Natural Hazards and Disaster Management in India

1. Hazards, disasters and vulnerability

Read the detailed note →

• Natural hazard: a part of nature that could harm people or property. Examples are ocean currents, steep and unstable Himalayan slopes, and very harsh desert or glacial climates.
• Disaster: a sudden event, natural or human-made, that causes widespread death, damage and disruption. It goes beyond what the community can handle with its own resources and normal emergency services. A hazard becomes a disaster only when the damage is large-scale.
• Vulnerability: how likely people, buildings and economies are to be harmed. Technology now lets people crowd into risky places such as floodplains and coastal cities like Mumbai and Chennai, so vulnerability keeps rising. In India, its size, colonial past, social discrimination and large population raise it further.
• Risk (beyond NCERT, UNDRR): risk = hazard × exposure × vulnerability ÷ capacity.
• India's exposure (NDMA, verify current): about 59% of land is prone to earthquakes, about 12% (40 million ha) to floods, about 5,700 km of coast to cyclones and tsunamis, and about 68% of cultivable area to drought. NCERT says about two-thirds of India's area and people are vulnerable.
• Human-made disasters come in two kinds:
• Direct: Chernobyl, wars, CFCs, greenhouse gases and pollution.

• Indirect: landslides and floods caused by deforestation and by building in fragile areas.

• Bhopal gas tragedy (night of 2-3 December 1984): methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant. Thousands died. It led to the Environment (Protection) Act 1986.

• Classification of natural disasters (Class 11 Table 6.1):

Class	Examples
Atmospheric	blizzards, thunderstorms, lightning, tornadoes, tropical cyclones, drought, hailstorm, frost, heat wave (loo), cold wave
Terrestrial	earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, avalanches, subsidence, soil erosion
Aquatic	floods, tidal waves, storm surge, tsunami
Biological	locusts and other colonisers; fungal, bacterial and viral diseases (bird flu, dengue)

• Biological disasters in recent years: the 2019-20 desert locust attack in Rajasthan and Gujarat. COVID-19 was notified as a disaster under the DM Act in March 2020.

2. Earthquakes in India: causes, zones and landmark events

Read the detailed note →

• Himalayan earthquakes: the Indian plate moves north-northeast. NCERT gives about 1 cm a year; GPS shows about 4-5 cm a year. It is locked against the Eurasian plate, so stress builds up and is suddenly released along the Himalayan arc.
• Most vulnerable areas: J&K, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Darjeeling subdivision and all seven northeastern states. Great past quakes include Shillong 1897, Bihar-Nepal 1934 and Assam 1950 (about M 8.6).
• Bhima fault: a fault zone along the Bhima (Krishna basin) near Latur and Osmanabad. Energy released along it, or the Indian plate possibly breaking, explains quakes in the "stable" Peninsula.
• Latur earthquake 1993: 30 September, Killari, about M 6.2. About 10,000 died, many under collapsed stone houses.
• Bhuj earthquake 2001: 26 January, Kachchh, about M 7.7. About 20,000 died. It was India's turning point towards a proactive approach and led to the Gujarat State Disaster Management Act 2003.
• Reservoir-induced earthquake: filling a large reservoir adds water load and pore pressure (water pressure inside rock cracks), which stresses faults. The classic case is Koyna, 11 December 1967, about M 6.3.
• 2005 Kashmir earthquake: 8 October, M 7.6, near Muzaffarabad (PoK). Over 80,000 died, and Uri's Aman Setu was damaged.
• Seismic zones of India:
• NCERT has five damage-risk zones, based on over 1,200 quakes. The "very high" zone covers the northeast, north of Darbhanga-Araria, Uttarakhand, western Himachal, Kashmir Valley and Kachchh. The Deccan is safest.
• BIS IS 1893 (2016) uses Zones II-V (Zone I was merged into II in 2002). Delhi is in Zone IV. Zone V includes the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• A 2025 Zone VI for the whole Himalayan arc was reportedly withdrawn in March 2026 (verify current).

3. Effects of earthquakes and earthquake mitigation

Read the detailed note →

• Effects of earthquakes (Class 11 Table 6.2), each with possible chain effects:
• On ground: fissures, settlements, landslides, liquefaction, earth pressure.
• On structures: cracking, sliding, overturning, buckling, collapse.

• On water: waves, hydrodynamic pressure, tsunami.

