Disaster Management — From Relief to Risk Reduction

Practice questions (18)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

1. Under the Disaster Management Act 2005, the National Disaster Management Authority is chaired by:

   1. The Union Home Minister
   2. The Prime Minister
   3. The Cabinet Secretary
   4. The Union Home Secretary
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   Answer: B — The Prime Minister

   The Prime Minister is the ex officio chairperson of NDMA, with up to nine other members nominated by the chairperson. The Union Home Secretary is the tempting choice because the Home Ministry is the nodal ministry — but the Home Secretary chairs the National Executive Committee, the body that assists NDMA, not the Authority itself. The Cabinet Secretary chairs the National Crisis Management Committee, and the Home Minister, though politically responsible for the subject, does not chair NDMA.

2. Who chairs a District Disaster Management Authority under the Disaster Management Act 2005?

   1. The elected head of the zila parishad, as the district’s representative body
   2. The Superintendent of Police, who commands the first responders
   3. The Collector, District Magistrate or Deputy Commissioner
   4. The Chief Medical Officer, since health response comes first
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   Answer: C — The Collector, District Magistrate or Deputy Commissioner

   The Act makes the Collector, District Magistrate or Deputy Commissioner the chairperson, because the district’s administrative head is the one who can direct every department in an emergency. The elected representative of the local authority is the trap: that person is the co-chairperson, not the chair, which is the Act’s way of giving local democracy a seat without splitting command. The Superintendent of Police and the Chief Medical Officer are members whose departments respond, not the chair.

3. According to the definition in the Disaster Management Act 2005, what makes a grave occurrence a "disaster"?

   1. It must arise from natural causes rather than human action
   2. It must cause more than a notified number of deaths
   3. It must be formally declared a national calamity by the Union
   4. It must be beyond the coping capacity of the affected community
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   Answer: D — It must be beyond the coping capacity of the affected community

   The Act’s test is coping capacity: the occurrence must be of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area. The first option is the commonest misconception — the definition expressly includes man-made causes, accident and negligence, which is why Bhopal-type events fall within it. There is no death threshold in the definition, and the Act has no procedure for declaring a "national calamity"; severity matters for funding, not for whether an event is a disaster.

4. A strong earthquake strikes an uninhabited inland desert and causes no loss of life or property. In disaster-management terms, this event is best described as:

   1. A hazard event that did not become a disaster, as nothing was exposed
   2. A disaster, because the magnitude of the earthquake was high enough to qualify
   3. A slow-onset disaster whose impacts will appear over the following years
   4. A secondary hazard, since the primary hazard would be the tsunami that follows
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   Answer: A — A hazard event that did not become a disaster, as nothing was exposed

   A disaster needs a hazard to meet exposed and vulnerable people or assets; with nothing exposed, the earthquake remains a hazard event. The second option is the trap of measuring a disaster by the size of the hazard — magnitude describes the earthquake, not its consequences, which is the same error as reading a cyclone’s strength from its death toll. An earthquake is sudden-onset, not slow-onset. And a tsunami needs an undersea earthquake, which an inland one is not; in any case a tsunami would be the secondary hazard, not the primary one.

5. In the context of disaster management in India, "NDRF" refers to:

   1. Only the National Disaster Response Force
   2. Only the National Disaster Response Fund
   3. A disaster relief wing of the Indian Army
   4. Both a response force and a response fund under the Act
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   Answer: D — Both a response force and a response fund under the Act

   The Act constitutes both: the National Disaster Response Force under Section 44, a specialist force of battalions drawn from the Central Armed Police Forces, and the National Disaster Response Fund under Section 46. Either "only" option is the trap of knowing one half of the acronym — and the context of a question (deployment versus money) is what tells you which one is meant. The Army does assist civil authorities in disasters, but the NDRF is not an Army formation.

6. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction covers the period:

   1. 2005–2015
   2. 2016–2030
   3. 2015–2030
   4. 2020–2030
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   Answer: C — 2015–2030

   Sendai was adopted in March 2015 and runs to 2030. 2005–2015 is the Hyogo Framework for Action, which it replaced. 2016–2030 is the trap for anyone thinking of the Sustainable Development Goals, whose implementation began in 2016. And 2020–2030 is the decade whose average disaster mortality Sendai’s first target compares against 2005–2015 — a real date from the framework, but not its period.

