropogenic activities. The


155

study has been attempted to critically analyze that how far India being a „developing‟

economy is able to cope up with each disaster and meet the losses incurred.

Objectives: To find out the frequency of natural hazards and disasters being witnessed by

the country from the past till present, to look into the losses incurred by each major

disaster, to examine the differences in approaches used by India to absorb a disaster, to

highlight the administrative backup of the country to face each disaster, to analyze the

current status of the nation‟s setup to meet each disaster and to fore look the future

prospects of the country.

Database and Methodology: As far as data is concerned, mainly secondary data have

been referred to. The secondary data have been obtained from numerous Indian and

International governmental reports. Various books and other print media have also been

studied to structure the analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data has been used in the

analysis. Cartographic technique like compound bars has been used to represent the data.

Along with this, the data has also been represented in a tabular form to make it

understandable.

The country derives its name from the Old Persian word Hindus. The latter term stems

from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus

River. Later, the name Hindustan was acronymic to the land of the Hindus, the constitution

of India officially recognizes the country as Bharata, a name derived from the name of the

king who ruled the land once.

Geological Evolution of the land: According to the theory of Plate Tectonics, the Indian

Craton was once a part of the supercontinent Pangea- which started to rift in the Jurassic

Period splitting into two lands of Gondwana and Laurasia. The Indian Craton remained

attached to Gondwana, until the supercontinent began to drift apart about in the

early Cretaceous, about 125 Ma. The Indian Plate then drifted northward toward

the Eurasian Plate, at a pace that is the fastest known movement of any plate. It is generally

believed that the Indian Plate separated from Madagascar about 90 Ma, however some

biogeographical and geological evidence suggests that the connection between Madagascar

and Africa was retained at the time when the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate

about 50 Ma. This orogeny, which is continuing today, is related to closure of the Tethys

Ocean. The closure of this ocean which created the Alps in Europe, and

the Caucasus range in western Asia, created the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan

Plateau in South Asia. The current orogenic event is causing parts of the Asian continent to

deform westward and eastward on either side of the orogen. Concurrently with this

collision, the Indian Plate sutured on to the adjacent Australian Plate, forming a new larger

plate, the Indo-Australian Plate.

Geographical backdrop of the land: India measures 3,214 km from north to south and

2,933 km from east to west. It has a land frontier of 15,200 and a coastline of 7,517 km

(4,671 mi). On the south, India is bounded by the Indian Ocean, by the Arabian Sea on the

west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east. The northern frontiers of India are defined largely

by the Himalayan mountain range. The broad physiographic division of the land is


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subdivided into six divisions- the Himalayas, the Northern Plains, the Deccan Plateau, the

Coastal Plains, the Indian Desert and the Island Groups.

Based on the Köppen system, India hosts six major climatic subtypes, ranging from

arid desert in the west, alpine tundra and glaciers in the north, and humid tropical regions

supporting rainforests in the southwest and the island territories. The nation has four

seasons: winter (January–February), summer (March–May), a monsoon (rainy) season

(June–September) and a post-monsoon period (October–December).

Having such a diverse geographical and climatic backdrop and tectonic structure,

India is a host of extreme events and processes which turn out to be hazards to disasters.

Every corner of the country faces damages and trails of losses. Thousands of people get

affected and hundreds of are killed by each major disaster which only leave behind a scar

on the country‟s history and its geographic map.

People of India are vulnerable to hazards and disasters. The country itself witnessed

a wide range of natural disasters. Here a specter of disasters is what India is vulnerable to-

of India‟s total area (3.29 million kilometer square) half is prone to moderate to severe

seismic activity. Of the earthquakes that have disturbed her structural foundation in the last

100 years, seventeen have been above 6.0 Richter scale. Three out of six tropical cyclones,

which form in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, hit the 7,800 kilometer long

coastline, affecting the lives and livelihood of the people. One-third of India‟s area is prone

to severe floods and droughts. Landslides, heat waves, thunderstorms, floods and other

disasters also make a scar on the geographical map of India (Kapur, 2010).

What, then, is the reality? Is India becoming a dangerous place? Are the frequency and/or

magnitude of natural disasters increasing? Or are humans becoming more vulnerable to the

same disasters by aggravating them with anthropogenic impacts?

More subtly, is the concern for natural hazards or disasters confined to wealthy

nations? Or India is lagging behind in upgrading its mitigation measures to absorb each


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disaster? Finally, is it realistic to look forward to a country from which the effects of

disasters can be eliminated?