• Chain effects:

• Fissures let water and volatile materials gush out and flood nearby land.

• Landslides dam rivers into lakes or shift river courses, which causes floods. The 1950 Assam quake changed Brahmaputra tributaries.

• Why earthquakes are so deadly: a quake becomes a calamity in densely populated areas. It wipes out gains people built up over generations. Broken roads and phone links make relief late.

• Soil liquefaction: strong shaking makes loose, water-soaked sand lose its strength and behave like a liquid. Buildings tilt or sink, and sand boils (spouts of sand and water) appear. This happened in Bhuj and Kachchh in 2001.

• Earthquake hazard mitigation (NCERT's four steps): 1. Seismological centres for monitoring and fast information, plus GPS tracking of plate movement. 2. A national vulnerability map and public awareness. 3. Changed house designs, and discouraging high-rise buildings, big industries and big cities in risky zones. 4. Compulsory earthquake-resistant design using light materials.

• Beyond NCERT: BIS codes IS 4326 and IS 13920, the National Building Code 2016 and NDMA guidelines (2007). Other steps are retrofitting (strengthening old buildings) of schools and hospitals, and traditional designs such as dhajji-dewari (Kashmir) and koti banal (Uttarakhand). The National Center for Seismology runs the quake catalogue, and early-warning trials are under way in Uttarakhand (verify current).

4. Tsunamis and coastal defences

Read the detailed note →

• Tsunami (Japanese for "harbour wave"): a series of long ocean waves caused by sudden sea-floor movement from earthquakes, volcanoes or submarine landslides.
• How a tsunami behaves:
• In deep water it has a very long wavelength and a small height. Ships rise only 1-2 m over several minutes.

• In shallow water the wavelength shortens but the period stays the same, so the height grows to 15 m or more.

• Correction to NCERT: NCERT says waves are faster in shallow water. In fact tsunamis are fastest in the deep ocean (about 700-800 km/h). They slow down and pile up near the coast.

• 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: 26 December 2004, triggered by an M 9.1 quake off northwest Sumatra.
• About 2,30,000 died in 14 countries (NCERT: over 3,00,000).

• India's worst-hit areas were Tamil Nadu (Nagapattinam) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Indian toll over 10,000; verify current).

• Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre:

• Located at INCOIS, Hyderabad, working since October 2007.
• It uses seismic stations, bottom pressure recorders and tide gauges, and can warn within about 10 minutes.
• Since 2011 it is a UNESCO-IOC regional tsunami service provider for the Indian Ocean.

• India's two tsunami source zones are Andaman-Sumatra and Makran.

• Coastal defence by natural buffers: offshore bars, barrier islands, beaches, dunes and mangroves absorb wave energy. In 2004, areas behind the Pichavaram and Muthupet mangroves suffered less damage. The CRZ Notification 2019 limits building near the shore.

5. Tropical cyclones and storm surges

Read the detailed note →

• What a tropical cyclone is: an intense low-pressure system between 30°N and 30°S. It is 500-1,000 km wide and 12-14 km tall. Its energy comes from latent heat released when water vapour condenses.
• Conditions needed (formation is covered in detail in the air-masses-fronts-cyclones note):
• A steady supply of warm, moist air.
• Strong Coriolis force (none forms within 0-5° of the equator).
• An unstable troposphere.

• No strong vertical wind shear.

• Where and when in India:

• Bay of Bengal cyclones peak in October-November, forming at "16°-2°N" west of 92°E (as printed; read it as roughly 10°-16°N).
• By July they form near 18°N, west of 90°E, near the Sundarbans.

• The east coast is hit most, and IMD tracks every storm.

• Storm surge: the cyclone's strong winds (average about 180 km/h at the coast) and low pressure push seawater inland.

• It floods settlements and fields and makes land salty.
• It causes most cyclone deaths.

• Shallow, funnel-shaped coasts such as the head of the Bay, Odisha and the Sundarbans make it worse.

• Beyond NCERT: the Bay gets about four times as many cyclones as the Arabian Sea, but Arabian Sea storms are getting stronger (Tauktae 2021, Biparjoy 2023). IMD's highest category, super cyclonic storm, starts at ≥222 km/h. RSMC New Delhi names storms for 13 countries.

• Cyclone hazard mitigation: cyclones are fairly predictable, so damage can be cut with satellite tracking, warnings, shelters, embankments, dykes and shelterbelts (rows of trees that slow wind).
• The Odisha super cyclone of 1999 killed about 10,000.

