The 19th and early 20th centuries, urbanization resulted from and contributed to industrialization. New job opportunities in the cities spurred the mass movement of surplus population away from the countryside. At the same time, migrants provided cheap, plentiful labor for the emerging factories. The present time world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in the history. In 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population will be living in towns and cities. By 2030 this number will swell to almost 5 billion, with urban growth concentrated in Africa and Asia. While mega-cities have captured much public attention, most of the new growth will occur in smaller towns and cities, which have fewer resources to respond to the magnitude of the change. Urban growth, which is mostly due to natural increase, is unavoidable. In principle, cities offer a more favorable setting for the resolution of social and environmental problems than rural areas. Cities generate jobs and income. With good governance, they can deliver education, health care and other services more efficiently than less densely settled areas simply because of their advantages of scale and proximity. However, the speed and size of the growth are not fixed, and vary widely among regions.
Migration is a significant contributor to urbanization, as people move in search of social and economic opportunity. According to World Bank’s flagship Development Report 2010, it has been said that “Half the world’s people now live in cities, a share that will rise to 70 percent by 2050,” said the World Bank report, citing UN Population Fund statistics. “Of urban population growth (5 million new residents a month), 95 percent will be in the developing world, with small cities growing fastest”. Environmental degradation and conflict may drive people off the land. Often people who leave the countryside to find better lives in the city have no choice but to settle in shantytowns and slums, where they lack access to decent housing and sanitation, health care and education. The more densely populated and more diverse a community is the more accentuated characteristics can be associated with urbanism. Urbanism causes decrease in per capita, and promotes urban violence, political instability, crime and aggressive behavior. Rapid population growth also responsible for poverty in urban areas. Another major issue being created by this social problem is the breaking of the traditional family structure. Our cities in especially in 3 rd world countries are not working well. Sanitation, safety, transportation, housing, education and even electricity are failing. So these urban areas become more vulnerable to any disaster because of its weak structures and poor service utility. During peace time because of frequently displacement of people within an urban areas makes job difficult for the humanitarian agencies to map the vulnerable group of people as a part of urban risk reduction process. Most humanitarian efforts and aid have been focused on rural development rather than the needs of the urban poor. About 810 million people already live in city slums, battling overcrowding, insecure tenure, landslides, flooding, poor sanitation, unsafe housing, inadequate nutrition and poor health. Other than urban earthquake preparedness, humanitarian agencies have not yet focused on emergency response in urban areas with due attention. Recent earthquake in Chile and Haiti point out the weakness and the new challenges, faced by the humanitarian agencies during emergency response.
In our country the GOB has established the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management (MoFDM) as a national focal point for disaster management in Bangladesh. It manages disasters through its three agencies: Disaster Management Bureau (DMB), Directorate of Relief and Rehabilitation (DRR), and Directorate General of Food. As a part of disaster management plan the GOB could initiate draft disaster management act. And regarding the city or urban areas the GOB mainly emphasis the earthquake. The research works and contingency plans are developing mainly based on structural point of view like collapse of building and traffics system, recovery etc. and less emphasis given on the non structural side. These are like physiological effect of the people, political complexity, violence and crime, social cohesion, and fluidity of people. So it needs to develop the urban disaster plan and its legal framework. And professionally act in emergency response phase to face those challenges which we had learnt from Haiti and Chile earthquake.
This study mainly looks for the root causes of those challenges which are faced by the humanitarian agencies during emergency response in Haiti and Chile. And try to focus those in detail with the support of secondary data. This paper took Haiti and Chile earthquake as a case study and tries to bring out the lessons which can be applicable for Dhaka or Chittagong for disaster management. And bring out the limitation of the legal framework and disaster management plan in urban areas by GOB with workable solutions. The limitation of the paper itself is absence of primary data due to time constraint.