We lack definitive answers to many of these questions, partly because natural

hazards become disasters with the human intervention. The natural disasters are aggravated

by purely human footprints such as weak infrastructure, faulty leadership and a self-

satisfied society. Humanitarian aid treats the aftermath phenomenon, which is the symptom

of disaster rather looking into the root for its cause.

From Hazards to Disasters: Hazard is best viewed as naturally occurring or human-

induced process or event with the potential to create loss; or in other words, it is a potential

threat to humans and their welfare.

On the other hand, disaster can be viewed as a realization of hazard-when large

number of people exposed to a hazard are killed, injured or damaged in some way.

The potential threat is mainly to three areas:

To environment

To goods

To life

Like ranks can be attributed to hazards, so the probability of an event can be placed on a

theoretical scale from zero to certainty (0 to 1). The relationship between a hazard and its

probability shows the overall degree of risk.

HAZARD

High Low

Low

H

igh

PR

OB

AB

ILIT

Y

Zero

C

erta

inty

Environment Goods Life

Figure 1: Theoretical relationship between the severities of environmental hazard, probability

and risk

Source: After Moore (1983)


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This presents a clear image that hazards to human life are rated more highly than damage

to economic goods or the environment.

Before leading to further discussion, first it is needed to throw some light on the

definition of disasters that is acclaimed worldwide. In an early attempt at the definition of

global natural disasters, Sheehan and Hewitt (1969) included all events which caused:

At least 100 people dead or

At least 100 people injured or

At least US $1 million damage.

This definition is confined to losses and provides a threshold rather than a scale (Smith,

1996).

An interrogation can be seeped on the limits of the term „natural‟ in natural disasters.

According to Burton and Kates (1964a) natural disasters are those elements of the physical

environment harmful to man and caused by forces extraneous to him. Natural Hazards

have also been seen as „Acts of God‟. But this perspective proves somewhere wrong;

because this approach indicates that humans have no part to play in creating disasters, it

implies they have little hope of mitigating them (Smith, 1996 ).

Natural hazards exist at the interface between the natural events and human use

systems. Human responses to hazards can modify both the natural events in, and the

human use of, the environment.

Past Occurrences: Disasters in India are not recent phenomena; rather it has been always

familiar to the people in the past. Strictly based on records of disasters, India has been

experiencing the losses due to disasters right from the start of 12th

century. One of the

typical examples could be the Bengal famine of 1770, in which an estimated 10 million

people died (Kapur, 2010), reducing the population of Bengal to third. The losses were

because of the failure of the policies of the ruling East India Company. But this is not

purely a case of natural disaster, sometimes a climatic hazard like drought gets aggravated

by man- made factors like food shortages or may be a failure in the policies of the ruling

government. Limiting the analysis to only natural disasters, the findings say that the

country has been experiencing major floods, cyclones and earthquakes from the past. A

Natural Events system

Human Use system

Resources Hazards Response

Figure 2: Interrelationship between natural and human use systems

Source: Smith, 1996


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table showing the record of major earthquakes in India has been given below to highlight

the occurrences from the past till present.

Time Period No. of Earthquakes Affected Places

12th

century 1 Srinagar

16th

century 7 Agra, Assam, Karnataka,

Srinagar

17th

century

11

Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka,

Madras, Orissa, Srinagar, West

Bengal

18th

century 7 Assam, Gujarat, Kerala, Srinagar

19th

century 7 Bihar, Kangra (Himachal

Pradesh), Assam, Koynanagar,

Latur

20th

century 8 Gujarat, Kashmir, Andaman and

Nicobar Islands, Sikkim

Effects on the lives of people: The High Power Committee Report on Disaster

Management of 2000 identifies a total of thirty-one types of disaster in India. Twelve of

them can be completely attributed to the acts of nature and four types of disaster belong to

the category of biologically related disasters. Rest of them is the result of anthropogenic

factors which depends on the „man-made‟ threats to the land and its people. The type and

number of disasters reflect that a country with its people are vulnerable to thirty-one types

of disasters and get severely affected and killed by the same. The following figure shows

the number of people killed and affected by disasters in India at different time intervals

(based on World Development Reports, 2001 and 2013). The figure interprets that from

1982-91 India lost 31,679 people to disasters. The number doubled to 78,492 in the period

from 1993 to 2002 and almost came down to half of 41,045 in the period of 2003-2012 and

in 2012 alone it dropped down to 1,026.

Table 1: Record of Major Earthquakes in India

Source: Kapur (2010)


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One thing to note is that these figures are only official records. There are still many figures

more than these which do often not get registered, especially the affected ones. But here,

after all these numbers of killed and affected mentioned, one would pause to think that

despite of lowering numbers , of both killed and affected, and of course with superfast

growing economy, why India still stands out in the Affect of Disasters!