• For Phailin in 2013, about a million people were evacuated and few died.

• National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project: run by NDMA with World Bank support.

• Phase I (from 2011): Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
• Phase II (from 2015): six more states.
• It funds warning systems, multipurpose shelters, evacuation roads, bridges and saline embankments.

6. Floods: causes, flood-prone India and control

Read the detailed note →

• Flood: land goes under water when runoff exceeds what river channels can carry. Floods are slow, seasonal and regional, and their causes are well known.
• Natural causes: long heavy rain, snowmelt, storm surge, low infiltration (water not soaking into the ground) and silt.

• Human causes: deforestation, bad farming, blocked drainage, and settling on floodplains and riverbeds.

• Rashtriya Barh Ayog (National Flood Commission): set up in 1976. Its 1980 report found about 40 million ha flood-prone.

• Flood-prone areas of India:
• Most flood-prone: Assam, West Bengal and Bihar, plus eastern Uttar Pradesh.
• Occasional floods: northern rivers of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
• Flash floods: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab.
• Tamil Nadu floods in November-January from the retreating (northeast) monsoon.

• East vs west: eastern floods are riverine and long, while western ones are sudden flash floods.

• Effects: crops, roads and homes are destroyed, and cholera, gastroenteritis and hepatitis spread. The one gain is fertile silt, as on Majuli (Brahmaputra, the largest riverine island).

• Control: embankments, dams, afforestation, limits on building in upper catchments, removing encroachments and moving people off floodplains. Beyond NCERT: floodplain zoning (model bill 1975) and CWC flood forecasting.
• Flash flood: a sudden, short flood after very intense rain, a cloudburst, or a dam or glacial lake failure, with little warning.
• Urban flooding: cities flood because drains are overloaded, concrete stops water soaking in, and buildings block waterways. Examples are Mumbai on 26 July 2005 (about 944 mm in a day) and Chennai in 2015.
• Punjab floods 2025 (Class 9, Atmosphere and Climate):
• Natural causes: monsoon rain made heavier by western disturbances swelled the Satluj, Beas, Ravi and Ghaggar.
• Human causes: weak dhusi bandh (old embankments), houses close to rivers, silted rivers and dams, and late warnings.
• All 23 districts were declared disaster-hit (verify current).

7. Droughts: types, drought-prone India and mitigation

Read the detailed note →

• Drought: a long water shortage from too little rain, high evaporation and overuse of reservoirs and groundwater. It involves rainfall, soil moisture, storage, crops and social practices.
• Meteorological drought: a long spell of too little and badly spread rain. IMD counts a deficit of more than 25% (26-50% moderate, over 50% severe).
• Agricultural drought: low soil moisture that causes crops to fail. An area with more than 30% of its gross cropped area irrigated is left out of the drought-prone list.
• Hydrological drought: water in aquifers, lakes and reservoirs falls below what rain can refill. It comes after a meteorological drought.
• Ecological drought: a natural ecosystem stops being productive because of water stress.
• Drought-prone areas of India: about 19% of area and 12% of people are hit every year. About 30% of area is drought-prone, affecting about 50 million people (NCERT).
• Extreme: Rajasthan west of the Aravalis (Marusthali), Kachchh, and Jaisalmer and Barmer (under 90 mm rain a year).
• Severe: eastern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra, interior Andhra, Karnataka plateau, northern interior Tamil Nadu, southern Jharkhand and interior Odisha.
• Moderate: northern Rajasthan, Haryana, southern Uttar Pradesh and the rest of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

• Central and western India are in the rain shadow and at the edge of the monsoon.

• Akal, trinkal, jalkal and trikal: shortage of food grain, of fodder, of water, and of all three together (the worst).

• Drought mitigation:
• Immediate: safe drinking water, medicines, fodder, and moving people and cattle.
• Long-term: finding aquifers, river interlinking, reservoirs, satellite mapping, drought-resistant crops and rainwater harvesting.
• Beyond NCERT: the Manual for Drought Management (2016, updated 2020).

8. Landslides and land subsidence

Read the detailed note →

• Landslide: rock and debris moving rapidly downslope under gravity along a failure plane. Local factors control it: geology, slope, rain, vegetation and human activity. That makes it hard and costly to predict.
• Landslides in the Himalayas and Western Ghats:
• The young, tectonically active, steep Himalaya, made of sedimentary and loose rocks, slides often.

