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The effective distribution of relief goods is critical in mitigating the impact of natural disasters and preserving human life. This study addresses a relief goods distribution problem, assuming the existence of multiple relief orders that must be delivered to various disaster-stricken regions from a network of warehouses using a fleet of diverse vehicles. The objective is to identify the most suitable warehouse for each relief order, allocate relief orders to vehicles, batch the orders in the designated vehicles, and devise routing plans to minimize the total delivery time. A mixed-integer linear programming model is formulated to tackle this problem. Owing to the problem's NP-hard nature, a metaheuristic algorithm, known as the Multiple League Championship Algorithm, is developed. Furthermore, two innovative variants of the MLCA, namely the League Base Multiple League Championship Algorithm (L-MLCA) and the Playoff Multiple League Championship Algorithm (P-MLCA), are introduced. Experimental results indicate that the P-MLCA outperforms the other two algorithms. The solutions derived from the P-MLCA are compared with the optimal solutions obtained by a commercial solver for small-scale problems. This comparative analysis demonstrates the promising performance of the P-MLCA in finding the optimal distribution of relief goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monsoon pattern has shifted across Kerala. This, combined with significant deforestation and hill denuding, has resulted in catastrophic floods and landslides, particularly during the Southwest monsoon. Urgent relief services were to be delivered in a timely and accurate manner in order to sustain the lives of the impacted people. Even though resources were sent to several relief camps, they were either in excess or shortage on multiple instances. The conditions that prevailed during the monsoon time, as well as concerns and challenges during disaster relief efforts, must first be investigated for the effective operation of these supply chain activities. This research aims to develop a disaster logistics hub location selection decision support system, based on the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and Best Worst Method (BWM), to meet the needs of disaster victims and rescue teams in the event of flooding, and to implement the proposed systems in Kuttanad, Kerala. Initially, the criteria are determined and structured in the hierarchy, and the weightage for the criteria is done via a questionnaire technique. Expert opinion on nine points scale was gathered from a set of experts working under different levels of positions during disaster management. The weights obtained by the FAHP and BWM methods were statistically analysed and compared for the reliability of the two techniques. The suggested model and application results may throw light on future work, particularly in the realm of disaster logistics management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land change science co-evolves with remote sensing technology. The world has witnessed an exponential growth in Earth observation satellites since 1972, and concurrently, land change research has experienced transformative advancement. This review summarizes the major milestones in global land cover and change mapping in a chronological order, from the pioneering efforts in the 1980s to the latest innovations at present, illustrating the tremendous progress in monitoring global land change from space. The second part of the review presents a critical synopsis of the recent progress in land change research, focusing on the technical aspects of temporal trends characterization, change mapping and area estimation, as well as the applied aspects of driver attribution and the complex consequences to the Earth system and human society. The last part of the article offers insights in the strategic directions of land change monitoring, including generation of analysis ready data, application of artificial intelligence algorithms, reconstruction of historical land change records, and near-real-time land change monitoring. Land change science will continue to play a vital role in addressing a wide range of global challenges, including climate change and carbon sequestration, food security, sustainable energy transition, natural disaster relief and environmental change in conflicted societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TTR (transthyretin) strikes a neuroprotective function in the prevention of amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition in Alzheimer disease (AD). Perturbation of the stringently controlled TARDBP/TDP-43 (TAR DNA binding protein) expression gives rise to cytoplasmic aggregation, characterized by TARDBP proteinopathy affiliated with several neurological disorders, including frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TARDBP pathology (FTLD-TDP) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/ALS. Proposedly, TTR can maintain cellular proteostasis susceptible to TARDBP aggregates and initiate its removal. Herein, we disclose that TTR upregulated in response to excessive TARDBP causes TARDBP aggregation in FTLD-TDP and co-accumulates with it. Moreover, TTR expression increases with age in FTLD-TDP but shows a downward decline in the elderly. TTR promotes macroautophagy/autophagy activity and facilitates aggregated TARDBP degradation via autophagy. Compellingly, TTR binds to ATF4 and boosts its nuclear import for autophagy upregulation. Therefore, TTR directs autophagy teamwork in bi-directional regulation through enhancing autophagy activity via ATF4 and chaperoning aggregated TARDBP to phagophores for degradation. Abbreviations: Aβ: amyloid-β; AD: Alzheimer disease; ER: endoplasmic reticulum; FTLD-TDP: frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TARDBP pathology; TARDBP/TDP-43: TAR DNA binding protein; TTR: transthyretin; UPR: unfolded protein response [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information diffusion on social media during disasters is an important indicator of community resilience. As a common natural hazard in the U.S., winter storms often cause adverse socio-economic impacts on human society. Understanding people's perception and behaviours during winter storms is important to mitigate