Earthquake Disaster Management and Culture

The assignment delves into the impact of cultural factors on earthquake disaster management. It examines how different cultures approach preparedness, response, and recovery efforts in the wake of seismic events. The provided texts offer insights into various aspects of this complex topic, including community resilience, international collaboration, and the role of archaeology in understanding past earthquakes.

Running head: LEADERSHIP IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Leadership in Disaster Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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LEADERSHIP IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Describe the background of earthquake, context of the event and identify its impact
On September, 2017 there was a massive earthquake which struck in Mexico. The
earthquake was very powerful and it killed many people and even destructed and collapsed the
building. The epicenter which was measured was 7.1 magnitudes. Wednesday, the earthquake
took place. The devastating earthquake killed many in Mexico City in 2017.
The tectonic plates which was along the North American continent. Mexico is the
World’s most seismically active region, which have several tectonic plates along with the coast
of Mexico. The activities along the coast of the Caribbean plates also generate seismic events.
The city of Mexico is made up of soft soil and clay which increases the destruction the
earthquake causes. This will increase the shockwave amplitude and cause violent shaking.
Deeper and denser soil layers increase amplified shockwaves, more will be the destruction. The
earth quake which struck the region killed almost many people (Witze,2017).
The earthquake on 19th September killed almost 10000 people and devastated the whole
land. Every year the national earthquake, drill is conducted by the Government through the
public loudspeakers in the Mexico City. Thus this is one of the devastating earthquakes in the
City of Mexico. The earth quake reported that there was strong shaking for about one minute and
the alarm and the cell phone alerted before the earthquake started (Wade, 2017).

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Briefly evaluate the management of the event and its significance in human, social, political
and economic terms
Significance on Human Aspect
There was many debris and collapses in the city of Mexico. During this event of disaster
there were many rescuers such as the soldiers, the college students and the rescuers who were
working to help to rescue the people who were trapped in this disaster. There were huge piles of
rubble and many other buildings which were also destroyed. There was much debris which was
spread throughout. There was damage of the church killing almost fifteen people. The rescuers
continued to help the people who were trapped in the earthquake. The crews heard that the
victims were calling out for help. About 32 building collapsed and 52 people were rescued alive,
most of the people feared that they will be trapped inside the debris (Blaikie et al., 2014).
Significance on Social Aspect
Mexico is a very congested city, it is busy throughout but after such disaster the city was
shattered, there were thousands of people who screamed across the roads. They were running
away from the building so as to save them (Gulati, 2017). The public transport was temporarily
shut down. There was power cut almost throughout the day.
The earthquake having epicenter was located in 12kms from the Mexico City. The
earthquake was strong. There was huge damage to the human, social and economic and political
environment of the Country. Around forty four building collapsed in the city of Mexico, it
trapped many people under the dust which caused economic and social loss and damage to the

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environment. In that particular day, the stock price in the Mexico Stock Exchange also declined
(Lomnitz, 2017).
Significance on Economic Aspect
The environmental aspects impact the disaster which demonstrates between social
economic and environment aspect of sustainability. The management shall devise a plan which
will help in preventing the disaster. It is a fundamental effort in reducing the vulnerability so as
to systematically tackle the complex interaction between economic, environmental and social
factors after the earthquake (Rodríguez-Pascua et al., 2017).Earthquake is not under the human
control to measure its effect and to eliminate the natural disaster occurring from it. It is important
to identifying the environmental aspects and the impacts that it is fundamental in the managing
risks, and this should be the first step in a risk management (He & Heki, 2017).
Significance to Political Aspect
The chaos which is created by the earthquakes and the natural disaster created criticism
for those government performances that had to response in case of such a disaster in the Country.
Response from the National emergency center for natural calamity came too late. A professor of
the business school in the Adolfo Ibáñez University said that “The way the crisis was managed
was worse than what we should have anticipated.”
Even though no country is prepared to deal with the earthquake which was as high as
eight in magnitude, one of the mistakes done by the Chile is that they were not prepared for such
an enormous destruction that that an earthquake can bring and destroy the land (Prasad, 2017).