A search in the World Disaster Reports from time to time reveals the fact that India makes

it to the top ten world disaster countries in terms of people killed and affected. The

following figure (Fig.2) shows India‟s rank in the world on population killed and affected

from time and being. The figure, prepared on the basis of the world disaster reports, reveals

that though India has been able to bring down the numbers of affected people but

somewhere it stands out rest of the countries of the world on losses of human lives.

A single

year-2013 took a huge toll of lives with a string of disasters making a scar on its map as

well as on its economy. An informative table is given below which has been made with the

compilation of data from Disaster Report 2013 and other print media.

Figure 2: Population Killed and Affected in India (1982-2012)

Source: Based on World Disaster Report 2001, 2013

Figure 2: India’s Rank in the World on Population Killed Affected in

Disasters (1982-2012)

Source: Based on World Disaster Report 2001, 2013


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Month Date Types of Disaster felt Places Affected Killed Affected

January 2013

January 19 Mudslide Bangalore 1 -

January 22 Avalanche Himachal Pradesh 35 -

January 31 Hailstorm Andhra Pradesh 9 -

February

2013

February 3 Snow Avalanche Uttarakhand 2 -

February 6 Avalanche Himachal Pradesh 7 -

February 25 Rains and

Thundershowers

Himachal Pradesh 2 -

March 2013

March 12 Landslide Uttarakhand 10 -

March 17 Strong Lightning Madhya Pradesh 12 -

March 18 Thunderstorm and

Tornado

Odisha - 12

March 27 Hailstorm Assam - 6

March 30 Lightning Uttar Pradesh 8 -

April 2013

April 11 Storm Meghalaya 3 50

April 15 Dust Storm Chhattisgarh 6 -

April 16 Avalanche Kashmir 3 -

April 16 Earthquake Assam 1 3

April 17 Hailstorm Odisha - 3

April 18 Kolkata Storm Kolkata, West Bengal 3 -

April 27 Mudslide Zojila, Kashmir

May 2013

May 1 Lightning Assam - 19

May 2 Cyclonic Storm Meghalaya 1 25

May 9 Cyclonic Storm

(Mahasen)

Tripura 7 -

May 11 Landslide Mizoram 10 7

May 12 Hailstorm Sheikhpura District 3 -

May 13 Cyclonic Effect

(Mahasen)

Tamil Nadu 3 -

May 21 Heat Wave Odisha 3 -

June 2013

June 5 Lightning Bihar 27 -

June 12 Heat Wave Assam 6 -

June 19 Kedarnath Floods Uttarakhand 50 50000

June 24 Flash Flood Odisha - 15000

July 2013

July 4 Flood Karnataka 6 -

July 10 Landslide Mumbai, Maharashtra 2 1

July 12 Landslide Nainital, Uttarakhand 6 1

July 12 Flash Flood Odisha , Hyderabad 3 2

July 12 Flood Bihar 10 -

July 18 Flood Andhra Pradesh 9 1000+

August 2013

August 1 Landslide Uttarakhand 9 -

August 5 Flood Chandrapur DIsrict,

Maharashtra

20 -

August 5 Landslide Kerala 9 -

August 14 Lightning Uttar Pradesh 5 -

August 22 Flood Odisha 2 1000

September

2013

September 3 Landslide Sikkim 5 -

September 17 Lightning Odisha 11 15

Table 2: Natural Disasters in India 2013

Source: made by the author based on Indian Disaster Report, 2013

and other print media sources


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Monetary Losses: Though the data taken in different time periods reflects that India has

managed to control losses in disasters whether in terms of human lives or in property but

the World Development Report 2014 depicts some other kind of picture. If the losses are

being measured not only in lives but in terms of money, then the Total Damages (in $

million) as consequences of Natural Hazards were 20,325 in the period 1993-2002 which

rose to 22,273 in the period 2003-12; and India makes its Sixth position in the highest

damages met.

A Growing Entity of Disasters:

“Disasterscape- a term which has been applied in Indian context of disasters, to epitomize

the myriad of disasters. Although building on footsteps of the word ‘landscape’ as derived

from the German landschaft, a disasterscape is an entirely different entity, for it denotes

an area that manifests the hallmark of a disaster… A disasterscape is a complex of

destruction, devastation and a state of upheaval; it is an aspect of an area which can be

clearly differentiated from the ordinary landscape, seascape, urbanscape, ruralscape or

may it be waterscape… A disastersape, therefore, is a place or an area where lives are lost

and livelihoods get disrupted…”

- Anu Kapur, 2010

With its fast growing economy (as proposed by the Economists), the number of events and

processes are also increasing. The incidences of natural hazards was 85 in period 1993-

2002 which just got doubled to 133 in the period 2003-12. With this growing

disasterscape, India needs a strong management to curb these problems. The World

Development Report 2014 says that India has one of the least Index of Risk Preparation

across the countries of the World; it belongs to the Low Prepared Quintile. Then again one

would question that is India really able to cope up with the losses?