For Urbanization a more technical definition is given by the United Nations as “Urbanization means movement of people from rural area to urban areas resulting population growth which is equal to urban migration.” The urbanization processes are largely driven by government development policies and budget allocations, which often favor urban residents over rural areas, tend to pull people into the urban areas. In the cities, public investment, which often misses the urban poor, with expenditures biased towards the higher-income classes and poverty among vulnerable groups such as new migrants force them into slums and squatter settlements. Urbanization may occur for the following reasons.
The urban areas offer better wage-labor opportunity than the rural areas due to the conglomeration of industrial and service sectors (primary and secondary economic activities). On the other hand the rural economic structure is waning because of a variety of reasons like: massive river erosion in rural areas (in Bangladesh), fragmentation of cultivation land, erratic monsoon and failure of crops etc.
When the head of the family is employed in any organization in the urban area, it is seen in many cases his family accompanies him there. So this results in movement to urban areas.
The premium institutes of higher educations are mainly located in the urban areas. So education results in migration to urban areas. Though on the surface it seems to be a temporary one but after education people don’t want to go back to the villages again and they settle in the urban areas for the lucrative job offers they provide. So the temporary migration becomes a permanent one.
When the cities grow the adjacent rural areas are gradually embedded in the urban area and form urban agglomerate. In this way though there is no absolute migration from rural to urban areas still it is a case of urbanization.
The people from rural areas migrated to urban areas for having a better life and enjoying the urban facilities like better medical care, sanitation and food supplies, which reduce death rates and cause populations to grow. In many developing countries, it is mainly the rural poverty that drives people from the rural areas into the city in search of employment, food, shelter and education.
The urbanization is a process and like other process it has got some side effect also. The first process of urbanization started with industrial revolution and afterwards the rate of urbanization increased beyond its capability to sustained especially in Asia, Africa and followed by Latin America. And the process turned into uncontrolled urbanization and creates number of hazards. These hazards can be classified also in the following manner, e.g.
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Over population due to migration causes a negative impact on urban development and causes pressure on its infrastructure like public transport, law and order situation, education facilities and health care. This unexpected migrant people create an immense pressure on land, water and life line systems of the urban areas. Most major metropolitan areas face the growing problems of urban slump, loss of natural vegetation and open space, and a general decline in the extent and connectivity of wetlands and wildlife habitat. The increased population creates tremendous pressure on demand and consumption of water. It becomes a challenge to supply drinking water especially in urban areas. The excessive use of ground water makes the ground water level lower in every year and creates the possibility of land slide in urban areas. The sanitation and drainage system are collapsed due to heavy rainfall and poor network system. Everyday as many as 30,000 people die from preventable water- and hygiene-related diseases and the children are most prone to the water borne disease. The urbanization process allows its dwellers to have easy accessibility to health care and proper medicine. But the uncontrolled urbanization creates health hazards due to polluted air, sound, water and as well as crime and lifestyle. Unplanned Urbanization has often had psychosocial consequences such as stress, alienation, instability and insecurity; which, in their turn, have led to problems such as depression and alcohol and drug abuse. The more densely populated and more heterogeneous a community is the more accentuated characteristics can be associated with urbanism. Urbanism causes decrease in per capita, and promotes urban violence, political instability, crime and aggressive behavior. Rapid population growth in urban areas is also responsible for poverty. Another major issue being created by this social problem is the breaking of the traditional family structure.
The industrializations and developments caused gigantic migration from rural areas to urban areas. In third world countries the absences of good governance in rural areas and the government urban based development policies driving out the people from rural areas. So the migrations took place from every corner from the country and accommodate them in urban areas. As an example like old part of Dhaka city, earlier the local people (called “Dhakia”) mainly lived there but migration from various corner of the country make the old Dhaka community as a heterogeneous community. And as a result the community has got some special characteristics like:
The heterogeneous community is a consist of mix culture which creates lack of understanding and social cohesiveness among the different groups of people in a community. This community of people lives in a small place but don’t have the cooperation among them. This attributes e.g. co-operation and cohesiveness are very common in rural life but rare in urban areas. So during disaster time the urban people are feeling lonely and suffering from depression because of the absence of cooperation among their community.
