Effective Flood Response Mechanism

Nepal has always remained vulnerable to natural disaster mainly because of its fragile geographical faculties, high peaks, changing climate condition and unplanned settlement. However, apart from these structural scarcities, other systematic negligence like weak disaster response, lack of coordination among relief teams and absence of governmental initiative also comes in the picture.

Monsoon clouds finally entered Nepal’s skies two days late than normal, but it arrived with an unexpected volume of rain followed by landside that caused humanitarian crises situation in different parts of Nepal. Heavy rains triggered flash floods and landslides that killed at least 40 people and displaced thousands in western Nepal. Twenty people were killed and at least 13 others were missing in the Myagdi district alone. However, it’s a shameful act that in such a national emergency conditioned by ongoing COVID-19 threat and natural disasters, the government is busy in political chessboard.

In this national emergency time, the government of Nepal should overcome political issues and find some effective mechanism to provide immediate relief to the flood victims. The country needs to consider previous failed attempt and determine when and how the recovery operation should be carried out for getting maximum outputs. Given the fact that the disaster-relief efforts require swift response, but the assistance must be of the right type. In previous natural disaster, many affected areas in Nepal witnessed cases like there was abundance of medicine but no food and in other cases, there were piles of food package but lacks even basic first aid medical assistance. Thus strong coordination with all involved teams is needed to ignore such mistakes in upcoming relief programs.

The first step to response mechanism shall begin by identifying the nature of flood, and all the relief amenities should be planned accordingly. The ongoing catastrophic flood in our country can be framed under the type of riverine or drainage-line floods usually caused by upstream rainfall or sometime by the failure of dams. Such floods can affect large areas and can disturb millions of people. If we look back at the historical doom, the 1993 dam failure flood in Nepal was more like a storm surge than a typical riverine flood. In the summer of 1993 Nepal was beaten by heavy rains that caused three major rivers to overflow in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Thousands of people died, while up to 400,000 others were injured, displaced or suffered property damage.

The sudden climate changes that result the inconsistency of weather marking rainfall has increased the possibility of more natural disaster. So any kind of delay in relief program could push the victims to more vulnerable status. Similarly, one of the overlooked circumstances that need to be considered during flood is that the farms which use the plough and other manual tools are likely to resist flood damage than the farms that used machinery. Thus during relief and rescue program, these things should be considered, and area priorities should be queued accordingly. Flood is often considered different than other disaster because their impact remains long term either through continued waterlogging or the way it affects the livelihood of victim population. So, alike the response mechanism used in other type of humanitarian crises, for effective outcomes, the rescuing party need to coordinate and consult with affected population before executing any huge operation. But if the rescue agency is already aware regarding the condition of flood-affected community, then the need assessment can be followed. For example, after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in SriLankan, the agency familiar with affected context directly launched response activities rather than making formal assessments.

Nepal can learn different relief modality from international cases and also from its own genesis of humanitarian crises during previous flood and earthquakes situation. One of the best measures can be the direct relief approach, which is the systematic model to respond the immediate needs of victims by working with local partners and prepare for the long-term recovery. Each crises situation has specific characteristics that highly depend on local facts and circumstances during affected period. In such context, the relief team needs to coordinate with other local, national, and international responders to minimize overemphasis on single aspect, avoid duplication of efforts, and to ensure efficient use of resources.

Likewise, during flood relief operation in affected areas of Nepal, the response team should consider that the immediate priority after a natural disaster is providing emergency medical services to injured persons. This puts the local residents, emergency workers, public-safety officers, and health professionals at the position of initial responders. The second priority should be given to the preparations for food and shelter, including the immediate arrangement of new supply lines. And beside this immediate response, other needs of the community should be gradually addressed as per the degree of victimization.