Accidents and Catastrophes: Management Plans for Disaster Control of the United Kingdom - Term Paper Example

Accidents and catastrophes Table of contents Abstract The planet earth has seen many phases of development and many more are still to come. During the phases of developments the level of disasters has also moved higher and has increased numbers of sources of its occurrence. Disaster occurs due to errors within a system either occurred in a set or individually. These errors while interact with each other or with the other associated factors leads to occurrence of a disaster. This report is an effort to identify disaster and its classification and various activities performed by UK disaster management team. The report specifically focuses on below pointed questions - 1. Nature of accidents and catastrophes and how they can be classified? 2. How numerous variables interact to produce disasters and catastrophes? 3. Modern day threats (e.g. terrorism) and the changing trends in the frequency of disasters? 4. The disaster life cycle and the UK management plans and the differences between disaster and catastrophe planning? Introduction Disasters are the phenomenon which has gained the attention over the past few decades. These are the unfortunate events which negatively affect the environment and hence require preparation for its prevention and control. Accidents are the smaller unit of disasters which causes due to interaction of errors with in a system. The variety of these accidents has increased with the time and rate of developmental activities. It has become a potential issue for the entire world because if proper measures are not taken by the right time it may come up with a threat to the existence of the human being. Many technological developments are being carried out globally with a prominent concern towards the issue of disasters and their management. Characteristic features & classification of accidents and catastrophe Accident is an unfortunate event which is a result of failure or set of failures influencing the final outcome of a system or process. The failures occurring within the system also influences the ongoing processes by disrupting the flow of processes. Other contributions are made from the environment which facilitates favorable conditions for the occurrence of the accidents. Accidents encompass a very broad range of varieties with each of them having a specific set of errors responsible of its occurrence. One of the classifications of accidents can be done as physical and non physical types where the physical accidents represents the accidents which affects any physical entity and causes physical loss to the victim. The non physical accidents serve as a reason for loss which is not physical in nature with no visibility. This type of accidents influences the non physical factors of the victim and makes no difference to the physical form of the entity. The occurrence of accidents is a set of incident with variable number of contributing factors. These factors serves as a positive force for the occurrence of accidents are termed as emergency, hazards, and risk. Emergency is a situation which arises due to execution of activities without any planning which ultimately results into disruption of the entire functioning of the system while bringing difference to the final outcome of the process. They could be of destructing nature towards the environment and its physical existence. Almost all the components of environment are capable of being harmful to others either for their safety or for some other reasons. This capability of harming others can lead to an extreme situation which is referred to as hazard when it prominently serves as a risk towards human beings. Being hazardous for an entity does not imply that it has no usefulness. Many substances which are capable enough to be hazardous are useful for human development in various ways depending upon its usage. (Deyle et al. 1998). There is a probability which always remains associated with the hazards, i.e. probability of its occurrence. This probability is termed as risk which signifies degree and severity of the hazard which is getting materialized. (Peterson. R, 2005). In the hierarchy of classification the higher levels are represented as disasters which lead to formation of even more difficult situation which is termed as catastrophe. Disaster can be considered as a magnified form of an accident where any substance which possesses hazardous capabilities starts interacting with the nature and negatively affects the system. Disasters after their occurrence when creates problems for the society and the environment in a long run then it is designated as catastrophe which emerges as a question for existence of the society and human beings. Disasters and catastrophes are interlinked o the basis of severity of the disaster and problems which have emerged as a question towards the health of the society. (Szygenda & Thornton). Involvement and interaction of associated variables resulting into disasters and catastrophes Numerous variables are responsible for the occurrence of any disaster depending upon their level of involvement and interaction with each other. These variables serve as a positive force towards the occurrence of any disaster. The degree of severity of any disaster or catastrophe has a dependence on these involved variables and their way of interaction among themselves. The variables differs on the basis of nature and form of disaster since disasters can be of either natural or man made which takes place as a result of malfunctioning of any natural subsystem or system within the environment related to land, water, weather, fire, etc. Examples can be cited from the past experiences of encountering such disasters of various forms occurred at different locations. One of the significant examples of disaster is Hurricane Katrina which frequently occurs in US and recently occurred near New Orleans and created a massive destruction in New Orleans and its adjacent areas (Haddow et al. 207). The disaster caused huge loss of property and people both with making many of them home-less. The government tried its best to face the disaster but all pf the protective means were not capable to resist the disaster. The impact of disaster was not controlled properly due to unorganized and untimely execution of controlling steps by the government. The formation of such a huge disaster as Hurricane involves variables such as condition of winds on the shore, the central pressure of air, tidal condition and configuration of the coast. These variables contribute towards the disaster with each variable having a significant contribution towards the formation of the disaster. These variables show a trend of increasing above the normal which results into forceful flow of wind and water towards the enclosed bay area. Another significant example is the series of landslides which took place in 2002 in Costa Rica. The reason behind the series of landslides was excessive rainfall during the month of August 2002 in Costa Rica which caused the rivers to burst out at an alarming level. The high water level weakened the firm grip of soil and resulted into landslides. Above cited examples are forms of natural disasters and are related to natural calamity and its associated factors. Some of the disasters which are not natural and are made to occur intentionally with purpose acting behind it. These disasters are also leads to loss of property and human lives. These types of disasters results into destruction of any particular place or object to harm all of the entities associated with it. These are done to spread violence and terror in the environment. Modern threats towards disaster and its management Developments which the planet earth has seen since its evolution have impacted greatly on its characteristic features and these shifts in the normal behavior of the planet have resulted into disasters and catastrophe. With the phases of development the numbers of threats have also shown upward movement in sense of increased number of threats. These threats are potential enough to result into a disaster. Initially only