Economy inequality in urban areas one of the most common phenomenon especially in 3rd world countries. It has been found that the rich people being a less number in the community hold the maximum land and properties of the urban area where as being a larger group the poor and middle income group hold the fewer amounts of land and properties. The economical status automatically denoted the specific place for rich and poor people in urban areas. But now a day the rapid migration in urban areas brings the slums and shanty towns more closely to rich areas.
The people living in shanty towns or slums have got limited access to political arena. This floating people don’t have any representative who can raise his voice for their demand. Their inaccessibility in political arena and absence of representative made this group more vulnerable and create more depression and isolated from the main stream of the urban development. On the other hand the rich class has got the full accessibility in political power which has ensured all urban facilities in their life. So this difference creates instability and anxiety in the urban society.
Differences in economic status, inaccessibility in political power as well as urban facilities (utility services like water, electricity and sanitation), education facility, these creates aggressive attitude among the vulnerable group in a society. Thereby for the existence of life the poor people who lived in slums or shanty towns they involve themselves with drug smugglings and trafficking and do crime and violence in the urban areas.
At present world population now moving towards urban areas especially in 3 rd world countries more that at any time. The urban areas are now facing difficulties to ensure the urban facilities for this over population and create uncontrolled urbanization. The uncontrolled urbanization now exposed some complexity which may common to urban areas than rural areas. Because of this complexity the humanitarian agencies faced difficulties especially in urban areas during in emergency response. These complexities are as follows:
In the urban areas there are numbers of political leaders and their gangs and added with religion and community organizations etc. This formal and informal center of powers were tried to influence the humanitarian agencies relief distributions by trying to co-opt and capitalize on their efforts for their own political advantage. Sometime it has been found the local political leaders participate in relief distribution campaign in urban areas rather than remote rural areas to achieve their political strength among the people. And it disturbs the agencies that responsible for relief distribution and as well the general people who all are waiting long time for arrival of the political leader in distribution point.
For the survival, the people who all are living in slums or shanty towns they frequently migrated themselves within the periphery of the same urban areas. But it creates difficulties for the humanitarian agencies for their estimation and analyses of damage assessment of a particular place identifying the vulnerable groups in the society. The frequent displacement of vulnerable groups each and every year makes difficult to make a sound disaster management plan as well as during in emergency response phase it makes a crisis in urban areas.
The urban areas have got heterogeneous community in the urban areas and this community has got lack of cohesiveness and co-operation among them. Even they have lack of trust and hostile attitude some times. So this community creates more obstacles during disaster management. Their demands are varied among the same community because of their mixed culture and different lifestyle. The humanitarian agencies may face lot of difficulties to fulfill their all demands.
In the rural areas the community is almost same in pattern, regarding their culture, food pattern and their belief. In the rural areas the living community’s culture generally represents their local culture. For that reason In particular rural area the living community represents similar kind of psychological expression. In case of urban areas, people having different type of cultures and life patterns. It has been found in a particular urban area there may be a number of people or communities from different rural areas having different type of cultures. So it’s generated different type of demands and psychological effects. During disaster these different types of people from different cultures may expose different type of psychological expression or post disaster traumas which may affect the disaster management of the urban areas.
The security part of the humanitarian agencies is more difficult especially while they are relief distributing in slums or the shanty towns. Because people from this locality are more violent and crime ridden than rural areas. The recent looting and violence in Haiti and Chile after the earthquake are the best example of that.