negative impacts and promote community resilience. This study applies text mining and spatial analysis methods on Twitter data during Winter Storm Diego on 2018 December. Different from previous studies focusing on original tweets, this study utilized retweets to model information diffusion in the contiguous United States and analysed the geographic distribution of information flows in various topics. The diffusion extent and direction of the storm-related retweets were compared among different topics. Kernel density maps and standard deviational ellipse were applied to model the spatial distribution of the retweets in different topics. The result shows that people outside of the affected areas expressed more negative sentiment towards the storm than people in the affected areas. Also, distance decay of retweet density has been found and the decay rate differs in different topics. These findings of the analyses will provide support for disaster relief, information communication and broadcasting through social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most severe natural disasters in the world, floods caused substantial economic losses and casualties every year. Timely and accurate acquisition of flood inundation extent could provide technical support for relevant departments in the field of flood emergency response and disaster relief. Given the accuracy of existing research works extracting flood inundation extent based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and deep learning methods is relatively low, this study utilized Sentinel-1 SAR images as the data source and proposed a novel model named flood water body extraction convolutional neural network (FWENet) for flood information extraction. Then three classical semantic segmentation models (UNet, Deeplab v3 and UNet++) and two traditional water body extraction methods (Otsu global thresholding method and Object-Oriented method) were compared with the FWENet model. Furthermore, this paper analyzed the water body area change situations of Poyang Lake. The main results of this paper were as follows: Compared with other five water body extraction methods, the FWENet model achieved the highest water body extraction accuracy, its F1 score and mean intersection over union (mIoU) were 0.9871 and 0.9808, respectively. This study could guarantee the subsequent research on flood extraction based on SAR images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the effect of agricultural disaster management, this paper uses environmental big data technology to analyse historical agricultural disaster data and analyse the role and impact of this technology in agricultural disaster management. How to efficiently use the effective resources in the meteorological big data to optimise the mining effect is an important issue in the assessment of agrometeorological disasters. Parallel information entropy attribute reduction algorithm can effectively reduce the scale of research data and increase the rate of data preprocessing. The classification assessment and early warning of agrometeorological disasters involve data mining classification prediction technology. Unlike most classification prediction algorithms, KNN classification is particularly suitable for application to meteorological data sets with cross-class domains and can accelerate the classification and prediction speed of big data in the parallel processing architecture. Finally, this paper designs experiments to verify the method proposed in this paper. The results of data analysis show that the model constructed in this paper has a certain effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of information technology during the COVID-19 pandemic raises significant questions around the protection of personal data in a disaster. This paper considers how the clear benefits of using and sharing such data in disaster scenarios can be achieved while recognising an individual's right to privacy through examining the experiences of Taiwan and New Zealand. These states represent two successful COVID-19 response strategies which utilised different approaches to the use of technology. In Taiwan, the response made significant use of personal data and information technology. New Zealand, by contrast, has relied upon stringent lockdowns and extreme limits upon personal freedoms. The paper considers the different approaches to data and privacy that underpinned these responses and considers whether New Zealand can learn from the Taiwanese experience in future disaster planning. In doing so, the paper concludes by examining the wider question of when and if the community's expectation of a safe environment should trump the rights of individuals to retain personal data both in the context of pandemics and in other emergency or disaster scenarios. It also raises deeper questions, exposed by the COVID-19 response, about whether our current approach to privacy is sustainable in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An intelligent autonomous robot is required in various applications such as space, transportation, industry, and defense. Mobile robots can also perform several tasks like material handling, disaster relief, patrolling, and rescue operation. Therefore, an autonomous robot is required that can travel freely in a static or a dynamic environment. Smooth and safe navigation of mobile robot through cluttered environment from start position to goal position with following safe path and producing optimal path length is the main aim of mobile robot navigation. Regarding this matter, several techniques have been explored by researchers for robot navigation path planning. An effort has been made in this article to study several navigation techniques, which are well suited for the static and dynamic environment and can be implemented for real-time navigation of mobile robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on how women volunteered to offer support to residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017. Isme Figueroa, president of the El Coqui community board, along with other local women, worked tirelessly, cooking and delivering meals every week to residents in need in Salinas after Hurricane Maria hit. The women from El Coqui community collective applied their skills to train young women to join their effort after the hurricane.

