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Managing natural disaster risk with earthquake damage scenarios

earthquakes were estimated through the injury and death model RISK.iitb v3.0 (Sinha, Aditya, Gupta, et al., 2008).
Table 2 highlights the total estimated social loss in the scenario.
Based on developed M = 8 Mandi EDS, rapid visual screening of water tanks, pipelines, and building training and
w
capacity building program on Incident Response System (IRS) for various stakeholders were conducted. After necessary
training and capacity building programs, a Mega Shakeout drill was planned and executed in all four states involved in the
four main cities Shimla (Himachal Pradesh), Panchkula (Haryana), Mohali (Punjab), and Chandigarh (Union Territory).
The Shakeout exercise was carried out in 15 locations in each city simultaneously with a sound of the siren as a symbolic
occurrence of an earthquake. The shakeout exercise was followed by activation of response mechanism, including rescue
and relief as per the directions from Emergency Operation Center (EOC) in district headquarters. The Shakeout exercises
were coordinated by the DDMA team, National Disaster Response Force, local police administration, and the district
administration in the presence of SDMA and NDMA members’ experts.

3. Data and Methods
To evaluate the effectiveness of developed EDS and disseminate, the learning from these exercises (i.e., EDS team and
Shakeout team) cross-sectional research design was used. Since this evaluation, as conducted after the intervention being
carried out, therefore, a qualitative research approach was preferred as it gives deep insights into issues and challenges
faced. The qualitative research approach also helped to trace and verify the effectiveness of various documents prepared
during the EDS exercise. Both primary and secondary data sources were used in the study. The secondary data sources
were used to analyze the facts and details about the developed EDS and Shakeout exercises. These resources include (a)
detailed project report and its annexures submitted by IITs to NDMA on Multi-state Mega Mock Exercise under “Mw
8 Mandi Earthquake Scenario: Multi-state Exercise and Awareness Campaign,” (b) developed district and state disaster
management plan as the part of the exercise, and (c) unpublished documents/reports of the state governments and district
administration related to disaster actions carried out by them.
The primary data were collected to get deep insights into the issues and challenges faced in the preparation and
implementation of Mw = 8 Mandi EDS. For this purpose, first, a multi-stakeholder expert group consisting of 12 members
was formulated. Other than the authors of the paper, the other members of the expert group were eminent national and
international experts from both academic and practitioner working in the field of disaster risk management or civil society
organizations. Each member of the expert group had an experience of more than 15 years in their respective area of work.
A day-long round table discussion was organized in which the expert group, the members of the IITs team involved in
preparing scenarios and NDMA observers involved in conducting the mega mock exercise participants. The expert group
members discussed and evaluated the various technical, economic, social, and administrative aspects of the EDS and the
mega shakeout exercise in the round table discussion.
In addition to round table discussion with NDMA observers and IIT team, authors conducted 45 in-depth discussions with
multiple stakeholders working at the state, district, and local levels who have participated in either formulation of EDS or
conducting Shakeout exercises. These stakeholders include policymakers, top officials from the state government responsible
for disaster management, and head of the various emergency services such as public administration, water sanitation services,
fire, medical services, and transport. An in-depth interview guide was prepared to interview these stakeholders. Since it was an
official assignment, therefore, each official responded to the interview in its official capacity, hence did not require any informed
consent. However, each stakeholder was assured by the study team that their personal detailed will not be shared at any forum.
4. Results

4.1. Data Availability for EDS Development
The success of an effective EDS development depends on the availability of data not just of seismic hazards such as
fault locations, but also it requires data on various demographic, social, and economic issues such as population density,
vulnerable age groups, occupation and level and type of industry existence, literacy rate, building typology, and the
income level of the population. During the in-depth discussion with IIT Bombay and IIT Madras, it was found that the
Central Government/State Governments need to adopt data policy that should articulate the nature and resolution of data
that would be collected and compiled by the government as most of the available data are not follow same standards. IIT
Bombay team commented following about data availability:
“….In the Mandi project, where only a macro-level scenario was planned, the absence of data did not pose a critical
obstacle. However, when higher-resolution simulations are carried out, the availability of data would need to be

34 International Journal of Population Studies | 2020, Volume 6, Issue 1