Looting was the common and worst situation in urban areas after any disaster specially earthquake and national power grid failure for long time. This looting was the most uncommon and criminal attitude of a society.Social psychologists accept that looting is criminal behaviour, and that it is natural when the forces of law and order disappear.They distinguish different types of looting, including:
(i) Looting of goods needed for survival
(ii) Opportunistic theft of good such as TV sets
(iii) Collective action, conditioned by the political environment
Dr. Jason Nier, an expert in social psychology and professor at Connecticut College, explains this behavior with a theory he calls the “psychology of looting.”
This theory is based in part on the phenomenon of “group dynamics”. People will do things as part of a group that they would never deem appropriate on their own, for example stealing and breaking into stores and private homes. Another related concept is “deindividuation,” which is the concept that people can regress into a kind of Orwellian “groupthink,” allowing them to behave in ways that violate social norms. Being part of a group can diminish feelings of personal responsibility and potentially bring out our basest human instincts. Most compassionate people are likely to forgive the looting of basic necessities like water, food and clothing because sometimes the government cannot do enough fast enough to aid its citizens. But it is the theft of luxury items that causes the most concern and forces the realization that anarchy might be just one natural disaster away.
Rapid migration towards urban areas turned the urbanization as an uncontrolled process and breeds violence and crime in urban areas. According to Wayne Cornelius, three propositions were central:
(1) Rural-urban migration breeds economic frustration among migrant populations. The rapid influx of migrants cannot be accommodated by public or private sectors. Mobility expectations are thwarted, and the proximity of conspicuous consumption by elites raises migrant awareness of their marginal role in society. Migrants therefore experience rising relative deprivation, which increases their propensity to engage in radical political activity.
(2) Migrants have problems adjusting socially and psychologically to the urban environment. Cultural conflicts and the disruption of past living habits and customs cause personal identity crises, which increase the chances of primary group breakdown. Traditional social controls on deviant behavior are thus weakened. In addition, as migrants seek entry into new protective groups, they enter a phase in which they are susceptible to recruitment into extremist political movements.
(3) Rural-urban migration, increased political awareness, and mobilization of radical opposition go hand in hand. The urban environment allows high levels of social communication and produces intense competition among various interest groups. Organized political activity is conspicuous, which helps politicize migrants and encourages mass involvement in political action. These factors translate into migrant support for opposition political parties and aggressive protest movements.
It happened mainly in the urban areas of the developing countries those got huge unplanned infrastructure. And that become huge debris in case of earthquake. The land use in urban areas causes filling up the low land which is used as surface water reservoirs. Again the enormous pressure of living population caused the groundwater level down which cause a problem to manage the drinking water source during emergency phase in urban areas. The unplanned streets, roads and insufficient of airports also cause a major obstacle in emergency phase especially during earthquake disaster.
The absence of good governance and public accountability can’t ensure a sustainable urban society and sound disaster management plan. The unsustainable urban society doesn’t have the capability to reduce the vulnerability and thereby causes huge damage of lives and properties during disaster.
There is saying “Wise man learnt from others mistake”. So each and every disaster on this earth is a scope for others to learn the lessons out of the mistakes which are cause for the disaster. The recent earthquake in Haiti and Chile shows us many challenges which were faced by the humanitarian agencies during emergency phase.
On January 12 2010, just before 17:00, an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale shook Haiti for 35 seconds. It was the most powerful earthquake to hit the country in 200 years. The earthquake has created an unprecedented situation, affecting the country’s most populous area as well as its economic and administrative centre. Around 1.5 million people, representing 15% of the population, have been directly affected. Over 220,000 people lost their lives and over 300,000 were injured. There has been massive infrastructure destruction. Some 105,000 homes have been completely destroyed and more than 208,000 damaged. Over 1,300 educational establishments, and over 50 hospitals and health centers, have collapsed or are unusable. Part of the country’s main port is not operational. The President’s Palace, Parliament, the Law Courts, and most of the Ministry and public administration buildings have been destroyed. After the earthquake in Haiti the following problems were arises which made the humanitarian agencies job more difficult in emergency phase.