7. Which of the following is NOT one of the seven global targets of the Sendai Framework?

   1. A legally binding national cap on annual disaster losses
   2. Reducing direct economic loss in relation to global GDP
   3. Increasing access to multi-hazard early warning systems
   4. Reducing damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services
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   Answer: A — A legally binding national cap on annual disaster losses

   Sendai is a voluntary, non-binding framework, so a legally binding cap is exactly what it does not contain — and the word "binding" is the clue. The other three are genuine targets: (c) economic loss relative to GDP, (g) early warning and risk information, and (d) critical infrastructure and basic services. The trap is to treat Sendai like a treaty with obligations, when its seven targets are global outcomes measured against a 2005–2015 baseline, four to reduce and three to increase.

8. What is the first of the four priorities for action under the Sendai Framework?

   1. Strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk
   2. Understanding disaster risk
   3. Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience
   4. Enhancing preparedness for effective response and to build back better
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   Answer: B — Understanding disaster risk

   The order is understanding risk, governance, investment, then preparedness and build back better — and the logic is that you cannot govern or invest against a risk you have not first understood. Governance is the most common wrong choice because it sounds like the foundation, but it is second. "Build back better" is the phrase most associated with Sendai, which makes the last option tempting, yet it sits in the fourth priority, attached to recovery.

9. India’s tsunami early warning centre is operated by:

   1. The India Meteorological Department, New Delhi
   2. The National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad
   3. The Geological Survey of India, Kolkata
   4. INCOIS, Hyderabad
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   Answer: D — INCOIS, Hyderabad

   The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre is at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, and has been operational since 2007 — set up because India had no tsunami warning in 2004. IMD is the tempting answer because it issues cyclone warnings, but tsunami warning is an ocean-observation task. The National Remote Sensing Centre is also in Hyderabad, which is the trap in the second option; it is ISRO’s satellite data centre. GSI is the nodal agency for landslides, not tsunamis.

10. River flood forecasts — water levels and reservoir inflows at forecasting stations — are issued in India by:

    1. The Central Water Commission
    2. The India Meteorological Department, which forecasts the rainfall behind them
    3. The National Disaster Management Authority
    4. The Central Ground Water Board
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    Answer: A — The Central Water Commission

    The Central Water Commission, under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, runs the flood forecasting network and issues level and inflow forecasts. IMD is the trap because its rainfall forecasts are an input to those forecasts — but forecasting the rain and forecasting the river are separate jobs held by separate agencies. NDMA lays down policy and guidelines and disseminates alerts; it does not run hydrological forecasting. The Central Ground Water Board deals with groundwater, not surface floods.

11. The gas that leaked from the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal in December 1984 was:

    1. Phosgene
    2. Chlorine
    3. Methyl isocyanate
    4. Hydrogen sulphide
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    Answer: C — Methyl isocyanate

    Methyl isocyanate (MIC), an intermediate in the manufacture of pesticides, escaped from a storage tank on the night of 2–3 December 1984. Phosgene is the closest trap: it was one of the raw materials used at the plant to make MIC, so it appears in accounts of the disaster, but it was not the gas that spread over the city. Chlorine and hydrogen sulphide are toxic industrial gases associated with other accidents, not with Bhopal.

12. Which law requires an enterprise handling hazardous substances to take insurance so that victims of an accident receive immediate relief on a no-fault basis?

    1. The Environment (Protection) Act 1986
    2. The Public Liability Insurance Act 1991
    3. The Disaster Management Act 2005
    4. The National Green Tribunal Act 2010
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    Answer: B — The Public Liability Insurance Act 1991

    The Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 obliges the owner of an undertaking handling hazardous substances to carry insurance, so that relief reaches victims immediately without anyone first having to prove fault — the gap Bhopal’s long litigation exposed. The Environment (Protection) Act 1986 is the strongest distractor, because it was the umbrella law enacted after Bhopal and the chemical-safety rules are made under it, but it does not create this insurance duty. The Disaster Management Act sets up institutions and funds, and the National Green Tribunal Act creates the forum that hears environmental claims rather than the insurance obligation.