The article presents a discussion about the evacuation plan adopted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter to improve the country's civil defense in cases of nuclear attacks. Bardyl R. Tirana, Director of the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, discusses the contents of the crisis relocation program which states that those people endangered by a nuclear attack are to be evacuated and relocated. The evacuation efforts are said to be triggered by news that the Soviet Union has started evacuating their people.

The article examines the Crisis Relocation Plan, a civil defense plan against nuclear war, of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. Referring to the plan, the article checks the utility of the plan in the practical use. Civil defense officials at the local level found that the plan has some practical difficulties in carrying out a mass evacuation and in providing relief for the welfare of the displaced population. Information on the roles of the U.S. and the Soviet Union civil defenses have also been given in the article.

The article discusses the nature of dangers that can be brought by nuclear weapons and the measures that can be taken to protect people from those weapons' hazardous effects. Accordingly, the effects of multi-megaton nuclear explosions are blast, heat radiation, and radioactive fallout. Of the three, it is claimed that the most damaging are the severe blast effects occurring within several miles of an explosion. This allegedly means that the lives of all people residing at the vicinity near where the explosion occurred would be put at stake. To protect these people, the establishment of shelter protections is suggested. Included are constructions of a concrete block basement shelter in family house, family underground shelter, and community shelter in reinforced concrete building basement.

The article reports that U.S. President John F. Kennedy has moved to get civil defense out of the doldrums after years of indecision and inaction under the Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower administrations. One final element in the consideration of civil defense and stable deterrence is whether or not the Soviet Union has undertaken the civil defense program. The deterrent effect flows from the fact that shelter and evacuation arrangements would markedly modify a key variable in the strategic calculation of Soviet Union.

The article focuses on the decision of the members of the Milwaukee Civil Disaster Relief Committee to change the organization's name. The move was considered after the members have reached a conclusion that sudden atomic warfare is possible. They have reflected on the types of disaster that will strike in the city to form a pattern of operation and examined their needs from the point of view of self-help. The principles of the organization to address civil defense and disaster relief are offered.

The article reports on the impact of the 2017 Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. It is said that Puerto Rico was already submerged in a historic economic crisis before it was devastated by Hurricane Maria. Approximately 419,000 people were living in coastal zones when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. These populations face hazards like flash floods, riverine flooding, tsunamis, landslides, earthquakes and droughts.

The article focuses on the destruction, resilience, and recovery after earthquakes and aftershocks in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico in September 2017. Topics include human activity impact on the climate change, emergency aid and shelter needed by 2.5 million people, and statement of Marcelino Nolasco Martínez, director of the Tepeyac Human Rights Center in Tehuantepec, regarding the reconstruction in country.