The recent earthquake in Haiti’s capital city Port au Prince, the humanitarian agencies faced difficulties while distributing the relief material to the victims. In the city there were numbers of political leaders and their gangs and added with churches and community organizations etc. This formal and informal center of powers were tried to influence the humanitarian agencies relief distributions by trying to co-opt and capitalize on their efforts for their own political advantage.
The structure of government and law and order all but disappeared in the days following the quake. But on the ground some Haitians were trying to fill the power vacuum and implement their own self-help operation, encouraged by the city’s Radio Metropole, which urged residents: “Organise neighbourhood committees to avoid chaos and prevent people looting shops and houses”. The security situation worsened when the collapse of Port-au-Prince’s main prison left 4,000 convicts free to escape. The humanitaraian agencies couldn’t distributed relief many parts of the city due to security reason as the Haitian law and order force were totally diapperad few days. And frastrated Haitian people are involve with looting and criminals activities in almost everywhere. Even in Chile also having a difficult time maintaining law and order after the earthquake stroke . The curfew there has been extended as troops struggled to contain outbreaks of looting after the earthquake. Dozens of people were arrested after fighting over goods and setting fire to a department store. This prompted many law-abiding citizens to arm themselves and take to the streets, in order to protect their businesses and homes. On March 1, 2010, police resorted to firing tear gas into crowds of looters, and the governor of Conception province reported that 55 people were arrested in one night for violating the law.
Before earthquake, most of the people of Haiti’s capital city of Port Au prince was mainly depended on water from a huge underground natural reservoir delivered by truckers. But many of the drivers became scared to deliver supplies after a number of them were attacked as they drove into the city after earthquake. The shortage of water remains the gravest problem. People have been walking the streets carrying empty plastic bottles gathering water from broken pipes and gutters. The city’s supplies dried up following the rupture of the municipal pipeline. Actually the urban areas has got big infrastructure for water supply facilities serving its hundreds of thousands of urban inhabitants. So when the system collapse due to disaster it becomes more difficult for the humanitarian agencies to supply this huge amount of potable water to the affected people of Haiti’s capital city of Port Au prince.
The migrated population in Haitian capital city of Port au Prince was not stable in any time. The humanitarian agency workers who works under Oxfam said that Thereby during emergency response phase the humanitarian agencies faced difficulties distributing the relief materials.
The country was experiencing political stability in a fragile socio-political context. The President did not have a parliamentary majority. There were few legislative achievements. The Assembly and one third of the Senate were due to be renewed on February 28, 2010. Parties’ political bases were weak. The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) was considered by the majority of MPs and political parties to be aligned with the Executive. Civil society was fragmented and its impact on the political scene weak. The constitutional institutions of 1987 had never been fully implemented. As a result the other government institutions were not workable before the earthquake. The environmental laws are not formed up and implemented. They don’t have any disaster management plan to face the disaster by themselves. Because of absence of order relating to the land tenure system. The non-application of the provisions of the law of 29 May 1963 had led to uncontrolled urban growth and sprawl at the expense of agricultural land. Thereby the Haitian capital city of Port au Prince becomes an unplanned and uncontrolled urban area.
On 27 February 2010, at approximately 3.35 a.m. local time, an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck the country of Chile. The epicenter was located 63 kilometers southeast of Cauquenes in the region of Maule (406 kilometers south from Santiago). As a consequence, the tsunami which was generated affected a coastal strip of more than 500 kilometers. There have been more than 128 aftershocks causing extensive damages throughout the region. Reports indicate over 700 deaths. Approximately 1.5 million people have been affected and thousands have lost their homes and livelihoods.
