Countries may be different … not the sufferings
The
low-income countries of South Asia accommodate a large population of over
a billion. The sustained efforts for economic growth of those countries
are often interrupted by recurrent natural disasters with considerable
impact exacerbating poverty conditions in different parts of the region.
Since times of unrecorded history South Asian countries have been facing the onslaught of natural disasters such as floods, cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, etc. The intensity of those disasters differs due to spatio-temporal variations of the physiographic and climatic conditions. The low-income countries of South Asia i.e. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka accommodate a large population of over a billion. The sustained efforts for economic growth of these countries are often interrupted by recurrent natural disasters with considerable impact exacerbating poverty conditions in different parts of the region. In this article an effort has been made to focus on some major disasters in those countries along with some measures taken for managing those disasters.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh is prone to several kinds of natural disasters among which tropical cyclones with associated storm-surges, floods, droughts, tornadoes, and riverbank erosions are most active and frequent. Besides, the occurrences of earthquakes at times make significant impact both on social life and topography of the country.
Floods of different types in Bangladesh are a complex phenomenon. Flash floods suddenly rise and fall rapidly. At much longer intervals (perhaps 20 years or more) flash floods overwhelm almost the whole landscape in northern part of the country as they did in 1968 and 1987. At an average time interval of about 3 to 4 years riverfloods extend beyond the active floodplains and damage crops on parts of the adjoining meander floodplains, mainly alongside distributary channels. The severe floods which attracted international attention are in 1974, 1977, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1998 and of many earlier years. In August-September, 1988, Bangladesh experienced an unprecedented flood causing loss of 1621 human lives and again during July-September, 1998 the country experienced another flood which is the worst in the living memory both in respect of its long duration and water level. Almost two-third area of the country was inundated causing widespread damage to the economy of the country ever before.
The 1994 flood was followed by a famine which, according to the official record, caused 30,000 deaths. Droughts seriously reduced crop production in 1972, 1978-79, 1982 and 1989. As it is located adjacent to the Bay of Bengal, it has the worst record of tropical cyclones (typhoons) and storm surges in the world. The cyclone disasters of 1970 (300,000 dead) and 1991 (138,000 dead) are among the worst disasters in the world. Tornadoes caused localised devastation demanding immediate response. A severe tornado hit Tangail district of the country on the 13th May, 1996 causing 540 death and injuring about 34,000 people.
As per the recorded history Bangladesh also has potentiality for earthquake hazards. The country as a whole lies in the earthquake zone, of which two-third comes under major and moderate fault. On the 21st November, 1997 an earthquake with an intensity of 6.1 on Richter Scale occurred affecting the entire Chittagong region, the jolt of which was felt up to Dhaka. Beside all these another major disaster in this country is riverbank erosion along the courses of the mighty rivers like Yamuna, Meghna etc. Every year, erosion takes away chunks of land causing displacement of large number of people and losses of properties.
In Bangladesh advance mapping technologies are being utilised for disaster management. In a particular study in Bangladesh, as mentioned by Cees J van Westen in his article in ITC Journal, GIS with digital image processing and analysis of sequential SPOT images for flood stage mapping was carried out. The study area covers the confluence of the Meghna and Ganges rivers, south east of the capital of Dhaka. The SPOT images were used in the study to assess the spatial distribution of the inundation (flood stage mapping)and river dynamics (changes in channel and channel pattern).
Bhutan
Bhutan, covering southern foothills rising from the Indian plains, the northern high Himalayas bordering the Tibetan Plateau and the central valleys of the inner Himalayas, is relatively free from major natural hazards like cyclones, droughts and earthquakes. Sometimes flash floods and landslides pose some problems.
As the economic impact of disasters is confined to localised areas and does not cause major disturbances the assessments of the natural hazards do not figure prominently in the development programmes. Bhutan has no seismic station or observatory. Slope stability studies are carried out by the National Geoscience Organisation. A hydro-meteorological network is there with 110 stations and 23 gauging stations located in rivers and their tributaries. Since there is no specific natural hazard identified to be a serious threat, there are no warning systems.