The global cost of disasters is growing: The economic burden of disasters is intensifying. While the direct costs of disasters averaged $70–80 billion a year between 1970 and 2000, between 2001 and 2020 these annual costs grew significantly to $180–200 billion. But the real cost is far higher. Disaster costs …
THE total seasonal rainfall during the year's southwest monsoon (June 1 to September 30) for the country as a whole was 99 per cent of its long-period average (LPA), which, being within plus or minus 10 per cent of the LPA, can be termed as a `normal' monsoon. However, both …
Providing relief after a disaster like the December 2004 tsunami is a great challenge, especially in archipelagos far away from the mainland. But the administration of the Union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has just shown how to make effective relief even more difficult. Two items
Around 50 children and many adults of an isolated tribe in the Andaman and Nicobar islands have contracted measles in the past month, says a bbc report. That works out to around 20 per cent of the total population of the tribe. Doctors warn the illness could seriously affect the …
Members of the world's most isolated tribe, the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands, killed two fishermen who had illegally approached their island on January 26, 2006. Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari were killed in their boat near North Sentinel Island. It is illegal to go within five kilometres of the …
A year has passed since the killer tsunami devastated the islands, but the Rs 600-crore corpus set aside by the Central government for rehabilitation of those who lost their homes, is yet to be utilised. The reason: the Centre can't make up its mind on the design for tribal housing, …
A NEW understanding of future earthquakes, especially in South Asia, has emerged from studies of the tremor that caused the devastating December 26, 2004 tsunami in the region. The findings of three studies on the Sumatra-Andaman quake have been published in the latest edition of the journal Science (May 20, …
indian scientists have uncovered a missing link in the prehistoric human migration jigsaw puzzle by revealing that two reclusive tribes in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are among the world's oldest surviving indigenous groups. The researchers from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (ccmb), in Hyderabad, have gathered enough …
people dependent on the tourism industry in the tsunami-hit Andaman and Nicobar islands have managed to survive despite the crash in tourist inflow. The relief workers, scientists, journalists and others visiting the islands post-disaster have provided them work: a phenomenon termed by many in the business as "disaster tourism'. "The …
first came the tsunami. Then the crocodiles. Many south Andaman villages have of late started complaining about frequent crocodile attacks. But the authorities are clueless about how to solve the problem. Residents of Wandoor and Hut Bay villages are a especially troubled lot. Tsunami waves have pushed crocodiles closer to …
the recent Supreme Court (sc) judgement on tree felling in Andaman and Nicobar islands has triggered a controversy. The court, revising its May 7, 2002, order, allowed tree felling in the islands for six months to help repair and build houses for Tsunami disaster victims (see
At 6.29 am, on the morning of December 26, 2004 an undersea earthquake erupts in Sumatra, triggering off tidal waves called tsunami. A minute later, the India Meteorological Department (imd) gets the news. In 15 minutes, imd tracks the tsunami to the Indonesian coastline. But they make no attempt to …
The monitoring and management of the Indian coastline has come under sharp focus after the tsunami disaster. There is now a strong demand to implement the Coastal Regulatory Zone (crz) notification of 1991. Let us look at why protecting coastal ecology is so critical. Natural protectors, such as sand dunes …
The Indian ocean covers 73,556,000 sq km, or 20 per cent of the world’s surface. Aspects like oceanography, geophysical phenomena, undersea exploration and economic and military uses have a bearing on ocean behaviour. How cognisant are our experts with this large water body? Other than isolated research programmes associated with …
It would be naive to assume that disasters will stop. We cannot change the nature of disasters. What we can change, certainly control, is the scale that a disaster wreaks. This is precisely what disaster preparedness
Scientists believe that the Sumatra earthquake made the earth wobble on its axis and permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation, shortening a day by a fraction of second and permanently altering the regional map. The devastating undersea earthquake off Sumatra in Indonesia has brought about some striking changes in the Indian …
Disasters are not predictable. They follow no standard operating procedures. Disaster preparedness is about managing the unknown, not a science but a social behaviour that’s responsive, predictive and imaginative.• Effective disaster management depends on four factors: • Preparedness: knowing where and when disaster will hit • Mitigation: through measures like …
Please act: The Supreme Court issued a notice to the Union government on January 3, 2004, in response to a petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) that seeks a thorough examination of the contents of soft drinks. The petition points out that despite extensive research proving that …
Even as relief work continues in areas devastated by the tsunami, the corpus of the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund has quietly swelled to around Rs 500 crore. The money is said to be the largest corpus ever collected through the fund. This is just money that has been sent …