Overall damage comparison to Magnitude and intensity the Chile has suffered less than Haiti. But considering the damage of Concepción, the 2nd largest city of Chile itself alone exposed the chasm in their urban areas. After the earthquake the Chilean Government was late to send the relief material in affected areas in time. Which lead the general mass to loot the essential items from the supermarkets and Which is being made by the Chilean media as a “looting” in Concepción and other cities. The speed with which the government sent troops to occupy Concepción and recovery the looting items contrasts with the repeated delays in sending material aid. In the face of widespread discontent, the massive use of troops in conjunction with a hysterical media campaign against “looters” was aimed at suppressing social unrest and polarizing public opinion against the very victims of the earthquake.
The social fault line exposed by the earthquake have been deepened by decades of “free market” policies, first introduced by the Pinochet dictatorship and continued by subsequent regimes, which have exacerbated the chasm separating Chile’s elite from the majority of the population. Notwithstanding the talk in the US media of rigorous building codes, regulations designed to protect against earthquakes were enforced selectively and on a class basis, i.e., for the homes and businesses of the wealthy, not for the dwellings and neighborhoods of the working class and the poor. The shoddily built homes of the poor collapsed or were washed out to sea, while those of the rich withstood the impact of the quake.
Poll taken by the Santiago daily el Mercurio revealed growing anger among the population. Sixty percent of Chileans were critical of the government’s response. Sixty-six percent blame construction companies for shoddy building practices. Despite an intensive media campaign to demonize so-called “looters,” 26 percent of the respondents thought they were justified, given the circumstances. Throughout the week the capitalist media, inside and outside Chile, gave exaggerated accounts of looting and vandalism, condemning in most cases the acts of desperate and hungry working class families. Last of all anger is mounting in Chile over the inadequacy and indifference that have characterized the government’s response to the earthquake.
The emergency response in urban areas is critical in nature comparison to rural areas. The migration caused over population in the cities. As an example in Dhaka city every year 5 lakhs new arrival added with the urban population and going back rate is very less than the arrival rate. This migration process made the city growing in an unplanned way. As a result the whole city almost becomes a vulnerable place for all. In many ways the cities are self-feeding monsters, perpetuating their own growth in some selected areas by devouring the country’s resources. Dhaka perhaps controls about 70% of the country’s money supply. Of the country’s capital investment, more than 60 percent is invested in Dhaka and Chittagong. Most of the other cities and the vast rural landscape remain brazenly neglected. The present urban conditions can easily breed frustration, which may spawn social violence and during disaster it may have horrific impact on overall disaster management system. It is crystal clear to all that unplanned migration causes the uncontrolled urbanization. And the uncontrolled urbanization process causes for the other related matters like socio-economy problem, creation of unhygienic slum and shanty town and it damage entire urban system. And for the solution we have to stop the unexpected migration towards urban areas or cities. The government must change its development policies and to strengthen the local government system to stop the migration.
The challenges which are faced by the humanitarian agencies in Haiti and Chile during emergency response. The reason behind that is the output of an uncontrolled urbanization and lack of good governance. In Dhaka we may face the same challenges unless we are changing the following gaps of the government policies, planning and strong the legal framework for that.
Shockingly, the past governments in the last two decades hardly took any measures to create growth centers beyond the city limits. In many ways the cities are self-feeding monsters, perpetuating their own growth in some selected areas by devouring the country’s resources. Dhaka perhaps controls about 70% of the country’s money supply. Of the country’s capital investment, more than 60 percent is invested in Dhaka and Chittagong. Most of the other cities and the vast rural landscape remain brazenly neglected. This discrimination, even after construction of the Jamuna Bridge, connecting Dhaka and Chittagong with North Bengal, continues to create a great imbalance in income generation of the districts. This sort of pathetic neglect has given rise to tensions and mounting discontent that tend to be devil the good works done in some selected areas. All told, this unrelenting exodus to cities can hardly be stopped, even by draconian measures, because of the condition of the rural surrounding remain much neglected.