• The stable, hard-rock Western Ghats and Nilgiris still slide because of steep cliffs, temperature-driven weathering and intense rain.

• Landslide vulnerability zones:

• Very high: young Himalaya, Andaman and Nicobar, Western Ghats, Nilgiris, the northeast, quake-shaken areas, and areas of heavy road and dam building.
• High: all Himalayan and northeastern states except the Assam plains.
• Moderate to low: Ladakh, Spiti, the Aravalis, rain-shadow Ghats and the Deccan, plus mining-subsidence areas.

• Safe: the plains, including Rajasthan, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

• Landslide mitigation: limit roads, dams and big settlements in high zones, keep farming to valleys and gentle slopes, plant forests, build bunds, and use terrace farming instead of jhum (shifting cultivation) in the northeast.

• Malpa landslide: 18 August 1998, Kali valley, Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand. About 220 died, including Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims.
• Landslide Atlas of India: released by NRSC (ISRO) in 2023, covering landslides from 1998 to 2022. Rudraprayag and Tehri Garhwal are the most exposed districts (verify current).
• Wayanad landslides 2024: debris flows on 30 July at Mundakkai, Chooralmala and Punchirimattom after extreme rain. Over 200 died.
• Land subsidence: the ground sinks slowly or suddenly because of mining, groundwater pumping or natural collapse. Examples are the Jharia and Raniganj coalfields.
• Joshimath land subsidence 2023: in January, homes on old landslide debris cracked. Causes cited are poor drainage, unplanned building and Tapovan-Vishnugad tunnelling. Hundreds of families were moved.

9. Himalayan cascades: avalanches, GLOFs and cloudbursts

Read the detailed note →

• Avalanche: a sudden fall of a large mass of snow down a steep slope.
• Triggers: heavy short-spell snowfall on weak layers, sudden warming, wind-piled snow, earthquakes, and skiing or construction.
• Prone areas: J&K, Ladakh (Siachen, Zojila, Gurez), Lahaul-Spiti, Kinnaur, Uttarakhand and Sikkim.

• DGRE (formerly SASE) issues avalanche warnings.

• Glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), called a "glacial burst" in Class 7, happens in three steps: 1. Warming makes lakes dammed by moraine (glacier debris) or ice grow bigger. 2. Overfilling, heavy rain, an avalanche, a landslide or a quake breaks the dam. 3. A sudden flood rushes downstream.

• Cloudburst: IMD defines it as 100 mm or more of rain in an hour over about 20-30 sq km. It happens when monsoon air is pushed up by the Himalayas, and it triggers flash floods and debris flows (Leh 2010).

• Kedarnath disaster 2013 (16-17 June): extreme early-monsoon rain, helped by a western disturbance, plus the breach of Chorabari lake, sent floods down the Mandakini. About 6,000 died, many of them pilgrims.
• Chamoli flood 2021 (7 February): a rock-and-ice avalanche from Ronti peak sent a debris flood down the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga. It wrecked the Rishiganga and Tapovan-Vishnugad projects, and about 200 died.
• South Lhonak GLOF 2023 (north Sikkim, 3-4 October): a surge down the Teesta destroyed the Teesta III (Chungthang) dam and killed many. NDMA issued GLOF guidelines in 2020 (2024 programme: verify current).
• Common thread: warming, fragile slopes, and hydropower, roads and pilgrim crowds placed inside hazard zones. Warming as a driver is covered in the climate-change note.

10. Weather extremes and fire: heat and cold waves, lightning, dust storms and forest fires

Read the detailed note →

• Heat wave (the loo): hot, dry west winds blow over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in April-June.
• IMD declares a heat wave when the maximum is at least 40°C in the plains (37°C on coasts, 30°C in hills) and 4.5-6.4°C above normal, or when it reaches 45°C.
• It is a severe heat wave at 6.5°C above normal or 47°C.

• Urban heat islands (cities warmer than their surroundings) add to the heat.

• Heat Action Plan: Ahmedabad made the first one in South Asia in 2013, after the 2010 heat wave. NDMA guidelines (2016, revised 2019) guide state and city plans. Heat is not a notified disaster (verify current).