natural calamities were considered as a source of disasters but in the recent years of technological growth and development people have also invented various means of destruction. Biological weapons are one of those types of inventions posing a threat to most of the nations around the globe. Research activities performed by the nation of Iraq in context of developing such weapons and the activities associated with Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan serve as a potential contributor towards biological weapons and warfare. Other contributing threats are the terrorist activities which is the prime concern for almost the whole world. Terrorists are the group of people engaged in activities related to destruction and spreading violence among people in order to achieve their desire. Many examples can be cited to explain terrorist activities like recent days explosion in Middle East nations. Some of the significant terror attack has also impacted nations considered to be the global powers like USA. World Trade Center attack has set an example in the history of terrorists’ attacks in USA. The fall of WTC ignited the reason for terrorist activities to be counted as a potential threat for occurrence of a disaster. Technological advancement in the field of chemistry has helped the field to evolve as another potential threat to cause a disaster. Scientists have succeeded in developing chemical weapons to serve as a purpose of defense from enemy nations. These chemical weapons can be considered as powerful threat to support the occurrence of any disaster. Trends of disasters and changes in the frequency of its occurrence Occurrence of disaster is not something new for the entire world but in comparison to the early days a lot of changes can be observed by gathering data from all over the world in order to have a clear view of frequency of disaster occurrence and their impact on human community. Below given figure described by Munich Re in 2005, is an effort to have an idea of changing trend in properties of disasters and their impact on normal life. Global trend of loss due to disasters (Source - Munich Re, 2005) From the figure it can be observed that there is no equal impact of any disaster on the whole world. Some of the areas might suffer more than that of other where the data indicates lowering rate of disasters and catastrophes. Rate of increase in the disastrous incidents and their impact has not shown a constant growth with differences depending upon the geographical conditions of the place. The trend also indicates that the massive losses are due to disasters which are related to floods and storms. The figure given below describes the total insured losses faced due to disastrous activities during the time span of 1970-2004. The data was collected by the Association of British Insurers during 2005. Distribution of insured losses from 1970-2004 (Source - Association of British Insurers, 2005) Many research activities are performed to identify the changes in the trend of disasters and the observations have resulted into an increased trend in the losses faced due to disasters. The frequency of disasters has also increased with the time while the number of people getting affected depends upon the area which is being hit by the disaster. This increasing rate in frequency of disasters and huge loss has been found to be an outcome of increased societal and developmental activities being carried out around the world for the sake of development. Some other sources indicate that there has been a decreasing trend observed in the loss of human life due to disaster though the frequency of disasters has increased with the time. The reduction in loss of human life has been made possible by adopting various modernized technology for the prevention and control of disasters and catastrophe. Life cycle of disaster Entire process of disaster from the formation of favorable conditions for a disaster to occur till its impact and after effects can be viewed as a cycle of incidents which keeps on repeating itself whenever there is an occurrence of a disaster. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency the entire phenomenon can be categorized into four different phases depending upon the step by step actions and reactions involved in a disaster. These phases are mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. (Green, W. 2000). Among above four stages the initial stages are concerned with identification of potential threats and their reduction in order to prevent them from resulting into a disaster. The preparedness phase deals with development of equipment and various preventive steps to avoid disasters from its occurrence. Response and recovery phases are concerned with situations when a disaster has already occurred and steps are taken in response to the disaster to minimize its effects. The execution of planned activities related to reduction of the effect of disaster is done in this stage. The recovery stage deals with tasks performed to reduce the after effects of any disaster. The restoration activities for the victims are the main concern in the last and fourth phase of the life cycle with an effort to bring the environment to a normal state. (Botterell, A. 2001) UK management plans for disaster control In recent past time the UK disaster management team has applied efforts in order to carry out plans for an effective disaster management. The management concerned with disasters and catastrophe has given the entire team an organizational structure with a systematic organizational hierarchy with mentioning the reporting relationship among the team. The emphasis is given more on involvement of all the people present in the team irrespective of their position in the hierarchy. All the concerned people are assigned with their own roles and responsibilities which they are suppose to perform as per the requirement like disaster manager holds the authority of all the budget and finance related activities of the team while disaster reaction manager has the more responsibilities since the prime action is taken by the person as and when a disaster occurs. Another key position is associated with the recovery task after the occurrence of disaster which mainly deals with restoration activities being performed by the disaster recovery manager. The team also coordinates with media and other societal members for proper communication and support during the disastrous situations. (Disaster Control Plan) Differentiating disasters from catastrophes Disasters and Catastrophe should not be considered as same since both have different criteria and requires different approaches of planning for their control and preventions. Many researchers have encouraged to have a demarcation between disasters and catastrophe since most of the time people get confused over this issue. The difference between disasters and catastrophe can be identified by analyzing the effects of disasters and catastrophes on human life. Majority of the disasters results into heavy loss of life and property directly reflecting on the economic condition of the victim nation. Disasters are concerned only with the losses incurred due to their occurrence while catastrophe which is considered as a more severe problem results into changes in the pattern of behavior of the entire society which is being affected by the catastrophes. So it can be considered whenever a huge economic loss in terms of property and life results due to a disaster and it results into change in the behavioral pattern of the people belonging to the affected area, a disaster gets transformed into a catastrophe. The situation of catastrophe is more worse compared to disasters since in catastrophe there remains no hope of help from adjacent areas due to massive destruction by the catastrophe. (Varley, A. 1995) References Szygenda and Thornton. Disaster Tolerant Computer and Communication Systems. (n.d.). [Online] Available at - http://lyle.smu.edu/~mitch/ftp_dir/pubs/citsa05a.pdf [Accessed on October 25, 2009]. Department of earth, atmospheric and planetary science. About Mission 2010. 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