Image: IFRC @ flickr.com
Haiti earthquake
thE MISSInG cAPAcItIES FoR MEGA DISAStER MAnAGEMEnt Caroline Brassard identifies the missing capacities – political, operational and social – needed for an effective disaster recovery process, and the implications for public policy.
38 · Oct–Dec 2011 ·
M
ega disasters occur when the response to a disaster completely overwhelms the emergency and relief agencies. Examples of inefficient preparation and response are abundant, such as Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005 and the Haiti Earthquake in 2010. The Asian continent has been home to most of the world’s recent mega natural disasters,
ranging from tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and Japan, to earthquakes in China, floods in the Philippines and Pakistan and cyclones in Myanmar. Each case illustrates that mega disasters are a result of a combination of factors, such as a lack of preventive measures and prior preparation. In the context of Asian developing countries, the success of