Disaster Prevention
Coping With New Challenges

By Krishna Chandra Chalisey

IN SPITE of technological advancement and innovation, the world is becoming increasingly vulnerabl to natural disasters. Disasters, either from natural or non-natural causes, have claimed the lives of millions of people each year. Moreover, victims of man-made disasters like war, civil war, ethnic riots are facing the brunt of the problems and glights.

Vulnerable

Environmental and climatic changes have made us more vulnerable. New catastrophic disasters like El Nino and La Nina are appearing. The major natural disasters are earthquake, drought and famine, flood, landslide, volcano, high wind (hurricane, cyclone, typhoon, storm, tornado), avalanche heat and cold waves, insect infestations, epidemics and forest fire. Disasters with a non-natural trigger are accident, technological accident and urban fire. Climatic change is expected to bring many unwelcome environmental accidents and disasters in the new century. Global warming has been a prominent factor behind the many catastrophes.

Many small island states are just a couple of metres above sea level. Such states have become endangered nations. The Maldives is an example where Male airport is sometimes covered by high tides. There is a possibility that many coral atolls will be uninhabitable as saline water penetrates the shallow layer of fresh rainwater on which residents rely for drinking water.

Another result of climatic change is coastal flooding. Half of the global population live in coastal zone over a dozen of the word’s largest urban conglomerations are on coasts. It is due to green house effect that the temperature of the seawater has risen. The volume of water is also increasing due to snow melting. Coastal floodings have rendered more homeless than any other floodings. Diseases once declared as eradicated are coming back. Warm weather has invited too many infectious diseases like dengue and yellow fever.

The loss of natural vegetation particularly forests, around the world is a major cause of preventable natural disasters. The towering mega-cities are posing threats to disaster management and mitigation efforts of urban authority. Human settlement and housing patterns are not disaster resilient. Flood is another major killer in many countries. Structural and non-structural measures are equally important to deal with damaging floods. The idea of small is beautiful" is being promoted in flood control and management.

‘Hurricane Mitch’ with torrential rains brought catastrophic floods and landslides in Central America in 1998. El Nino is a fluctuation in the distribution of sea surface temperature and atmospheric pressures across the tropical Pacific Ocean leading to world-wide impact on regional whether patterns. Ei Nino has brought non seasonal heavy rains and flooding in Latin America whereas the West Pacific and South East Asia suffer from severe drought.

Developing countries lack disaster-resilient structure. Fragile infrastructure increases vulnerability and risk. Global aid to fight natural disasters is diminishing but number and intensity of disasters is increasing. The poor of the developing world have become more threatened by environmental and associated hazards. About one billion people live in unplanned urban shanty towns. Humanitarian spending is waning. About 90 per cent of natural disasters and 96 per cent of death from disasters take place in developing world where the risk of death from disasters in 12 times greater than in the industrialised countries. Developing economies lack the resources to invest in robust infrastructures and disaster prevention measures. Globalisation is not likely to increase developing nation’s resilience to natural hazards. Globalisation only tends to encourage new and durable form of division, inequality and instability.

We completed the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction (IDNDR) last year. Though IDNDR sought to promote a culture of prevention for a safer 21st century, we have achieved little. Prevention becomes possible only when it is characterised not as the work of specialist emergency service, but as a part of ongoing professional and civic responsibility. We have not been able to sensitise the people and concerned organisations in this way.

A major development in the field of disaster management and preparedness by the end of 20th century was the arrival of many organisations at global, regional and local level. The increase in the number of responding organisations along with rise in cases of disasters is a good sign. But this is not sufficient.

Many shortcomings have been witnessed in the response system and its effectiveness to provide relief service. In spite of Code of Ethics to work in disaster operations, there is utter lack of co-ordination among the responding organisations. Global efforts need to be directed towards harmonising the activities of the organisations working in the field of disaster management.