• Cold wave: hits northwest India in December-February. Snowfall in nearby mountains and cold winds from the Caspian-Turkmenistan region bring frost and fog.
• Thunderstorm and lightning: local storms with heavy rain, gusts and electric discharges. Lightning is one of India's biggest natural killers, especially in Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. IITM's Damini app gives lightning alerts.
• Dust storms: strong winds lift dry, loose soil after drought where plant cover is thin. They hit Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh in April-June. The May 2018 dust storms killed over a hundred people (verify figure).
• Forest fire: an uncontrolled fire, usually started by people and spread by dry weather and wind.
• Season: February-June, worst in dry deciduous and chir-pine forests.
• Places: Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Western Ghats, Odisha and the northeast.
• Response: FSI sends satellite fire alerts, and there is a National Action Plan on Forest Fires (2018).

11. Disaster risk reduction worldwide: IDNDR to Sendai and CDRI

Read the detailed note →

• International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction: declared by the UN General Assembly in 1989 (resolution 44/236). NCERT gives 1990-2000; the UN decade was 1990-1999.
• Yokohama Strategy: adopted at the World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction, Yokohama, 23-27 May 1994 ("Plan of Action for a Safer World"). It said:
• Each country has a sovereign duty to protect its citizens.
• Developing, least developed, landlocked and small-island states get priority.
• Countries should build national capacity and laws, working with NGOs and local communities.

• Countries should cooperate on capacity building, technology and information sharing, and resources.

• Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015): adopted at Kobe in January 2005, just after the 2004 tsunami. It had five priorities for building resilience.

• Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030): adopted on 18 March 2015. It shifted the focus from managing disasters to managing risk.
• Four priorities: understanding risk, risk governance, investing in resilience, and preparedness with "Build Back Better".
• Seven global targets: reduce deaths, people affected, economic loss and infrastructure damage; increase national and local strategies, international cooperation and access to early warning by 2030.

• It belongs to the 2015 trio along with the Paris Agreement and the SDGs.

• Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI): launched by India at the UN Climate Action Summit, New York, in September 2019. Its secretariat is in New Delhi. It works on resilient power, transport, telecom and health infrastructure. Its IRIS initiative (2021) helps small island states. It has over 40 member countries (verify current).

• Other links: the UN Early Warnings for All initiative (2022) aims to cover everyone by 2027. India's PM gave a ten-point agenda at AMCDRR in 2016.

12. Disaster management in India: the cycle, the law and the institutions

Read the detailed note →

• Disaster management cycle (NCERT's three stages):
• Pre-disaster: data, vulnerability maps, awareness, planning and preparedness.
• During disaster: rescue, evacuation, shelters, food, water and medical aid.

• Post-disaster: rehabilitation, recovery and capacity building.

• Disaster mitigation: actions taken before a disaster to reduce its impact, such as hazard maps, building codes, land-use controls, embankments and early warning.

• Shift in approach: India moved from relief to risk reduction. The MHA has been the nodal ministry since 2002, while drought stays with the Agriculture Ministry.
• Disaster Management Act 2005 (enacted 23 December 2005): defines disaster as a grave occurrence beyond the community's coping capacity. Its 2025 amendment gives the NCMC and the High Level Committee legal status, adds national and state disaster databases and urban disaster management authorities, and lets states raise their own response forces (verify current).
• National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA): chaired by the Prime Minister. SDMAs are chaired by Chief Ministers, and DDMAs by District Collectors. NDMA lays down policies, plans and guidelines. Related documents are the National Policy (2009) and the National Disaster Management Plan (2016, revised 2019).
• National Disaster Response Force (NDRF): formed in 2006 from central armed police forces. NCERT says 12 locations; it now has 16 battalions (verify current). It has also worked abroad, in Nepal 2015 and Türkiye 2023 (Operation Dost).
• National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM): in New Delhi. It began in 1995 and became statutory under the 2005 Act. It handles training and research.
• National and State Disaster Response Funds:
• The Centre pays 75% of the SDRF, or 90% for northeastern and Himalayan states.
• The NDRF fund adds money for severe disasters.

• The Fifteenth Finance Commission split the money into response (80%) and mitigation (20%) windows (verify current).

• Notified disasters: cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloudburst, pest attack, and frost or cold wave. States may spend up to 10% of SDRF on local disasters such as lightning (verify current).

• Common Alerting Protocol: NDMA's SACHET platform uses it to send location-based SMS and cell-broadcast alerts in local languages. Warning agencies are IMD, CWC, INCOIS, DGRE and GSI.

