Disaster relief to population- definition. Objective and tasks
Written by Anam Hussain
Definition:
Disaster relief to population is a complex of specific measures aiming to decrease as much as possible the impact of damaging factors and to prevent human and material losses.
Objective:
To organise and execute complex search, rescue and recovery operations in order to minimize the impacts of DFs, number of casualties, residual disability, critical infrastructure damage and damages to the citizens’ property.
In order to achieve this, several tasks need to be accomplished:
- Educating and preparing the population for adequate reaction in case imminent disaster threat or in case of actual disaster
- Training of the reaction forces
- Provision of personal protective equipment
- Provision of collective protective equipment
- Relocation and evacuation of the population at risk
- Informing the population about hazards and the undertaken activities
- Allocating required resources for DRP operations, purchasing and storing them
DPR activities are divided into 3 main groups based on the time of their performance and its content:
- Preventive: (takes place prior to disaster)
- Research on feature and occurrence of disasters
- Analysing available hazards and risk factors
- Assessing risk level
- Planning the protection and implementing preventative measures
- Adopting the National Disaster Protection Plan
- Control of prevention
- Response (takes place after the state of emergency has been declared):
- Warning and alarming the population
- Assessment of impact
- Establishment of crisis HQ
- Coordinated activities of parts of the URS
- Search and rescue operations
- Medical aid and support
- Recovery:
- Provision of food, water, shelter and medical aid to all those in need
- Rehabilitation and recovery
- Required rebuilding of critical infrastructure
- Enhanced sanitary and hygienic control
- Prevention of epidemics
- Accepting and distributing external aid
- Restoring normal activities into society to the pre-disaster level
Disaster Levels:
Level 1 disaster:
- State of emergency declared by Mayor
- Requires local resources, community agencies, escalated emergency medical system response (EMS)
Level 2 disaster:
- State of emergency declared Governor (when three or more municipalities of the province are affected)
- Requires regional resources, mutual aid agreements, specialised equipment, state level co-ordination, mutual aid agreements
Level 3 disaster:
- State of emergency is declared by council of ministers, based on proposal by the Minister of Internal of Affairs (when two or more provinces are under the impact of the disaster)
- Requires state level and international resources, disaster medical assistance teams