Disaster Management - Revisited

Byline: Tughral Yamin - Email tyamin57@hotmail.com Readers may recall an article that I wrote for the July issue of the Hilal titled Disaster Preparedness/Management and the role of the Armed Forces. The idea of writing that particular piece was prompted by a number of natural disasters that had visited our country this year i.e. the damming up of river waters in Gilgit-Baltistan in January (a dam burst could have caused major damage downstream) and cyclone Phet, which ravaged the coastal areas of Balochistan and Sindh in June. I had argued that notwithstanding the regular doze of natural and manmade calamities like floods, earthquakes, and civil unrest, coming our way, the authorities concerned remained largely unprepared to handle an impending or evolving crisis situation.