---

Exam angles

Prelims — high-yield facts and traps

• Table 6.1 traps:
• Blizzards and drought are atmospheric.
• Subsidence and soil erosion are terrestrial.
• Storm surge and tsunami are aquatic.
• Locusts and dengue are biological.

• "Drought is a terrestrial hazard": FALSE.

• Earthquakes:

• Zone V covers the northeast, Kashmir, Uttarakhand, western Himachal, north Bihar, Kachchh, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Delhi is in Zone IV, and Zone I was abolished in 2002.
• Koyna 1967 is the classic reservoir-induced quake.
• The Bhima fault explains Latur 1993.

• "The Deccan is the most earthquake-prone": FALSE.

• Tsunami:

• "Tsunamis travel fastest in shallow water": FALSE. They are fastest in the deep ocean and grow tall in shallow water.
• The warning centre (ITEWC) is at INCOIS, Hyderabad, since 2007.

• The 2004 tsunami came from an Mw 9.1 quake off Sumatra.

• Cyclones:

• None form within 0-5° of the equator.
• Bay of Bengal storms peak in October-November.
• Storm surge causes most deaths.

• RSMC New Delhi names the storms.

• Floods:

• Rashtriya Barh Ayog was set up in 1976 and found 40 million ha flood-prone.
• Tamil Nadu floods in November-January.
• Majuli is on the Brahmaputra.

• The most flood-prone states are Assam, West Bengal and Bihar.

• Drought:

• Areas with over 30% of gross cropped area irrigated are excluded.
• Know akal, trinkal, jalkal and trikal.
• Jaisalmer and Barmer get under 90 mm of rain.

• IMD calls a rainfall deficit above 25% a drought.

• Case-to-place pairs:

• Malpa: Pithoragarh, 1998.
• Kedarnath: Chorabari lake and Mandakini, 2013.
• Chamoli: Ronti peak and Rishiganga, 2021.
• South Lhonak: Teesta III dam, 2023.
• Joshimath: 2023.
• Wayanad: Mundakkai, 2024.

• The Landslide Atlas (NRSC 2023) ranks Rudraprayag most exposed.

• IMD thresholds:

• Heat wave: 40/37/30°C plus 4.5°C above normal, or 45°C.
• Severe heat wave: 47°C.

• Cloudburst: 100 mm an hour over 20-30 sq km.

• DM Act 2005:

• NDMA is chaired by the PM, SDMA by the CM and DDMA by the Collector.
• NDRF was formed in 2006.
• SDRF funding is 75:25 (90:10 for NE and Himalayan states).

• "Heat wave is a notified disaster": FALSE (verify current).

• Frameworks:

• IDNDR covered the 1990s.
• Yokohama was in 1994.
• Hyogo ran 2005-2015.
• Sendai runs 2015-2030, with 7 targets and 4 priorities.
• CDRI was launched in 2019, with its secretariat in New Delhi.

Mains — GS-I and GS-III themes

1. "Hazards are natural, disasters are not": discuss with Indian examples of rising vulnerability on floodplains, coasts and hill slopes.
2. Himalayan disasters (Kedarnath, Chamoli, Joshimath, South Lhonak): what roles do climate change and development play, and what should a Himalayan development model look like?
3. Why has India cut cyclone deaths but not flood and landslide losses? Draw lessons from Odisha (1999 vs Phailin 2013).
4. Drought-prone India: the regional pattern, its consequences and long-term drought proofing.
5. Urban flooding in Indian cities: the causes and an integrated management plan.
6. Evaluate India's disaster management system under the DM Act 2005 and its 2025 amendment against the Sendai priorities.
7. Heat waves as a silent disaster: should heat be notified, and how far do Heat Action Plans work?

Current-affairs hooks

• Each monsoon's Himalayan and Western Ghats cloudbursts, landslides and flash floods (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Kerala) and the expert reports that follow (verify current).
• The status of BIS seismic zoning revisions and Zone VI (verify current).
• Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea cyclone seasons, IMD forecasts and evacuation records.
• Heat-wave seasons, heat action plans and demands to make heat a notified disaster.
• NDMA's GLOF mitigation work on high-risk glacial lakes (verify current).
• Rules under the DM (Amendment) Act 2025 and Finance Commission disaster fund allocations (verify current).
• CDRI membership, India's international relief missions (NDRF abroad) and follow-ups to the Sendai midterm review.