Education and Public awareness

            INTRODUCTION

The purpose of disaster mitigation education is to protect one’s life. It is first necessary to be prepared for disasters and to get flexible attitude against disasters depending on the circumstances enough to protect one’s life, the family lives, and one’s belongings when one encounters disasters. People not only “protect their own lives” but also “rescue people just after they become safe”, “support people in the affected area”, “come from far away to support the affected people”, and “support the affected people from far away”.

There is one more important point of view in disaster mitigation education. It is frequently pointed out that no one can do anything else except the actions they have ever been trained at the time of disasters. I would like to indicate here that people were able to implement during Kobe Earthquake what they had never been trained. They cooked emergent dishes for more than 1,000 people at one time. They rescued the buried victims under the debris. They cleaned the ultimately dirty toilets. They took the roles of volunteers and coordinators in the refuges. They connected the needs of the affected people to the supporters. All these actions were taken without the training in advance.

What made these actions possible was the daily capacity of people. They put their daily capacity to emergent disaster managements. The purpose of disaster mitigation education is to raise these daily capacities which can be put into emergent managements. Maiko High School has such a wide point of view in disaster mitigation education. That’s why the education is implemented not only in the classroom to gain the amount of knowledge but also in outside of school to implement fieldworks, to make safety map with the pupils of elementary school nearby, to take part in and give presentations at workshops of disasters and volunteer activities, and to listen to the stories of the people affected by Kobe Earthquake.  These active and practical educations make the students gain the daily capacities.

In a natural disaster—a hurricane, flood, tornado, volcanic eruption, or other calamity—minutes and even seconds of warning can be the difference between life and death. Because of this, scientists and government officials are working to use the latest technological advances to predict when and where disasters will happen. They are also studying how best to analyze and communicate this information once it is obtained. The goal is to put technology to effective use in saving lives and property when nature unleashes its power with devastating results.

1.2       PROBLEM ON HAND

Formulation of national policies and their implementation, preparedness and

mitigation of disaster, immediate rescue and relief works, data collection and dissemination, collection and distribution of funds and resources are the vital segments of disaster management. A state should have its network throughout the country to cope with the natural disasters. Thus, the Ministry of Home Affairs is the key agency for immediate response during disasters in the country. Despite very limited funds and resources the Ministry of Home Affairs is managing the natural disaster in all respects.

Of course, there are a number of problems in disaster management and enough room for the improvement of the natural disaster relief committee and district disaster relief committee are very active. Many professionals realized that the new concepts and skills they learned in international training were vital for their colleagues and country fellows. Some developed and conducted local-level courses on urban disaster mitigation.

1.3       IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING AND AWARENESS AGAINST DISASTER

Universities in South and Southeast Asia are acknowledging the importance of teaching the concepts of disaster risk management to future urban planners, city officials, architects, geologists and other professionals. Others identified disaster risk communication as the locus of their efforts, since they believed that aware communities would be better able to undertake actions for their safety, be it direct or through advocacy with the government. The staff of Sri Lanka’s National Building Research Organization (NBRO), and World Vision Bangladesh, developed “Guidelines for Construction and Human Settlements in Flood Prone Areas” and “Guidelines on Flood Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis”. While this was being done in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, architects in other countries took it upon themselves to ensure the incorporation of seismic-resistant features in building design.

Covering seven nations (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, South Asia is a region sensitive to disasters, points out this report. The region has exhausted its land reserves, and is farming soils that are unsuitable for cultivation. Some 35% of productive land is affected by land degradation. South Asia has a population that is vulnerable to risks in terms of sudden fluctuations in markets and natural shocks arising from weather. This region is also marked by high disparities in income, health and education. Says the study (p.1): "2004-5 was the most appalling period in the history of South Asia. The region became a neighbourhood of disasters." Besides recurring flood and drought, it also had to cope with the December 2004 tsunami (especially in coastal Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Indonesia). There was the October 2005 earthquake in the Himalayan range that killed of 75,000. The means of forecasting natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis, and of communicating disaster information to the public, have improved immensely as science and technology have advanced. In this November 1998 Encarta Yearbook article, Roger A. Pielke, Jr., a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, warns that although their methods are more reliable now than ever, forecasters will never be able to predict disasters with absolute certainty. Pielke stresses the importance of public awareness and planning in minimizing the havoc that disasters can wreak.