The article presents the author's comments on the question of evacuation versus shelter which is one fraught with importance for the tens of millions of our population living in target areas of nuclear tests in the U.S. The author holds that the to leave the problem unresolved will inevitably result in national confusion, dissipation of resources, and apathy. Thus, he concludes that the country is faced with the necessity of somehow resolving the issue, in the interest of national survival, or of abandoning all civil defense effort on the gamble that attack will never come.

The west coast of India is affected by tsunamigenic earthquake along the Makran subduction zone. On 28 November 1945 at 21:56 coordinated universal time (UTC), a massive Makran earthquake (M8.0) generated a destructive tsunami that propagated across the Northern Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. This tsunamigenic earthquake was responsible for the loss of life and great destruction along the coasts of India, Pakistan, Iran and Oman. Modelling of tsunami stages has been made for the coasts of Pakistan, Iran, India and Oman using NAMI-DANCE computer code. The fault parameters of the earthquakes for the generation of tsunami are epicentre (25.15° N, 63.48° E), fault area (200 km length and 100 km width), angle of strike, dip and rake (246°, 7° and 90°), focal depth (15 km), slip magnitude (7 m). The bathymetry data are taken from General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) and land topography data were collected using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). The present simulation is carried out for a duration of 360 min. It is observed that the maximum calculated tsunami run-ups were about 0.7–1.1 m along the coast of Oman, 0.5 m near Muscat, 0.1 m near Sur, 0.7–1.35 m along the western coast of India, 0.5–2.3 m along the southern coast of Iran and 1.2–5.8 m along the southern coast of Pakistan. After the tsunamigenic earthquake, the tsunami wave reached the Gulf of Kachchh in about 240 min, Okha in about 185 min, Dwarka in about 150 min, Porbandar in about 155 min, Mumbai in about 300 min and Goa in about 210 min. The calculated 2-hr tsunami travel time to the Indian coast is in good agreement with the available reports and published data. If the tsunami strikes during high tide, we should expect more serious hazards which would impact local coastal communities. The results obtained in this study are converted to be compatible with the geographic information system based applications for display and spatial analysis of modelling results. The paper also presents classification of tsunami risk zones based on elevation vulnerability. We expect that the results presented here will be supportive to the tsunami emergency response system and useful in planning the protection measures due to tsunami. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Louisiana's coastal residents have endured centuries of hurricanes and decades of oil spills. Locally based, inherent resilient practices have enabled them to persist in place. This paper documents the evolution of actions taken by Louisiana's coastal residents that constitute effective resilient activities in the aftermath of disruptive events. It compares the efforts that arose from coastal communities that were rooted in local environmental knowledge with generic external programs designed to enable hazard mitigation, emergency response, and recovery form damaging hurricanes and oil spills. Additionally, it will identify points of opportunity to fortify resilience by integrating inherent and formal resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A community clinic in Puerto Rico, the Bantiox Clinic, was developed to serve the medical needs of Toa Baja and the surrounding communities after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in response to an urgent need for medical treatment of the community residents. Within 4 months, the clinic had 4941 total visits. The Toa Baja residents used the clinic more than the offsite residents. Certain offsite towns needed medical care more than others, suggesting a lack of medical access in the mountainous areas. Elderly patients with chronic diseases were served more than younger patients. Hypertension, diabetes, and medication refills appeared to be the primary reasons for treatment. The suicide rate increased 16% from 2016. The unemployment rate and the migration rate in all occupations have continued to increase after Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico is a human laboratory that shows the medical needs of an island after devastating climate events and provides insight on ways to better prepare for such emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Followers of urban affairs and public policy have written much over the years about the rise of suburbia and development beyond older city boundaries in the US, whether such development is called urban, suburban, or ex-urban sprawl. Many researchers have focused on various issues concerning sprawl, especially on the unintended consequences that new development has had for municipal finances, neighborhood income and residential segregation, and transportation planning, among other issues. Over the last decade, a new area in the literature on sprawl has focused on how the “built environment” of residential areas can impact health and emergency services. We contribute to this latest set of papers on sprawl by trying to empirically estimate the impact of sprawl in metropolitan regions on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) spending on “public assistance.” This assistance encompasses spending on debris removal, emergency protective measures, and rehabilitating or rebuilding of infrastructure, public buildings, public utilities, parks and recreational areas, in post-disaster relief efforts. In our exploratory analysis, the results indicate that urban sprawl is a factor in influencing the level of FEMA’s public assistance spending. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper considers the optimal resource distribution between increasing protection of genuine elements and deploying decoys (false targets) in a situation when the attacker's and defender's resources are stockpiling and the resource increment rate is constant. It is assumed that the system must perform within an exogenously given time horizon and the attack time probability is uniformly distributed over this horizon. Series and parallel systems are considered. The defender optimizes the resource distribution in order to minimize the system vulnerability. The attacker cannot distinguish genuine and false elements and can attack a randomly chosen subset of the elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is likely that calls for disaster medical assistance teams (DMATs) continue in response to international disasters. As part of a national survey, the present study was designed to evaluate the Australian DMAT experience and the need for logistic support. Methods: Data were collected via an anonymous mailed survey distributed via State and Territory representatives on the Australian Health Protection Committee, who identified team members associated with Australian DMAT deployments from the 2004 Asian Tsunami disaster. Results: The response rate for this survey was 50% (59/118). Most of the personnel had deployed to the South East Asian Tsunami affected areas. The DMAT members had significant clinical and international experience. There was unanimous support for dedicated logistic support with 80% (47/59) strongly agreeing. Only one respondent (2%) disagreed with teams being self sufficient for a minimum of 72 hours. Most felt that transport around the site was not a problem (59%; 35/59), however, 34% (20/59) felt that transport to the site itself was problematic. Only 37% (22/59) felt that pre-deployment information was accurate. Communication with local health providers and other agencies was felt to be adequate by 53% (31/59) and 47% (28/59) respectively, while only 28% (17/59) felt that documentation methods were easy to use and reliable. Less than half (47%; 28/59) felt that equipment could be moved easily between areas by team members and 37% (22/59) that packaging enabled materials to be found easily. The maximum safe container weight was felt to be between 20 and 40 kg by 58% (34/59). Conclusions: This study emphasises the importance of dedicated logistic support for DMAT and the need for teams to be self sufficient for a minimum period of 72 hours. There is a need for accurate pre deployment information to guide resource prioritisation with clearly labelled pre packaging to assist access on site. Container weights should be restricted to between 20 and 40 kg, which would assist transport around the site, while transport to the site was seen as problematic. There was also support for training of all team members in use of basic equipment such as communications equipment, tents and shelters and water purification systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Calls for disaster medical assistance teams (DMATs) are likely to continue in response to international disasters. As part of a national survey, this study was designed to evaluate Australian DMAT experience in relation to the human resources issues associated with deployment. Methods: Data was collected via an anonymous mailed survey distributed via State and Territory representatives on the Australian Health Protection Committee, who identified team members associated with Australian DMAT deployments from the 2004 South East Asian Tsunami disaster. Results: The response rate for this survey was 50% (59/118). Most personnel had deployed to the Asian Tsunami affected areas with DMAT members having significant clinical and international experience. While all except one respondent stated they received a full orientation prior to deployment, only 34% of respondents (20/59) felt their role was clearly defined pre deployment. Approximately 56% (33/59) felt their actual role matched their intended role and that their clinical background was well suited to their tasks. Most respondents were prepared to be available for deployment for 1 month (34%, 20/59). The most common period of notice needed to deploy was 6–12 hours for 29% (17/59) followed by 12–24 hours for 24% (14/59). The preferred period of overseas deployment was 14–21 days (46%, 27/59) followed by 1 month (25%, 15/59) and the optimum shift period was felt to be 12 hours by 66% (39/59). The