• Layout and Urban Plan of a city, such that the damage by an incoming tsunami could be minimized.
• Urban Plan includes –
• Public policy
• Environment
• Law and order
• Education of the Population

• Layout includes –
• Consideration of the topography of the city
• Utilization of natural barriers e.g. coastal mountainous range, coral reefs, etc
• Planning to minimize mechanical damage

            An urban plan of a city in terms of natural disasters must incorporate a workable public policy for the benefit and satisfaction of the people, care for the environment where the city is being built, a law and order system which keeps the activities of the city in check and assists the people in case of an emergency, and the education of the people so that when face natural disasters, they know what to do.

            Law and order in times of natural disasters is especially important; distributing aid, saving lives, and preventing looting and hoarding. In this regard, local policemen, sheriffs, tribal leaders can play a very important role. Aaron D Kennard in When natural disaster strikes: Sheriffs important leaders in emergency response proposes how important sheriffs and their agencies are when natural disasters strike, taking an example from a killer tornado which struck Salt Lake City in Aug 1999.

            Planning an urban city is a huge task in its own right, and planning one where objective is to reduce damage by tsunamis as much as possible is even harder. No one department or municipality can work alone on such a system; instead, much more can be achieved if these various departments and municipalities cooperate and concentrate together on this single effort. In April 2005, a news item appeared in the Financial Times, Amendments for disaster management discussed which detailed how collaboration between various departments and municipalities in a developing country (India) led to new ways of reducing damage caused by natural disasters. Hence, a workable system must make note of the fact that, in such a plan, the water, transportation, police, fire departments etc. must work together.

            Basic survival skills taught to people in the areas of risk is especially important. Knowledge of how to ration food, staying warm and dry, inhibiting water-borne and common infectious diseases recognizing signs of impending disasters, are all important parts of the skills. Various news items appeared after the Dec. 2004 tsunami, which noted that some of the most remote tribes in the Nicobar islands survived because the explanation for the water receding into the ocean (a sign of tsunami) had been passed down the generations. Such a system should be incorporated in a more massive and unified way, that is, in schools. Children should be taught at the elementary level how to spot the signs of an incoming tsunami in a high risk zone. And as they grow older, they should be taught, from basic to complex, survival skills which are in line with their age.

            The plan must also include monitoring of the extent of the damage and where it is the greatest via the use of the NOAA/AVHRR satellite system, which is already being done in the case of other natural disasters such as forest fires and floods.

Page by: Shahab Umer and Peak Xu