Challenges Faced by Humanitarian agency in Emergency Response in Urban areas: Lessons from Haiti and Chile
accommodated by public or private sectors. Mobility expectations are thwarted, and the proximity of conspicuous consumption by elites raises migrant awareness of their marginal role in society. Migrants therefore experience rising relative deprivation, which increases their propensity to engage in radical political activity.
(2) Migrants have problems adjusting socially and psychologically to the urban environment. Cultural conflicts and the disruption of past living habits and customs cause personal identity crises, which increase the chances of primary group breakdown. Traditional social controls on deviant behavior are thus weakened. In addition, as migrants seek entry into new protective groups, they enter a phase in which they are susceptible to recruitment into extremist political movements.
(3) Rural-urban migration, increased political awareness, and mobilization of radical opposition go hand in hand. The urban environment allows high levels of social communication and produces intense competition among various interest groups. Organized political activity is conspicuous, which helps politicize migrants and encourages mass involvement in political action. These factors translate into migrant support for opposition political parties and aggressive protest movements.
5.8 Uncontrolled layout of urban areas It happened mainly in the urban areas of the developing countries those got huge unplanned infrastructure. And that become huge debris in case of earthquake. The land use in urban areas causes filling up the low land which is used as surface water reservoirs. Again the enormous pressure of living population caused the groundwater level down which cause a problem to manage the drinking water source during emergency phase in urban areas. The unplanned streets, roads and insufficient of airports also cause a major obstacle in emergency phase especially during earthquake disaster.
5.9 Absence of good governance and Public accountability The absence of good governance and public accountability can’t ensure a sustainable urban society and sound disaster management plan. The unsustainable urban society doesn’t have the capability to reduce the vulnerability and thereby causes huge damage of lives and properties during disaster.
Lessons from Haiti and Chile Earthquake
6. There is saying “Wise man learnt from others mistake”. So each and every disaster on this earth is a scope for others to learn the lessons out of the mistakes which are cause for the disaster. The recent earthquake in Haiti and Chile shows us many challenges which were faced by the humanitarian agencies during emergency phase.
Haiti Earthquake
6.1 On January 12 2010, just before 17:00, an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale shook Haiti for 35 seconds. It was the most powerful earthquake to hit the country in 200 years. The earthquake has created an unprecedented situation, affecting the country’s most populous area as well as its economic and administrative centre. Around 1.5 million people, representing 15% of the population, have been directly affected. Over 220,000 people lost their lives and over 300,000 were injured. There has been massive infrastructure destruction. Some 105,000 homes have been completely destroyed and more than 208,000 damaged. Over 1,300 educational establishments, and over 50 hospitals and health centers, have collapsed or are unusable. Part of the country’s main port is not operational. The President’s Palace, Parliament, the Law Courts, and most of the Ministry and public administration buildings have been destroyed. After the earthquake in Haiti the following problems were arises which made the humanitarian agencies job more difficult in emergency phase.
6.1.1 Political complexity The recent earthquake in Haiti’s capital city Port au Prince, the humanitarian agencies faced difficulties while distributing the relief material to the victims. In the city there were numbers of political leaders and their gangs and added with churches and community organizations etc. This formal and informal center of powers were tried to influence the humanitarian agencies relief distributions by trying to co-opt and capitalize on their efforts for their own political advantage.
6.1.2 Law and Order The structure of government and law and order all but disappeared in the days following the quake. But on the ground some Haitians were trying to fill the power vacuum and implement their own self-help operation, encouraged by the city’s Radio Metropole, which urged residents: “Organise neighbourhood committees to avoid chaos and prevent people looting shops and houses”. The security situation worsened when the