majority felt that there was both adequate pay (71%, 42/59) and adequate indemnity (66%, 39/59). Almost half (49%, 29/59) stated it was better to work with people from the same hospital and, while most felt their deployment could be easily covered by staff from their workplace (56%, 33/59) and caused an inconvenience to their colleagues (51%, 30/59), it was less likely to interrupt service delivery in their workplace (10%, 6/59) or cause an inconvenience to patients (9%, 5/59). Deployment was felt to benefit the affected community by nearly all (95%, 56/59) while less (42%, 25/59) felt that there was a benefit for their own local community. Nearly all felt their role was recognised on return (93%, 55/59) and an identical number (93%, 55/59) enjoyed the experience. All stated they would volunteer again, with 88% strongly agreeing with this statement. Conclusions: This study of Australian DMAT members provides significant insights into a number of human resources issues and should help guide future deployments. The preferred 'on call' arrangements, notice to deploy, period of overseas deployment and shift length are all identified. This extended period of operations needs to be supported by planning and provision of rest cycles, food, temporary accommodation and rest areas for staff. The study also suggests that more emphasis should be placed on team selection and clarification of roles.While the majority felt that there was both adequate pay and adequate indemnity, further work clarifying this, based on national conditions of service should be, and are, being explored currently by the state based teams in Australia. Importantly, the deployment was viewed positively by team members who all stated they would volunteer again, which allows the development of an experienced cohort of team members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological research emphasizes that personal networks offer social resources in times of need and that this capacity varies by the social position of those involved. Yet rarely are sociologists able to make direct comparisons of such inequalities. This study overcomes this methodological challenge by examining network activation among residents of two unequal neighborhoods severely devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Results indicate that local network capacities of Lower Ninth Ward residents relative to those of the more affluent Lakeview neighborhood dissipated before, during, and after the disaster to erode the life chances of individual residents and the neighborhood they once constituted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From United Nations emergency responses involving tent camps, to the reconstruction approach of FUNDASAL in El Salvador and the post-disaster provision of housing by Caritas in Asia, it is clear that a giant step has been taken in thinking about emergency shelter, as well as about how prevention and reconstruction are managed. This article evaluates some current good practices in Asia and Latin America in post-disaster emergency shelter that use local skills, materials, and tools, and participatory processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the location of several transfer points to serve as collector points for customers who need the services of a facility. For example, demand for emergency services by patients is generated at a set of demand points that need the services of a central facility (such as a hospital). Patients are transferred to a helicopter pad (transfer point) at normal speed, and from there they are transferred to the facility at increased speed. The general model involves the location of multiple transfer points and one facility. Locating one transfer point when the set of demand points and the location of the facility are known was investigated in a previous paper by the authors. In this paper, we apply the results of that paper to solve the problem when the location of the facility is known. Both minisum and minimax versions of the models are investigated both in the plane and on the network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the international humanitarian response to the earthquake in Jogjakarta, Indonesia in May 2006. It also compares it with a small but very successful local initiative. It identifies inherent weaknesses in the international system, and argues for the possibility of scaling up lessons learned from the local example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the efforts made by the Delgado Community College, Louisiana and its campuses, in order to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina that struck the Gulf Coast, Louisiana on August 29, 2005. After the storm an emergency headquarter was established at Baton Rouge Community College. Its purpose was to provide leadership team during emergency and a meeting place for the staff to decide collectively on the re-opening of College. An emergency bank account was also established for urgencies. The leadership team served the purposes of creating communications procedures through Web sites with the Louisiana community-college system and then with the government officials and private foundations to enquire about the recovery efforts and aids from their side.

