Battered, wounded and scarred, India has barely had time in the last few decades, to rise from one disaster before being struck down by another. The Latur earthquake in 1993, Orissa super cyclone in 1999, followed in quick succession by the Bhuj earthquake, the tsunami, the earthquake in Kashmir, the flooding of Mumbai city, unprecedented rains and floods in parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra, and the massive deluge in Bihar when the Kosi river changed its course, not to mention the recurrent floods in the North-East and the droughts in several regions of the country. In addition, there have been man-made disasters like the Bhopal gas tragedy and the deadly terror attacks in various places across the country.

India has always been vulnerable to natural disasters like floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides. Its geo-climatic conditions render about sixty per cent of the landmass prone to earthquakes of various intensities, over forty million hectares susceptible to floods, about eight per cent of the total area vulnerable to cyclones and sixty-eight per cent susceptible to drought. So natural disasters are a bitter reality for us. If anything, this reality is becoming more bitter by the day, as the nature, intensity and frequency of disasters rises, aided by overpopulation, haphazard development, changing socio-economic conditions and climate changes among other factors, and we become more and more vulnerable to its effects.