This is natural disaster season. Storms, rains and floods wreak havoc in several parts of the world. The series of disasters this year began in July with monsoon floods causing mass scale destruction in Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Come mid August, a few storms and hurricanes swept across Carribbean countries causing large scale devestation of life and property. By end August, Kosi River in Nepal breached the embankments in Kusaha village, causing floods in as many as sixteen districts in Bihar, a north Indian state. Five districts of this state - Supaul, Saharsa, Araria, Madhepura, Katihar and Purnia - were inundated for days on end. September beginning also witnessed torrential rain and unexpected flood for a day in Wales and England. Apart from a death or two no major damages have been reported in these latter countries. Thousands were marroned overnight as Brahmaputra river in Assam, a northeastern state of India, breached mud embankments on Sept 9. Five million people were displaced, 50 villages with 600,000 hectares of land area affected and 27 killed.

What is appalling in all these cases is that impoverished regions, countries or states are completely devastated by natural disasters. On the other hand, developed regions undertake successful crisis management measures to minimize or even nullify the effects. Within hours after New Orleans received the Hurricane Gustav warning for this year, officials helped ninety five percent of city inhabitants to temporarily shift to other US states like Texas and Mississippi. Hurricane Gustav came, with a force less than expected, but no major damages were reported. Since the devastation and horror caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were fresh in everyone’s memory, authorities do not want to give it a chance anymore. Evacuation of 2 lac residents just before Hurricane Gustav in Sept 2008 has been considered the largest ever evacuation process in the city’s history

But look at the neighboring countries Haiti and Cuba. Granted that storms and hurricanes take a region unawares, there is still scope for precautionary meseaures. And when the evil strikes, people are left stranded on roof-tops, are starved for several days, diseases break-out in relief camps and everything becomes a big mess.

Several hundred people lost their lives in Haiti. Hurricane Ike killed less than hundred people in Cuba. In Bihar in India, more than two million people have been affected by the floods. Official figure of death toll is much less than the estimates of humanitarian agencies like Red Cross. Be it in poor Haiti, Cuba or Bihar, where 70% make a living through agriculture, the devastation caused by floods and storms will have serious repercussions in the country’s economy as a whole. Only with a proper disaster manangement system in place, can these poor countries provide any protection to the life and property to its inhabitants.