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The Government were not able to take proper steps therefore the structural damages of
the Country was not extensive as the damage in Hait. There is no system for prevention against
earthquakes or tsunamis.
Role of OCHA in emergency United Nations operations following the earthquake in
Mexico
The State of Mexico was struck by the major earthquake were struck in September, in which
many of the people were killed and some were injured and many buildings were destroyed,
leaving almost a million people without immediate shelter.
There were national response from several levels of the Government, the private sector
and the civil society and people were overwhelmed by the circumstances (Toft & Reynolds,
2016).The response was largely dominated by bilateral actions and by the actions of non-
governmental organizations and the Red Cross Movement. In case of natural disaster, the United
Nations played a very major role in this emergency situation.
The team had a motivated and qualified team members but the United Nations Disaster
Assessment and Coordination system was not able to be particularly effective, even in the
limited context of the United Nations response. During the subsequent phase, the team was small
to provide fully effective coordination or assessment services. Where the UNDAC team did
appear to have added some value to the emergency response effort was in strengthening the
coordination capacity of the Indian authorities. The United Nations will not, in most cases, be the
major player in natural disaster response. It does, however, have the legitimacy and the
worldwide network needed to play a limited but effective role (Jennings, 2016).

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Identify the key issues of strategic significance to the country Australia
In order to improve the condition of the natural disaster, the Government of Australia had
decided that they will release the World Bank publication report so as to improve the assessment
of the disaster and to strengthen the economy. As a policy advisor appointed by the Government
in order to brief the events of earthquake that took place in Mexico, it is important to build the
strategies so that they are able to protect the citizen of the country from suffering from natural
calamity. It is important to form strategies, so that the risk is safeguarded and the citizens are
protected from the impacts of the natural calamity.
The strategies are formulated to prevent the mishap caused due to the natural calamity and
which is of strategic significance to the Country
A. It could happen to anyone
There has been no economy that has not suffered the affects of natural calamity such as earth
quake or tsunamis. Mexico, is a country has five tectonic plates and therefore more prone to
earthquakes in a year. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean are more prone to the risk of
hurricane (Wilmsmeier & Monios, 2016).
The natural disaster causes huge loss and damages and they affect the economy in a very
significant way and thereby causing death and losses and thus the cost of recovery is very huge.
These situations forced the government to take effort for reconstruction and so as to expand the
Country’s infrastructure.

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Most of the countries have their disaster and risk surveillance team so that the Government
can initiate a natural disaster relief fund from which the Government is able to help the people
during natural calamity.
B. Mexico and its “impressive” database
Mexico has a fantastic database which is very impressive and it helps the Government for
visualizing the risks potent in the Country and therefore offers financial help to the people of the
Country. The database of the country maintains the data and the values so as to keep the track
and the infrastructure helps the Government during the times of natural disaster (Imperiale &
Vanclay, 2016).
The database is unique among all the Countries and the World Bank says that they have the
capacity to quantify the exposures at a fiscal level so as to improve in the matters of public
infrastructure.
C. Strategies on improvement
The country of Mexico is very susceptible to earthquake since it has a dried-up ancient
lakebed and soft clay deposits which amplifies the creation of earthquake. They saw that the
aftershock damage of the risk of earthquake is lower. This might act as a safeguard but it wound
not help the people who are staying along the ‘Ring of Fire’. This is a region where the tectonic
plates make the volcano and the earthquakes very prevalent (Whittaker, McLennan & Handmer,
2015).
In 2006, Mexico became the first sovereign country to issue a catastrophe bond for
earthquake risks, which is a risk transfer instrument that shares the financial risk of a major