Role of Administration:

The All India Reporter observes that the Government of India has enacted nearly 1,045

laws (Manohar and Chitaley 1989). Among these thousand plus laws, there is not a single

umbrella law for disasters and their management (Kapur, 2010). The High Powered

Committee Report on Disaster Management is made under the aegis of Department of

Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture. The department takes the responsibility of natural

disasters whereas disasters belonging to other types like biologically related or related to

chemical accidents are attributed to other ministries. The astonishing fact is that India till

date does not have a separate ministry to deal with disasters being located in a World

Hazard Belt! Still can we blame the nature for all these grieve and sorrows?

Time

Period

Total

Deaths

Average Annual

Deaths(million population)

Total Damages

($ millions)

Average annual

Damage (% of

GDP)

1993-2002 60,760 6.0 20,325 0.47

2003-12 30,870 2.6 22,273 0.18

Table 3: Consequences of Natural Hazard in India (1993-2012)

Source: based on World Development Report 2014


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Analysis Based on the Findings: A difference is being observed in the approaches to

vulnerability by India and other Developed countries- which again draws a line between

the two worlds. The concept of vulnerability implies a measure of risk combined with the

level of social and economic ability to cope with the resulting event (Smith, 1996). To

reduce system-scale vulnerability, two main approaches are followed viz. Resilience and

Reliability. Resilience is a measure of the rate of recovery from a stressful experience,

reflecting the capacity to absorb and recover from the occurrence of a hazardous event.

Whereas, reliability reflects the frequency with which protective devices against hazard

fail. With the differences in the definitions of the two approaches, the approaches are also

adopted by two completely different worlds. Resilience has been the main weapon to Low

Developed Countries (LDCs); whereas, reliability is more applicable to More Developed

Countries (MDCs).

India stands as one of the Medium Developed Countries in terms of Human

Development Index and other similar indices. With the fast growing economy, it still has

not able to follow the approach of reliability to reduce disaster effects. It still rests on

resilience, accepting hazard or a disaster to be a „normal‟ part of life. For this reason, the

overall risk and affect of disaster related death is probably 3-4 times that in the developed

worlds.

Broad and complex socio-economic problems combine with insecure physical

environment create a high degree of vulnerability. We can take a fresh example of the

string of disasters that was felt by India- one of them was Uttarakhand flood. The major

cause of this disaster to take place- not only a simple combination of natural calamities but

a host of causes like unplanned construction, rapid growth of hydroelectricity dams…

Conclusion: India has witnessed a string of disasters in recent times for instance in 2013.

Prior to this period, the land and its people were not left at the mercy of disasters. It has

been severely affected by numerous disasters from time to time which still rank in the

world list. The hard core reality lies in the fact that since 1990, the Government

concentrated on “Recognition” not “Realization” to disasters. The administrative and

planning machinery has not taken a futuristic view, and then has India enacted laws that

buffer people from disasters? A land being located on such a sensitive zone of disasters

still doesn‟t have a single ministry to deal with the disasters and their aftermath. With the

heaping damages and monetary losses, India has not been able to cope up with these.

References:

Government of India, 2001, High Powered Committee Report on Disaster

Management, Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation,

National Centre for Disaster Management, New Delhi

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies,2001, World

Disaster Report 2001, Geneva

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2013, ‘Focus on

Technology and the future of Humanitarian Action’ World Disaster Report 2013,

Geneva


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International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2014, World

Disaster Report 2014, Geneva

Kapur, Anu. 2010. „Vulnerable India, A Geographical Study of Disasters’, Sage

Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi

Manohar, V. R. and W. W. Chitaley. 1989. All India Reporters Manual. Civil and

Criminal, fifth edition, All India Reporter Private Limited, New Delhi

Moore, P. G. 1983, ‘The Business of Risk’, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Recent Natural Disasters, viewed on 3rd

March, 2014 from http://www.disaster-

report.com/2012/03/latest-natural-disasters-in-india.html

Smith, K. 1996, „Environmental Hazards’, second edition, Routledge Publications,

London

The World Bank, 2014, World Development Report 2014, International Bank for

Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, Washington, D.C

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March 2014, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster

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Wrath of Nature on India's Future: A Critical Analysis

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