13. Which state set up India’s first state disaster management authority, years before the Disaster Management Act 2005?

    1. Odisha
    2. Gujarat
    3. Tamil Nadu
    4. Andhra Pradesh
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    Answer: A — Odisha

    Odisha created its state disaster management authority in 1999, after the super cyclone, by executive decision. Gujarat is the deliberate trap: it set up an authority after the 2001 Bhuj earthquake and passed the first state disaster management law in 2003, so it holds a different "first" — the first state Act, not the first authority. Tamil Nadu’s and Andhra Pradesh’s coasts are cyclone- and tsunami-prone, which makes them plausible, but neither preceded Odisha.

14. The destruction at Kedarnath in June 2013 was greatly worsened by:

    1. An earthquake that triggered landslides across the Mandakini valley
    2. The failure of the Tehri dam’s spillway during the monsoon peak
    3. A cyclone from the Bay of Bengal that crossed into the hills
    4. The breach of the Chorabari lake above the town during extreme rainfall
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    Answer: D — The breach of the Chorabari lake above the town during extreme rainfall

    Extreme rainfall, as the early monsoon interacted with a western disturbance, caused flash floods and debris flows, and the breach of the Chorabari lake above Kedarnath sent a surge of water and debris into the town. There was no earthquake: the landslides were rain-triggered, which is the trap in the first option. The Tehri dam is on the Bhagirathi, not the Mandakini, and did not fail. And no cyclone was involved — the weather system was the monsoon meeting a western disturbance.

15. For a station in the plains, IMD declares a heat wave on the basis of actual maximum temperature alone when it reaches at least:

    1. 40°C
    2. 42°C
    3. 45°C
    4. 47°C
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    Answer: C — 45°C

    On actual temperature alone, 45°C is a heat wave for a plains station and 47°C a severe heat wave. 40°C is the trap: it is the threshold the maximum must reach before a heat wave is considered at all, after which the departure from normal — 4.5°C or more — decides it. 47°C is the severe-heat-wave mark, and 42°C has no role in the criteria.

16. The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) was launched by India at:

    1. COP21 in Paris, 2015
    2. The UN Climate Action Summit in New York, 2019
    3. The Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, 2015
    4. The G20 summit in New Delhi, 2023
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    Answer: B — The UN Climate Action Summit in New York, 2019

    CDRI was launched at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in September 2019, with its secretariat in New Delhi. COP21 in Paris is the trap for anyone mixing up India’s two coalitions — the International Solar Alliance was launched there in 2015. The Sendai conference adopted the Sendai Framework, not CDRI, though CDRI serves that framework’s infrastructure target. And the 2023 G20 in New Delhi came four years after CDRI already existed.

17. Which change in India’s disaster financing is associated with the Fifteenth Finance Commission?

    1. Creation of a Calamity Relief Fund for each state
    2. Renaming the calamity funds as disaster response funds
    3. Operational mitigation funds beside the response funds
    4. Shifting disaster relief from the Agriculture to the Home Ministry
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    Answer: C — Operational mitigation funds beside the response funds

    The Fifteenth Finance Commission recommended a disaster risk management fund at national and state level with response and mitigation windows in an 80:20 split, which finally made the mitigation funds the 2005 Act had provided for operational. The renaming of the calamity funds as SDRF and NDRF is the closest trap, but it came in 2010, after the Thirteenth Finance Commission. The Calamity Relief Fund dates from the Ninth Finance Commission, and the move of the subject to the Home Ministry in 2002 was an administrative decision, not a Finance Commission award.

18. Retrofitting existing school buildings to the seismic code, before any earthquake has occurred, is an example of:

    1. Preparedness
    2. Mitigation
    3. Response
    4. Recovery
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    Answer: B — Mitigation

    Retrofitting permanently changes what an earthquake can do to the building, which makes it mitigation. Preparedness is the trap, because it is also a pre-disaster phase — but preparedness changes how ready people are to act (warnings, drills, stockpiles), not the vulnerability of the structure itself; an evacuation drill in the same school would be preparedness. Response happens during and just after the event, and recovery afterwards, so neither fits a measure taken before any earthquake.