Summary |
The maiden issue of the South Asia Disaster Report (SADR) last year had generated a lot of interest among policy makers, scientists, researchers and practitioners on disaster management in the region and outside. Encouraged by the positive and enthusiastic comments received from and reviewers, the professionals of the SAARC Disaster Management Centre (SDMC) have worked hard to improve the format and content of the report this year.
SADR 2008 is largely based on the International Emergency Disaster Database (EMDAT) maintained by the Centre for Research on Epidemiology on Disasters (CRED), Leuven. However, this year, we have tried to look beyond the global data base to the seamless information generated on a daily basis by the large number of newspapers published in the South Asia region. The SDMC has been scanning all these newspapers on a daily basis, and compiling a weekly Disaster Update. 54 issues of the Updates published during 2008 provided valuable inputs for the South Asia Disaster Report 2008.We have further looked into various other databases on natural and man made disasters maintained by national governments, international organizations.
SADR 2008, like the report of previous year has been structured in three main parts. Part I covers the hydro-meteorological disasters of cyclones, floods, droughts, glacial lake outbursts, heavy snow fall, avalanches, heat and cold waves and forest fires. Part II includes geological disasters of earthquakes and landslides, while Part III captures manmade and biological disasters. The introductory chapter analyzes the overall disaster trends during the year and the concluding chapter summarizes the main findings.
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