The Disaster Management Cycle

Dr Arun Mitra

Dept of Community and Family Medicine, AIIMS, Bibinagar

2026-06-11

Contents

  • What we mean by hazard, vulnerability, and disaster
  • The four phases of the disaster management cycle
  • India’s institutional framework (DM Act, 2005)
  • The 2018 Kerala floods, phase by phase
  • The doctor’s role in response and recovery

What is a disaster?

Hazard is not the same as disaster

  • A hazard is a threatening event: heavy rain, an earthquake, an outbreak
  • A disaster is what happens when a hazard meets a population that cannot cope
  • The same hazard can pass harmlessly, or turn deadly. The difference is vulnerability

Risk has three parts

Risk = Hazard × Vulnerability ÷ Capacity

  • Hazard: the threatening event itself, such as a flood, cyclone, or earthquake
  • Vulnerability: conditions that expose people to harm, such as where and how they live
  • Capacity: the resources and systems that help a community cope and recover

The disaster management cycle

Four phases, repeating

Mitigation

Preparedness

Response

Recovery

  • Mitigation: reduce the risk before anything happens
  • Preparedness: plan, warn, and train for when it does
  • Response: rescue, relief, and emergency health care
  • Recovery: rebuild, and rebuild better

Disaster Management Cycle

India’s framework

Disaster Management Act, 2005

The Act moved India from a relief-centred system to a proactive one.

NDMA, national, chaired by the PM

SDMA, state, chaired by the CM

DDMA, district, chaired by the Collector

NDRF, specialist response force

  • NDMA: apex policy body
  • SDMA: state authority, chaired by the Chief Minister
  • DDMA: district authority, the operational unit on the ground
  • NDRF: trained response force, deployable nationwide

Case study · Kerala, August 2018

The scale

  • Worst floods in Kerala since 1924
  • 433 deaths officially, with later counts up to 483
  • 1.4 million people displaced into 3,274 relief camps
  • 5.4 million affected, about one in six residents
  • 13 of 14 districts flooded
  • Damage and loss assessed at ₹26,720 crore

Cleaning a home after the water receded. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Reading Kerala through the risk equation

The same three lenses explain the 2018 disaster.

  • Hazard: rainfall 164% above normal in the first 19 days of August
  • Vulnerability: floodplain settlement and reservoirs held near full, with weak warnings
  • Capacity: rescue forces, fishermen, and the relief system that limited the toll

High hazard met high vulnerability. Strong capacity is what kept the toll from being far worse.

Same place, six months apart

A compound disaster

Two drivers acted together.

  • June was 15% above normal, July 18%, and 1 to 19 August 164% above normal
  • The three-day peak of 15 to 17 August matched the great flood of 1924
  • One and two-day totals had return periods of roughly 75 and 200 years
  • For the first time, 35 of 54 dams were opened
  • Six of seven major reservoirs were over 90% full by 8 August, leaving almost no cushion
  • Most dams were run for power and irrigation, not flood control

Important

Scholarly view: extreme rain was the primary cause, but reservoir operation worsened the downstream impact.

Phase 2 · Preparedness: the warning gap

  • IMD issued escalating colour-coded alerts, and the situation was monitored daily
  • But Kerala had no independent flood or landslide early-warning system
  • Quantitative rainfall forecasts under-predicted the actual fall
  • Some dam-release alerts travelled by WhatsApp rather than formal channels
  • Residents in several towns reported receiving no evacuation warning

Important

A warning that does not reach the last household is not preparedness.

Phase 3 · Response: one of India’s largest rescues

  • 58 NDRF teams, the highest single-state deployment
  • Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard operations
  • The Navy alone rescued 16,843 people
  • Together the forces saved over 60,000 lives

Night rescue planning, Kollam. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Phase 3 · The community responded first

  • About 4,537 fishermen with 669 boats are estimated to have saved 65,000 people
  • Kudumbashree women’s groups mobilised in the hundreds of thousands
  • Volunteer technologists ran keralarescue.in to triage rescue requests

Relief collection centre, Thiruvananthapuram. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Ask: Why were untrained local fishermen so effective when official teams stood down at night?

Phase 3 · The health response

This is where the doctor’s work concentrates.

  • Safe water and sanitation in 3,274 camps
  • Mass doxycycline prophylaxis for anyone who waded through floodwater
  • Disease surveillance restarted quickly
  • Leptospirosis still rose to 1,318 confirmed cases and 53 deaths
  • Dengue, diarrhoeal disease, and chickenpox were also reported

A flooded hospital, Perumbavoor. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Important

Given 5.4 million affected, the contained epidemic toll counts as a relative public health success.

Phase 4 · Recovery: build back better

  • India’s first full Post-Disaster Needs Assessment, with UN and World Bank support, October 2018
  • Total damage and loss assessed at ₹26,720 crore, recovery needs at ₹31,000 crore
  • The Rebuild Kerala Initiative set a green and resilient reconstruction plan
  • Health, housing, and water were treated as sectors to rebuild, not just repair

Recovery is the bridge back to mitigation. Better-built systems lower the next disaster’s risk.

Pulling it together

The cycle maps to the Sendai Framework

Cycle phase Sendai priority (2015 to 2030)
Mitigation P1 Understand risk; P3 Invest in risk reduction
Preparedness P2 Strengthen risk governance
Response P4 Enhance preparedness for response
Recovery P4 Build back better

India’s National Disaster Management Plan was the first national plan aligned with all four Sendai priorities.

Where does the doctor fit?

Mostly in response and recovery:

  • Triage and emergency care
  • Relief-camp health: safe water, sanitation, crowding
  • Disease surveillance and prophylaxis, as with doxycycline for leptospirosis
  • Dignified and safe dead-body management
  • Immunisation and psychological first aid

Important

Disaster management is everyone’s job, but the camp’s health is the doctor’s.

Summary

  • A disaster is a hazard meeting a vulnerable, under-prepared population
  • The cycle is continuous: recovery feeds the next round of mitigation
  • Kerala’s response was strong; the preparedness and mitigation phase was the weak link
  • Community responders were decisive
  • The doctor’s frontline is camp health, surveillance, and prophylaxis

References

  • Central Water Commission. Study Report: Kerala Floods of August 2018. 2018.
  • KSDMA. Kerala Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA). February 2019.
  • IDSP. Outbreak of Leptospirosis in Kerala. PMC6541470.
  • Disaster Management Act, 2005, Government of India.
  • UNDRR. Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 to 2030.
  • NASA Earth Observatory. Before and After the Kerala Floods. Satellite imagery, public domain.

Questions?

Thank you