Disaster management, the need to learn

Recently, disasters occurred in many places in the world as well as in Vietnam. For example, earthquakes and tsunamis and then nuclear disasters in Japan. In Vietnam, the most recent is the disaster of wrecking Diem Ky tourist ship in Binh Duong province.

People, in social life, always face risks, even accept them. But from accepting a risk to having an incident, even a disaster is another matter. That is the work of disaster management. So, how to manage disaster?

Want good disaster management, research and identify the cause of the disaster . The cause may be natural, can also be caused by humans, or may be a combination of both. Looking at it in more detail, there are many factors for a disaster, such as technology, people, organization, management . These factors have a close relationship and interaction. each other.

One of the characteristics of organizations that do not have a disaster management plan is that there are very wrong views that suggest that disaster is inevitable and they rely on the help of organizations. Rescue; or think that the organization has enough control over every disaster. These are the deepest causes of disaster and heavy losses when disaster strikes.

Japanese tsunami disaster.

Although there are many types of disasters, but no matter what disaster, disaster management needs to go through 5 stages: Detecting signs and disaster identification; control and prevention; handling and limiting losses; recovery after disaster; and learn from experience, prevent recurrent or similar disasters.

Any potential disaster will show signs that people can recognize, if properly cared for, it will prevent or mitigate the damage caused by the disaster.

The shipwrecks in our country recently have too many signs of disaster have appeared, such as old ships, improper use of carrying people, overloading, there is not enough lifesaver or newly designed but designed designs are not up to standard . but these signs have not been adequately addressed and therefore led to a sinking disaster. Or as in the case of 'Challenge Space Shuttle Tragedy ' or Concorde aircraft explosion, we can see that these are typical examples when the warning signs are not concerned. If NASA cares about technical opinions of the spacecraft's safety and retests, the world aerospace history will not have to capture the grief of ' Tragedy Challenge' . If the airlines were interested in the warning of the US Traffic Safety Authority (NTBS) on the wheel problems of Concorde aircraft, then there were no Concorde catastrophe on 25th. 7/2000

It can also be said that all activities or production and business activities are more or less potential for disaster.The responsibility of a disaster administrator is to control to prevent disasters from occurring, or if not avoided, minimize the loss of people, the environment and the property . Therefore, disaster managers must do their best to prevent catastrophes and to prepare alternatives to disaster if it cannot be prevented. An organization that is considered to do well in disaster management will set up a disaster management board ( CMT ), plan disaster management, set up prevention and coping plans. with disaster, prepare equipment and organize training and coaching for CMT members and related people.

With such preparation, disaster managers are eligible to find any emergency response, prevent, isolate, disperse, minimize loss and disable disaster.

If the disaster had not been avoided, when it had happened, it would have to quickly mitigate its losses with urgent and proper efforts to rescue the victims in a timely manner, then protect the environment and talent. product. The zoning of a 20 km radius at Japan's nuclear power plant is an example.

However, after a disaster, there must be recovery programs to normalize activities of communities and businesses; such as production backup, information systems, communications, machinery, equipment and other production conditions .

Thanks to the good recovery phase, First Interstate Bank in Los Angeles was able to immediately return to normal trading activities immediately after the fire, as the bank had already planned a replacement operation position and previous machinery system, in disaster management plan.

After a disaster, it is also necessary that disaster management organizations need to draw useful lessons from their own experiences and those of other organizations. People conduct thorough work such as checking the work done and analyzing, drawing lessons to exchange with other organizations; concurrently planning disaster prevention, avoiding recurring or similar disasters that occur in the future.

Want to do well in disaster management, it is necessary to have training programs on this work. The immediate program may be a short-term complement. Further vision is to have a training program at the university level. It is not only about crisis management and financial risks, not only fire prevention and fighting (although Vietnam has a Fire Protection University), it is not only a training program on university-level labor protection, it is not just the module of occupational safety in colleges, universities or some more about environmental incident management if it is fortunate to have a place in the training program of the curriculum hazardous waste management at a certain university.

To our knowledge, looking right in the area, the countries around us also have postgraduate training in disaster management.

Dr. Ly Ngoc Minh