Principle

No doubt, international assistance and expertise are required to deal with the situation in the aftermatch of disaster. But the guiding principle in disaster preparedness should be "thinking globally, acting locally." Response system suited with local tradition and self-driven measures and essential. Dependency reduction and capacity building of the local community should be another motto of disaster preparedness. The year 1998 witnessed 92 big disasters. According to World Disaster Report-1999, 59,261 people were killed and 126,759,013 affected in 1998. Similarly, 496 people were killed and 20,332 affected during the same period in Nepal.

Jakarta’s Historic Soul Decaying

By Geoff Spencer

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Terra-cotta roofs sag and ancient layers of whitewash flake off. Grimy walls lean and crack from relentless traffic rattling centuries-old foundations. The stench from putrid canals and exhaust fumes chokes the air.

Batavia, the old quarter of Indonesia’s heavily polluted and overcrowded capital, Jakarta, was once among the world’s richest trading ports.

At the height of Dutch colonial times, it was known as the "Queen of the East." Its warehouses were packed with spices waiting for galleons to carry them half a world away to Europe. Three hundred years ago, a pound of nutmeg or cloves was worth more than its weight in gold.

Nowadays, the precinct, also known as Kota, is poor, neglected and rundown.

Worried by the decay, government officials, historians and town planners want to save a unique architectural heritage that blends European and Asian influences.

"It has the potential to be the soul of Jakarta again," Robert H. McNulty of the Washington-based Partners for Livable Communities said at a recent international conference on Batavia’s future.

A soul is something the capital sorely needs. After years of rapid growth, Jakarta is a chaotic sprawl of shiny office blocks, bustling shopping malls, decrepit slums, jammed roads and snaking freeways.

Preoccupied by dramatic political and economic problems, Jakarta’s people seem to know little and care even less about their hometown’s colorful history.

Many old buildings have already been replaced by tacky offices and shops. Others were destroyed during riots two years ago that unseated President Suharto, Indonesia’s autocratic ruler. Only a few blocks of the old city remain.

Originally known as Sunda Kelapa and then Jayakarta before European explorers came, it was a rich Hindu trading hub with links to Arabia, India and China.

In the 16th century, Portuguese sailors ventured around Africa and east across the uncharted Indian Ocean to buy spices.

The first Dutch ship arrived in 1596. Twenty years later, profit-hungry Dutch empire builders took the city by force and renamed it Batavia. It was the capital of the Dutch East Indies until modern-day Indonesia declared independence after World War II.

On swampland and coconut groves surrounded by high mountains and volcanoes, the Dutch built canals that rivaled those of Amsterdam. A fortress was built. Inside the city’s high walls, audacious mansions, imposing buildings of state and ornate churches lined the grid of streets.

For its first 100 years, Batavia blossomed on the back of the fantastically lucrative spice trade.

But when the boom times ended in the early 18th century, so did the city’s fortunes. The canals became clogged and filthy; diseases such as malaria were endemic. The fortress was demolished.

In the first half of the 20th century, colonial administrators built impressive government and commercial buildings.

After independence in 1949, Batavia remained Jakarta’s main business center. But by the 1970s, office high-rises were going up several kilometres south and the downtown shifted with them.

Except for cars, buses and trucks passing through on the way to other parts of the city, much daily life has long drained from Batavia. Parts of the old city wall remain, along with dilapidated warehouses and a cluster of landmark houses, churches, temples and offices, many of them abandoned.

Despite its intriguing history, few tourists stop over in Jakarta and Batavia is largely ignored by locals.

"It has enormous potential. But first let’s get rid of the traffic," said Graham James, an Australian who converted a centuries-old mansion into a fashionable restaurant, Cafe Batavia. It is one of the few viable businesses in the area.

"Almost every city in the world has an old quarter," James said. "It could become a big attraction."

Some restoration is already under way at nearby docks where hundreds of wooden sailing schooners load and unload cargo every day as they have for centuries. There are museums and a 200-year-old watchtower stands nearby.

But further work has been hampered by Indonesia’s economic crisis and political instability. Rampant corruption has also made investors wary.

"We need outside money as well as Indonesian investors to come in," said Rai Pratadaya, who heads a private consulting firm that has drafted one renewal plan for Batavia. "But that has proved difficult."

Planners also want local people, not just tourists, to support and benefit from a restored Batavia.