Dr. Sarwar Jahan, professor and head of URP department, Buet, in a recent interview with Prothom Alo, stressed the need for stopping migration to Dhaka city to save the city from the all-pervading squalor and chaos. This can only be realized by implementing the proposed “one house, one farm” policy in rural Bangladesh.
The GOB (Government of Bangladesh) should strengthen the local constitution system to introduce the good governance system in rural areas. The upazilla chairman must have given the full authority and executive power to develop his areas. He must be sanctioned a good amount of money from development fund for his locality. This will create more job opportunity and sustainable rural environment. And it will have a great impact to stop the migration towards urban areas.
When the migration Process is under controlled it allows the government to go for a planned urban city. But it needs the coordinated function among all relevant ministries or the agencies of the government who all are responsible for the city development. But at present the special agencies for urban development, which are involved in Dhaka, are the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakhya (RAJUK), the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA), the Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA), the Dhaka Metropolitan police (DMP), and the Cantonment Board (CB) at present they don’t maintain this coordination among them. So it will be more difficult during disaster to have this coordination among them. The Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakhya (RAJUK) for Dhaka city is working for the development and planning. But it couldn’t play a significant role because of corruption and negligence in management. Singapore’s vaunted cleanliness was achieved by effective administrative action. To discard a cigarette stub or chewing gum on the street is to invite a heavy fine. We have the law but we don’t maintain it.
A democratic political environment, which can accelerate the development of the urban area itself, must be established by the government. The good governance and people accountability makes all the government tools active and responsible for their duties. The government should have the better coordination among all the NGOs and other humanitarian agencies regarding disaster management issue. Government should ensure that no political interference should hamper the humanitarian agencies activities during emergency response phase in urban areas.
The disaster management system mainly control by National Disaster Management Council (NDMC) headed by prime minister with supporting of Disaster Management Bureau (DMB). Its all supporting elements and governing body members maximum are positioned in capital city Dhaka. Other than the AFD which included its 3 defense forces which are deployed in various locations in the country having a decentralized system among them in terms of men and equipments. If the earthquake occurs in Dhaka city the whole disaster management system will be crushed as all government’s controlling system are located in same place. As an example in Pakistan earthquake in October 8, 2005 in Pakistani administered Kashmir (Pak) cause a huge damage of life and properties. The government official who all are responsible for disaster management couldn’t not found because many of them dead or injured. In the same province 10,000 military personal were dead even though it didn’t affect that much for the defense force. Within the short period of time the military personal from other garrison took over the control and responsibility of that affected places. So the government should decentralize the control and supporting elements of disaster management system taking a note that the Dhaka and other cities are located in earthquake zone.
The Dhaka city is mainly depended on ground water and it the level of water is decreasing in every year. The water policy of GOB has forbidden to use ground water and advised to depend on surface water but in urban areas it doesn’t followed by the government others agencies who all are responsible for supplying water. On the other hand the real estate companies are filled up all available surface water reservoirs and low lands on the name of city development. And thereby there will be a huge scarcity of drinking water before any disaster occurred or during emergency response phase as well. So Government should coordinate among its all agencies and ministry to maintain its policies.
The government needs coordination with NGO’s to select the places and relief items for distribution in emergency phase in urban areas. When the roads and airports of Haiti’s capital port Au Prince was destroyed the humanitarian agencies and UN agencies they started airdrop the relief material in several places. But it couldn’t satisfy the local people demand as it was unplanned. So the NGO’s need a contingency plan inter link with government in urban areas for dropping the relief materials as per the pre designated responsible areas beforehand.
Military institutions place a high value on command and control, top-down hierarchical organization structures and clear lines of authority, discipline and accountability. They place great value on logistics and substantial resources are dedicated to the acquisition of assets and training of personnel to ensure that they can function independently under the most adverse circumstances. The military’s approach to problem solving is generally directive and coercive. Humanitarian organizations are less hierarchical and more participatory in their style of decision making and operations than the military. They pay more attention to the process by which they accomplish operations, partly because they attach more importance to long-term impacts, but have fewer back-up resources and engage in less contingency planning to ensure that short-term objectives can be met quickly. Thus the military short-term, non-participatory approach is often a source of operation tension with the civilian agencies engaged in similar activities informed by consideration of development. So overcome this problem the government should arrange some mob demo in urban areas or arrange seminar to understand and find out a better solution for joint operational method during in emergency phase.
