A natural disaster is the highly harmful impact on a society or community following a natural hazard event. Some examples of natural hazard events include: flooding, drought, earthquake, tropical cyclone, lightning, tsunami, volcanic activity, wildfire. A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves economic damage in its wake. The severity of the damage depends on the affected population's resilience and on the infrastructure available. Scholars have been saying that the term natural disaster is unsuitable and should be abandoned. Instead, the simpler term disaster could be used, while also specifying the category of hazard. A disaster is a result of a natural or human-made hazard impacting a vulnerable community. It is the combination of the hazard along with exposure of a vulnerable society that results in a disaster.
The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS), created in July 2001 and disbanded in July 2022, was the executive department of the British Cabinet Office responsible for emergency planning in the UK. The role of the secretariat was to ensure the United Kingdom's resilience against disruptive challenge, and to do this by working with others to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover. Until its creation in 2001, emergency planning in Britain was the responsibility of the Home Office. The CCS also supports the Civil Contingencies Committee, also known as COBR.
Emergency management or disaster management is a science and a system charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actually focus on the management of emergencies, which can be understood as minor events with limited impacts and are managed through the day-to-day functions of a community. Instead, emergency management focuses on the management of disasters, which are events that produce more impacts than a community can handle on its own. The management of disasters tends to require some combination of activity from individuals and households, organizations, local, and/or higher levels of government. Although many different terminologies exist globally, the activities of emergency management can be generally categorized into preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery, although other terms such as disaster risk reduction and prevention are also common. The outcome of emergency management is to prevent disasters and where this is not possible, to reduce their harmful impacts.
Shane Leslie Stone is an Australian political figure. He served as the Chair of the Council for the Order of Australia from 2018 to 2023. He was also the Coordinator-General of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency and its predecessors until August 2022. He was previously the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory between May 1995 and February 1999, representing the Country Liberal Party. He was also the President of the Liberal Party of Australia between July 1999 and 2005.
Emergency Management Australia (EMA) was an Australian Government body responsible for emergency management coordination. EMA was transferred from the Attorney-General's Department in a machinery of government change to become a division of the newly established Department of Home Affairs in 2018. EMA involved the plans, structures and arrangements which are established to bring together the normal endeavours of government, voluntary and private agencies in a comprehensive and coordinated way to deal with the whole spectrum of emergency needs including prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. It was dissolved on the 1 September 2022.
The National Emergency Management Agency is the public service department of New Zealand responsible for providing leadership and support around national, local and regional emergencies. It is an autonomous departmental agency hosted by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. It replaced the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management in December 2019.
Many countries around the world have civil defense organizations dedicated to protecting civilians from military attacks and providing rescue services after widespread disasters. In most countries, civil defense is a government-managed and often volunteer-staffed organization.
Emergency Management in Australia is a shared responsibility between the Government appointed body Emergency Management Australia and local councils.
The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) was an organizational unit within the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) charged by the President of the United States with directing and coordinating international United States government disaster assistance. USAID merged the former offices of OFDA and Food for Peace (FFP) in 2020 to form the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA).
Disaster management in India — policies, laws, routines, and courses-of-action to aid in the conservation and recovery of lives and property during a natural or man-made disaster. Disaster management plans are multi-layered, and are planned to address issues such as floods, hurricanes/cyclones, fire, mass failure of utilities (blackouts) and the rapid spread of disease (pandemic).
From a meteorological standpoint, India is especially vulnerable to natural disasters due to its unique location below the Himalayas as well as its geo-climatic conditions and varied landscapes; monsoons, subsequent landslides and floods, droughts, famine, wildfires, cyclones, and earthquakes are all experienced to varying degrees on the Subcontinent, in addition to areas of dense overpopulation being at greater risk for disease outbreak and sanitation concerns, in the event of a natural disaster.
Due to this vastness of the country, different regions are vulnerable to different natural disasters. For example, during monsoon season, it is the peninsular regions of South India that are generally most affected, as well as by cyclone or tsunami; the more temperate to arid states of western India risk severe drought, famine and/or wildfire during summer. The more remote, mountainous regions of the North, especially the Himalayan states, can experience devastating avalanches in winter, spring flooding and major landslides during wet periods. This is in addition to earthquakes which, in the mountains, bring the potential for increased devastation due to falling rocks, mudslides, and flash floods.
David Kelly Littleproud is an Australian politician who has been the leader of the National Party since May 2022. He has represented the Queensland seat of Maranoa since the 2016 federal election and was a cabinet minister in the Turnbull and Morrison governments.
The Department of Home Affairs is the Australian Government interior ministry with responsibilities for national security, law enforcement, emergency management, border control, immigration, refugees, citizenship, transport security and multicultural affairs. The portfolio also includes federal agencies such as the Australian Border Force and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. The Home Affairs portfolio reports to the Minister for Home Affairs, currently held by Clare O'Neil, and was led by the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, until his sacking in November 2023 for breaching the code of conduct. In 2022, the Australian Federal Police, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and Australian Transaction and Analysis Center were de-merged from the department and moved to the Attorney General portfolio.
Anne Leadbeater was awarded an Order of Australia OAM for services to the community following the 2019 bushfires, and is a fellow of the EMPA.
The National Recovery and Resilience Agency (NRRA) was an Australian government executive agency to help those affected by natural disasters, including droughts, bushfires, and floods. It was an agency of the Department of Home Affairs from 1 July 2022 until it was replaced by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in September 2022. Before this, it was an agency of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, also referred to as the Bushfires Royal Commission, was a royal commission established in 2020 by the Australian government to inquire into and report upon natural disaster management coordination as it related to the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. The Commission was charged with the responsibility of examining the coordination, preparedness for, response to and recovery from disasters, as well as improving resilience and adapting to changing climatic conditions and mitigating the impact of natural disasters.
Resilience NSW was a Government of New South Wales executive agency within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, focused on disaster management and was responsible for disaster recovery and building community resilience to future disasters. It was established on 1 May 2020, following the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season a few months prior. It replaced the Office of Emergency Management, an office within the Department of Communities and Justice.
The New South Wales Minister for Emergency Services is a minister within the Government of New South Wales who has the oversight of the emergency service agencies.
Muhammed Mu’azu Mukaddas, is a Disaster Management Expert with an extensive disaster management experience. He was appointed by Governor Ahmed Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, as the Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA). Mukaddas worked at the Bauchi State Field Office of the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF Nigeria. The visionary leadership of Mukaddas has changed the perceptions of humanitarian actors in the state from responding to emergencies, to preventing occurrences and building community resilience to mitigate impact of disasters. This strategy has entrenched disaster risk reduction at all levels through public sensitization outreaches, campaigns, workshops and training.