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earthquake with international markets (Kraemer et al., 2016). This is an initiative and strategic
step to build a sage and risk free environment for the people of the country.
Make recommendations on actions that could be taken to offer assistance by Australia
The policy advisor is appointed by Government in Australia and they are to provide
assistance and safeguard the life of the people of Mexico themselves during the times of crisis.
Thus there are five ways to help the people of Mexico. The five different alternatives and
recommendation which could be offered to the people of Mexico thereby offering assistance
during the crisis in Mexico:
1. Australian Red Cross:
This is a worldwide organization which helps in the donations to the people during the
period of disaster. This is a organization which is formed to protect the human life during the
natural calamity or during a period of natural crisis in the country. This is non Government
organization which offers assistance during the time of natural crisis prevailing in the Country.
Thus the Australian Government contributed fund to the society so that they are able to help the
people in the time of disaster and crisis. The Australian Red cross unit maintained stocks of the
critical disaster response equipment which included water filtration, shelter, hygiene and cooking
kits for use during the time emergencies in case of natural calamity.
2. AusAID :
This is another professional organization which is formed in Australia. It is a nonprofit
organization which helps in the rescue of the people when there is natural calamity and disaster
thus the people are able to take help and get the support. The donations is given to such people so

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that they can survive from the disaster which is caused in the Country (Ismail-Zadeh et al.,2014).
This organization gave protection and assistance to various International disaster and they donate
to the people and are appreciated for such a cause.
3. Amazon
The Amazon is also serving as an organization to help the people during disaster (Zafarani &
Liu, 2015). In the time of disaster, Amazon has created its own homepage placement and
donated some fund to some of the corporation such as mercy Corps. The customers at
Amazon have also contributed more than $30 lakhs for relief.
4. Face book , Google and crowd funding
The group is created by the face book. This is a fundraiser group or an online site and this
supplies donation to those people who are affected in the natural calamity such as the earthquake,
tsunamis, and the hurricanes or other natural disaster. Social media is also helping the people so
that they can located and reconnect families. Google has also activated their people
finder platform where the people can share information so that they are able to locate their family
member. (Glasscoe et al., 2015).
5. Aid by the Government of Australia
The Government of Australia has appointed team of rescuers to help the city of Mexico
during crisis. Thus those people are spreading the information so as to help the victims and
locate free hospital and find apartments so that they can stay there during the period. All the

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rescuers are spreading public safety messages so as to remind the people of Mexico to keep the
streets as car-free as possible for rescue vehicles to pass so as to help the victim.
6. Nonprofits
Many nonprofit organizations are formed to help in the monetary donation during relief
from natural disaster. Organization such as Habitat for Humanity Australia and Save the
Children Australia serve the people with clothes and the basic need such as food and water to
help people survive. The big entrepreneurs from the country of Australia also fund the people so
that the people are saved during the period of crisis. With the invention of internet all the people
have donated in the sites of the NGO which are opened for the purposes of donation to those
people. (Wilhite, Sivakumar & Pulwarty,2014).
.

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References
Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., & Wisner, B. (2014). At risk: natural hazards, people's
vulnerability and disasters. Routledge.
Glasscoe, M. T., Wang, J., Pierce, M. E., Yoder, M. R., Parker, J. W., Burl, M. C., ... & Ma, Y.
(2015). E-decider: Using earth science data and modeling tools to develop decision
support for earthquake disaster response. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 172(8), 2305-
2324.
Gulati, A. G. (2017). Mexico Earthquake-Lessons for Indian Authorities and Telecoms.
He, L., & Heki, K. (2017). Ionospheric anomalies immediately before Mw 7.0‐8.0
earthquakes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.
Imperiale, A. J., & Vanclay, F. (2016). Experiencing local community resilience in action:
Learning from post-disaster communities. Journal of Rural Studies, 47, 204-219.
Ismail-Zadeh, A., Fucugauchi, J. U., Kijko, A., Takeuchi, K., & Zaliapin, I. (Eds.).
(2014). Extreme natural hazards, disaster risks and societal implications (Vol. 1).
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Jennings, M. (2016). How did cross-cultural dynamics impact decision-making during the
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Kraemer, M. U., Hay, S. I., Pigott, D. M., Smith, D. L., Wint, G. W., & Golding, N. (2016).
Progress and challenges in infectious disease cartography. Trends in parasitology, 32(1),
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