Dealing with disaster - my article in 'The Hindu'

Dealing with disaster
Although disasters rarely strike us on a day-to-day basis as and when they occur, rather than feeling overwhelmed, we must emotionally and mentally be prepared to tackle them. In the midst of a disaster it is quite human to be stumped, but we need to put it behind deal with it rationally.
Whether a disaster is natural - quake, cyclone, drought, volcanic eruptions - or manmade - accidents, attacks, failures - and whether it happens at the personal, national or international level we require a strategy to make it acceptable.
First make a study of how The Hindu has tackled stories of drought, floods and also the September 11 bombing of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Activities:
1. Conceptual clarification: Read through the articles which deal with disaster/crisis management to familiarise yourself with the steps involved in countering disaster effectively.
2. Field Trip: Visit a Fire-Service Station to get to know their strategies and how they manage fire-related disaster.
3. Application Task: In India, strangely, disasters recur every year in the form of drought or floods. But, we are yet to come to grips with the means of managing them with minimal casualties. The most bizarre thing like, not distributing the relief materials to victims but letting them rot is also a common occurence in our country.
Suggest measures to enable the people involved and the bureaucracy to manage them effectively.
4. Tracking developing stories: As the U.S. is still in the process of tackling the disaster keep collecting relevant materials and file them or paste them in your scrap book till it reaches the finale. This could serve as a paradigm to handle such disasters in future.
5. Profiling: Identify some of the most dreaded terrorists' organisations operating in different parts of the world which are responsible for causing disasters and profile them. Also, identity the ways and means to counter the terrorists forces.
6. A pledge: As India has celebrated September 18, as "Solidarity Day against Terrorism" write out a pledge which every world citizen should take to prevail peace on the earth.
Disaster management is a life skill which everyone should develop to face
disasters squarely.
K. ELANGO AND PREMJITH MATHEW,
Department of English, Loyola College, Chennai.