"We will have to educate them," said Pia Alisjahbana, a magazine executive and college professor who helped restore an opulent Dutch villa that is now the National Archives Building.

"For a lot of people this history belongs to the Dutch, not to modern Indonesians. We have to change that," she said. (AP)

Management Of Bird-Hit Hazards In Nepal

By Tej Kumar Shrestha

BIRD problem in civil aviation is a serious and largely pertains to birds hitting the aircrafts. It is generally referred in aviation circles as "Bash" i.e., Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard. In a real sense bird hits have to as old as flying itself, after all man asked for it when he invented air plane to enter into realm of birds.

First incidence of bird hit was recorded in 1912, when Carl Roger was undertaking coast to coast flight across the USA. The aircraft was damaged and the pilot killed. Since then bird hits have multiplied many times, for several reasons such as higher flight speed, a huge increase of air traffic and incorporation of wide mouth engines. Due to these reasons, pilots dislike birds more than the bad elements of cloudy weather for even well equipped planes are helpless in mountain flights. And when the weather becomes is clear, soaring birds become a threat to the aircrafts.

The threat of collision between bird and aircraft is something every pilot must live with. Bird hits can cause colossal damage to airplane and, if the aircraft happens to crash, to building and costly infrastructure on the ground as well. Civil aviation has suffered due to this frequently occuring bird-hit phenomenon.

Small birds can hit big planes. How can the encounter of a small bird weighing a few kilogram damage a well built aircraft? If any one goes into physics of the roblem when small kite weighing about 1.8 kg flying at 20 kmph hits a plane flying at 480 kmh, the force of impact in a fraction of second will be about 14 tons. When the speed of the aircraft relative to the bird doubles, the impact force does not double but quadruples. At 1,000 kmph the same bird at the same speed would have and impact of 57 tons or more - enough to damage almost any part of aircraft. The alminium skin of most for instance, is about 0.8 mm thick.

Nearly every part of aircraft is susceptible to damage. But very often, it is the engine which is most affected. Jet engines operate by sucking in air from atmosphere so as to push the aircraft forward. Mechanically speaking a compressor consists of several "stages" with 30 to 40 blades in each stage.

Bird-aircraft hits usually occur at law altitude, mainly between 500-2,500 m during take off and landing (150 m and below), rather than during cruising flight, and very rrarely above 3,500 m. The introduction of vertical take off and land landing (VTOL) or short take off and land (STOL), aircraft technology will probably reduce the problem. These days some new aircraft have short or non-existent take off and landing runs and could consequently spend much less time in danger zone.

Military aircraft are more prone to bird-hit than civil ones, because of their frequent low level exercises. A world wide analysis has shown that with civilian aircraft, loss of life in bird hits is comparatively less frequent.

Due to relative vulnerability of aircraft design, collision is hard to define except that fast flying wide bodied jets are more prone. Vulnerability of an aircraft further depends upon its flight path, environment and radar detection. Defence maneuvers are more prone to collision with birds all over the world. Striking problem in aviation broadly comprises two facets: the protection of aircraft and management of the problem.

No time of day or night is free from risk. It depends on the diological rhythm of birds. Common birds such as crows, mynas and herons, vultures and kites fly from roosting to feeding areas around sunrise. Raptorial birds having soaring habit are active during heat of the day, when the thermal bubbles on which they soar are available. At night and twilight there are nocturnal birds like owls and flying mammals like bats.

Bird control in airport areas in Nepal is a recent subject of investigation. The methods adopted have to be very different from other pest control operations as birds have high level of intelligence and are highly adaptable. For bird control in airport areas certain pre-requisites have to be met with correct study of bird behaviour in different seasons such as breeding, daily movements and migration etc.

Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) is surrounded by high mountains which offer daunting challenges to the pilots since both high and low flying birds are concentrated ground the surrounding hills and valley floor itself. Finally effective control bird hits involves the application and combination of various methods which vary in relation to the environment problem caused by birds. For this a multidisciplinary team with appropriate instrumentation for investigation and monitoring is necessary. Similarly, a long term plan and vision on the part of the concerned authorities should be forthcoming.