Mitigation
Mitigation is one of the actions that take place during a disaster management action plan. Disaster management takes up a cycle that includes preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. It is worth mentioning that mitigation is the process that helps in stopping hazards from developing into full grown disasters or even reducing the risks that hazards may have to humans and property. This is essay seeks to bring to the fore the importance and roles of mitigation as a disaster management action plan.
Mitigation in Chilean mining accident
There is the need for understanding a very important fact about mitigation before an individual even starts thinking about the roles that mitigation plays. This fact is that mitigation takes place throughout the cycle even though it is seen as one element of the cycle. Additionally, mitigation uses the information from experience of past events and recovery to predict the future, and therefore come up with measures for combating these dangers. This is quite important for one to understand before a discussion of the roles is made.
Communities are exposed to different hazards and therefore there are different methods of responding to the hazards so that fatalities are reduced or completely combated. It, therefore, follows that the first step towards disaster management and mitigation is an analysis of the hazard, and determining the extent of hazards that mankind is exposed to. The hazards could be natural or technological. In this discussion, I wish to use a very recent occurrence that has great significance to the whole world and see how the success of the mitigation process was attained. The example I wish to use for this exercise is the rescue process of 33 men that were trapped in a mine in Chile. This activity is very important because it involved great action from the men trapped as well as the government of Chile and president Pinera. It is worth mentioning that the thirty-three men had been trapped in the mines for seventy days and therefore they would have given up hope of being rescued. However, their foreman was a great man who made sure that each man was strong and he even communicated to the president telling him to take heart and rescue the men.
One sure thing that is important before undertaking any disaster management measure is the fact that one has to make a plan; otherwise, the whole process may become a failure. The president of Chile and the ministry of mining ensured that they took this into consideration and this is exactly why they had to dig a tunnel from a different location so that the people could be rescued from there rather that using the main entrance of the mine which would have been faster since it would have meant digging off the blockade. Unfortunately, the later had the propensity of increasing the risks to the miners since it would have completely collapsed the mine which would finally cave in and leave all the miners dead. On the other hand, such an action would have triggered a series of hazardous conditions which would as well have increased the hazards.
The rescue operation gives all the roles of mitigation in any kind of disaster. This role includes ensuring that minimal or no damage takes place due to the hazard, determining the technical or the method that should be taken to contain the disaster and also to ensure that effective policies on disaster management are drafted and applied in the exercise.
Conclusion
It is notable that mitigation is the most important thing in disaster management from the example of the Chilean miners trapped more than six hundred feet underground, and therefore it demands that individuals participating in this exercise be open minded and rational.
