Natural Disasters in the North-East: Crucial Role of Academia in Saving Lives

Abstract

Northeast India has been identified as one of the six most earthquake-prone areas of the world, the other five being Mexico, Taiwan, California, Japan and Turkey (Honolulu Workshop: May 1978 ). In fact, seven States in our North Eastern Region (NER) namely, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, fall in the maximum seismic vulnerability Zone V: only Sikkim (included in NER in the year 2005) falls in Zone-IV. Enactment of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, led to the setting up of a high-level National Disaster Management Authority and effective DM-machinery across the country down to the District level. Yet the fact remains that in a country as vast and populous as India, pro-active participation of the community is a pre-requisite for ensuring that loss of life and assets in disasters is reduced to the irreducible minimum. Willing and ready response can be assured only if the initiative comes from within the community. The emphasis in this article, therefore, is on motivation of the Academia—Students & Teachers—who belong to the Community, are lovingly owned by them, and permeate even the weakest sections, to take on the task of motivation, preparation (and even drilling) of the entire local community to effectively enable each man, woman and child to meet this challenge in their respective local areas, of course, in close cooperation with and supervision of the local DM-authorities and experts in Disaster Management. __ __ __