National Disaster Management Act, 2005 defines Disaster as “catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or man made causes, or by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of, property, or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area”. With the introduction of a paradigm shift in the approach to disaster management, a full cycle of activities from pre-disaster to post disaster is drawn up. The pre-disaster activities like mitigation, prevention, and preparedness are called “Risk Management” and the post disaster activities like response, relief, recovery, rehabilitation are called “Crisis Management”. Therefore, the Crisis Management brought out here covers only the post disaster activities. The Risk Management is being taken up in the State Disaster Management Plan.
