Dr. Forqan Uddin Ahmed
Introduction
Natural disaster is a phenomena which can occur in anytime without having any notice in anywhere in the world. When it his in a particular, place, it destroys decades of human effort (infrastructures) investment and human life. In the past twenty years for example earthquakes. floods. tropical cyclones. drought and volcanic eruptions have killed 5 million people. inflicted injury and rendered homeless of 1.5 billion people and also caused more than 200 billion US dollars material damage in 1997 and 1998 alone (world Bank:1999)
Natural disasters not only threaten our human efforts but also provide numerous impacts for example, losses from natural disasters reduce the pace of sustained economic development and often lead to a heavy drain on available resource to mitigate the economic losses. This losses are particularly dominant in South East Asian and other third world countries, and suffer most serious consequences due to natural disasters. A report from the Yokohama, Japan, world conference on Natural Disasters. Reduction in 1994 stated that 90 percent of natural disasters and 95 percent of the total disasters related deaths occur in the developing countries. The per capita losses in the gross national products (GNP) are estimated to be twenty times greater than in industrial countries. These losses are growing due to increasing concentration of population and investments in vulnerable locations and inadequate investment in measure to reduce risk (UNCRD 1999)
Definition of Disaster
Disaster has been defined by various individuals and organization in various ways depending on their nature of understanding and on the ways of focusing the issue. Most important definition of disasters are:
i. Any occurrence which results in damage economic disruption, loss of human life deterioration of health status and health services delivery on a scale sufficient to warrant an extraordinary response from outside the affected community.
ii. A disaster is a serious disruption of functioning of a society, causing widespread human. Material or environmental losses which exceed the ability of affected society to cope with its own resources.
iii. An event, natural or man-made, sudden or progressive, which impact with such severity that the affected community has respond by taking exceptional measures
An Overview on cyclone
The word cyclone has been derived from the Greek term kilos meaning coil snakes. It originates when mixture of heat moisture air forms a low pressure centre over the ocean in tropical latitudes where water temperature is over 26 degree centigrade. Wind currents spin and organize around deepening becomes a tropical cyclone when winds reach gale force or 117 km per hour. Cyclone also tend to from when:
1. Variation of regional temperature over the ocean is observed.
2. Intensity of air pressure develops .
3. Collision of warm and cold air starts.
4. Forces generated as result of movement of the earth works activity.
This cyclone rotates antilock-wise in the northern hemisphere and clock-wise in the southern hemisphere. In America it is known as hurricane, in Far East as Typhoon, in Australia as willy-nilly in china, as Baguio and in Asia as Cyclone.
Cyclone prone areas of the world
Tropical regions of both side of the hemisphere are the cyclone prone areas of the world with exception of certain of regions South Atlantic Ocean. Where there no evidence of such cyclone, the remarkable zone of cyclone in the world, among which South-Western parts of pacific ocean are the most vulnerable areas occurring highest number of cyclones per year, followed by South-Western regions of North Atlantic especially Cape Verde Islands and Bay of Bengal in the north Indian Ocean.
Cyclone in the Bay of Bengal
As incident in the preceding paragraph that Bay of Bengal is most important cyclone prone sea and the coastal belt of Bangladesh is known as one of the potential landing ground of cyclone of the world. This belt is affected by the cyclones and tidal surges every year. Statistics of 250 years shows that, 13 sever cyclones out 19 have so far been hit in the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Analysis of these data also reveals that frequency of occurrence of this cyclone has been increased recently than in the past and most the cyclones have been occurred in the month of October and November.
In the last 25 years (1970 to 1996) cyclone alone has killed 4,57,208 people, among which 3,00,000 in 1970, 11069 people in 1985 and affected about 1,73,81,999 people. The total economic loss of the catastrophic cyclone in April 1991 has been estimated 3,38,00 million taka while in 1985 it was 9410 million taka only.
Conclusion
Natural disasters threaten our normal pattern of life, our progress and destroyed our socio-economic development, representing a considerable challenges for the global community. These consequences of disasters have convinced the national government, NGOs and international community, that disaster prevention and mitigation are the essential components of any range of sustainable development projects and politics. Finally, to address the need for capacity building, training and resource mobilization should be strengthened.
Unless the natural disaster are considered as an important national issues by both local and intentional level in a co-ordinated way, the hope for mitigation and prevention would remain unstable and fragile.
Deputy Director General & Commandant (PRL),
Ansar-VDP Academy, Safipur, Gazipur.