The heterogeneous communities in urban areas should share their views and ideas and enhance the cooperation among them. This can be done through government agencies like social welfare ministry, local NGO’s. The print and electronic media can play a vital role on that issue. The members of civil society can play their important role for enhancing the unity among the heterogeneous communities.
The Dhaka city is a place for a poor and rich people. This city is mixed of different classes of people basing on their culture and economic status. During disaster it has been found people in urban areas having less cooperation than in rural areas. And this lack of cooperation and cohesiveness create more difficulties during disaster. To minimize this problem the urban area like Dhaka city need a social network, which will connect them in a same line? This can be done in following ways-
(1) The education policy must be changed and it has to be same nature for all class of people.
(2) Form the primary level the children must have learnt the need of cooperation and cohesiveness during disaster.
(3) The community must have arranged a programme where they can share and changed their views.
(4) The religion center and respected person in a society like Imam, Priest, other religion and Political leaders or teachers must play a role to make a network among all people to understand the necessity of unity.
(5) The modern technology like local radio in urban areas can plays a vital role to arrange the disaster related interviews of people from different classes and occupation. Arranging cultural programme of different groups of the people living in the same urban society. This local radio can also play a vital role to united all the people of different classes during disaster and give necessary advice regarding don’t and do’s. As an example when the structure of the Haitian Government and law and order in Haiti all but disappeared in the days following the quake. But on the ground some Haitian were trying to fill the power vacuum and implement their own self-help operation, encouraged by the city’s radio Metropole, which urged residence:”Organize neighborhood committees to avoid chaos and prevent people looting shops and houses”
(6) Print and electronic media can play a vital role in the same way
(7) The communication sector like land phone or cell phone company can enhance the awareness among the urban people regarding their own responsibility as well as their rights from the government.
The Urbanization process is rapidly increasing due to industrialization revaluation. But it turned the process as an uncontrolled because of wrong development policies of the government. As a result it creates lot of difficulties in urban areas and during disaster it becomes the major obstacle for the humanitarian agencies. The challenges which are faced by the humanitarian agencies during emergency response phase in urban areas these are not common in rural areas. And migration is one of the root causes of these difficulties. The absence of rural development causes people to move in urban areas. The local government system still not strong enough for carry out development process with poor allocation of rural development budget.
The GOB has formulated a workable plan for disaster management from national level to local government level up to union. But this plan needs massive coordination among government different ministries as well as with NGOs and humanitarian agencies. Besides that government needs to strong his local constitution to enhance the capability of local government which includes the urban areas also. The lessons from recent earthquake in Haiti and Chile gave us the real picture of a disaster in urban areas, where the humanitarian agencies faced number of challenges in emergency response phase. This can lesson learnt for us as we have almost same scenario in city like Dhaka and Chittagong. So minimize the difficulties for the humanitarian agencies as well as for the people, the government policies have to be corrected and massive coordination has to be done within government’s different ministries as well as with the NGO’s. The help of social elements and modern technology should be applied to create an urban network for enhancing cooperation and cohesiveness among the different groups of people.
The Author is a military professional (Major) and presently serving under Bangladesh Army, he is experienced on emergency response operations during natural disaster .He is also expert on crisis management. He served under UN peacekeeping mission in CONGO (DRC). He has completed Masters Degree on Disaster Management from BRAC University a renowned NGO based University in Bangladesh.
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Tags: agency, areas, Challenges, Chile, Emergency, Faced, from, Haiti, Humanitarian, Lessons, Response, Urban