This paper builds on the idea that private sector logistics can and should be applied to improve the performance of disaster logistics but that before embarking on this the private sector needs to understand the core capabilities of humanitarian logistics. With this in mind, the paper walks us through the complexities of managing supply chains in humanitarian settings. It pinpoints the cross learning potential for both the humanitarian and private sectors in emergency relief operations as well as possibilities of getting involved through corporate social responsibility. It also outlines strategies for better preparedness and the need for supply chains to be agile, adaptable and aligned—a core competency of many humanitarian organizations involved in disaster relief and an area which the private sector could draw on to improve their own competitive edge. Finally, the article states the case for closer collaboration between humanitarians, businesses and academics to achieve better and more effective supply chains to respond to the complexities of today's logistics be it the private sector or relieving the lives of those blighted by disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on lessons learned from the disaster response to the Kashmir earthquake of 8 October 2005. It explores the factors that created a vulnerable environment for the creation of a catastrophe through Alexander's six-point typology of disaster vulnerability. The review of the disaster response will focus on the reasons behind chaotic relief assistance provision and poor sustenance of populations in winter conditions, as well as exploring the framework of international response, and the role of the army, voluntarism and co-ordination issues. Having reviewed the relief response, based on cross-cultural experiences, the paper then makes projections on possible challenges and issues that may emerge in the reconstruction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I build on previous findings in disaster research with a quantitative examination of individual-level fatality risk in a fire evacuation. Using data concerning people who were present at the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire of 1977, I show that the probability of an individual perishing in the fire was a function of the relational and ecological properties of their evacuation environment. Logistic regression analyses suggest that individuals for whom at least one group member died experienced a drastic increase in fatality risk. Physical threats and situational constraints in the environment distributed fatality across blocks of people, which were defined largely by primary group membership. This effect is due, in part, to the strengths of the social bonds that these individuals had to group members who perished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women and men face different risks and vulnerabilities during disaster, and they bring different resources to preparing for and coping with disaster. Less well recognised are the ways in which humanitarian interventions themselves influence the nature of gender relations during crises. A gender-blind humanitarian response which does not address gender-specific issues and does not pay particular attention to the situation of women can worsen both the immediate survival prospects for women and their families, and women's long-term position in society. This article contends that the process of providing humanitarian aid and the institutions that deliver it tend to be inherently male-biased and thus discriminatory against women, and that a commitment is needed both to understanding how institutional bias works against women, and to challenging the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hurricane Mitch, which took place in October 1998, affected millions of people in Central America, in Honduras and Nicaragua in particular. In Nicaragua, following the hurricane, many civil society organisations mobilised to participate in reconstruction, and to present alternatives to the government's reconstruction plans. The newly-formed Civil Co-ordinator for Emergency and Reconstruction (CCER), a coalition of NGOs, undertook a large-scale social audit of the reconstruction process. This article presents the results of the audit alongside more in-depth research to provide a gendered analysis of the reconstruction. It focuses on the roles of women in reconstruction, their participation and leadership in reconstruction projects and in individual household responses, and questions whether reconstruction projects have had any impact on transforming gender relations in post-hurricane communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. Hurricane Mitch, the most deadly hurricane to strike the Western Hemisphere in two centuries, killed at least 10,000 people in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador and left tens of thousands homeless. Some needed food; others, medical attention. Americans, Europeans, Mexicans, and others almost immediately responded to the widespread devastation by sending large donations of food, clothing, and medicine. Six weeks after Mitch struck the Honduran mainland, the author traveled to Honduras with the aim of photographing the physical damage and its effect on humans. In San Pedro Sula he was sidetracked by the issue of where the refugees were being housed and whether they were receiving the donations that had been sent on their behalf. This essay narrates that search and what he found. Keywords: Honduras, Hurricane Mitch, relief donations, San Pedro Sula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of the United Nations (UN) in alleviating the impact of calamities and catastrophes at the global level. The implications of perceiving calamities and catastrophes as regular occurrences globally, of some calamities and catastrophes as being long running and of certain countries as being prone to recurrent calamities are straightforward but involve transformation of previous approaches. The first responsibility of the UN in coordination is to create a coherent practice among its own agencies and between them and the government concerned. Equally, without it the credibility of the UN as a general force for coordination will be limited and thus there will be no effective and acceptable external coordinating partner with whom the national government can work.

The author reflects on the Bangladesh government's disaster preparedness and rehabilitation. The author relates that the cyclone that hit the country in May 1985 affected 1.5 million people apart from the 10,000 it estimated to have killed. With that event, the government and relief agencies step in with plans and promises of disaster preparedness

Cites reaction of Russian citizens in the cities of Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk to the arrival of food aid from the United States and Norway, with officials claiming the number one priority is not food, but the technology and technical know-how to convert to a civilian economy. Nuclear submarine-building complex at Arkhangelsk; Technical help useful in the long-run; Wide gap between Western intentions and Russian perceptions.

The article presents a discussion of the disaster that occurred in Salt Creek, Illinois due to flood. The creek had overflowed when a summer thunderstorm dumped nearly seven inches of rain on August 25, 1972. It resulted to the flooding of more than 1,200 acres of residential property. The basin has been declared as a major disaster area on September 4 as it caused property damages and killed one person. A flood plain restoration program is being considered to the improvement of the Lower Salt Creek.

The article offers information on the developments of civil defense in the U.S. Eugene J. Quindlen of the Office of Civil Defense and Mobilization has computed in 1959 the casualties that would be involved in an attack in the Country. Many think that a civil defense and shelter program might save many lives and would not increase the danger of war.

The article reports developments related to civil defense in the U.S. Colleges and universities suggest that the Federal government adopt a comprehensive program against atomic, biological and chemical warfare to achieve an effective civil defense. The Federal Civil Defense Administration Advisory (FCDA) has defined conditions of warnings which were disseminated to inform civilians of indications whether there is a danger of enemy attack or that the danger has passed. The FCDA has also published a technical bulletin which describes new facilities for rescue training programs.

Reports on the outcome of the hurricanes in Haiti and the Caribbean in September 2004. Damages caused by the hurricanes; Number of people affected by the storm; Reason for the social unrest among hurricane victims; Amount pledged by the European Union as assistance for the victims; Factors which make Haiti vulnerable to natural disasters.

The article reports on natural disaster relief efforts with commentary on the case study "Flirting with Disaster" by J. E. Pynes and P. Tracy. Appropriate and effective networks for service providers are an important part of preparing for emergencies like natural disasters. The author feels the case study shows the necessity of having an emergency management plan and operation so that those affected by the disasters will experience less stress and worry over recovery. The experiences of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are utilized in the case study.

Disaster is not independent of society and culture and always happens in specific cultural and social contexts. Cultural and social characteristics influence the responses of people affected by disaster, as well as the process of disaster relief. As one of the countries in the world that suffer most from natural disasters, various ethnic groups in China vary greatly in psychology and behavior characteristics after major disasters due to different geographical environments and economic and political conditions. To launch an effective post-disaster psychosocial care, 1) it is necessary to consider how to satisfy material, health, and other fundamental biological needs of affected people; 2) it is necessary to relieve disaster victims of their mental pain (spiritual in Chinese) and help them restore their psychological health; 3) it is necessary to revitalize the seriously unbalanced communities affected by disasters so that these communities would burst with vitality again. In addition, it is necessary to take specific ethnic and regional culture into account when helping people in these areas gradually achieve social adaptation and cultural identification. All these require us to intensify our efforts in the following four aspects: 1) to strengthen legislation and institutional construction in this field; 2) to help citizens master the most fundamental psychological principles and methods of coping with disasters to enable timely self-aid and mutual-aid; 3) to build a national database of the post-disaster psychosocial care teams; 4) to continue the research on disaster psychology, so as to provide a scientific basis as well as techniques and methods for implementing disaster relief efforts in a scientific way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]