Natural Hazards and Disaster Management in India

The correct answer is B, epicentre. The energy of an earthquake is released at a point inside the earth, and the point on the surface directly above it is the epicentre, where the tremor is felt first and usually most strongly; it is the point reported in news bulletins. A is wrong because the focus, also called the hypocentre, is that place of origin inside the earth, not on the surface, and the depth of the focus decides whether an earthquake is shallow, intermediate or deep. C is wrong because a fault line is the fracture in the crust along which the rocks move, and it may run for hundreds of kilometres, while the epicentre is a single point. D is wrong because a seismic belt is a broad zone such as the Circum-Pacific belt where earthquakes are concentrated, which is a regional idea and not a point.

The correct answer is C, the Richter scale. It expresses magnitude, the energy released at the focus, on a logarithmic scale, so a rise of one whole number means about thirty-two times more energy, and a single earthquake has only one magnitude whatever the distance of the observer. A is wrong because the Modified Mercalli scale measures intensity, the shaking and the damage actually felt at a place, so the same earthquake has a high Mercalli value near the epicentre and a low one far away. B is wrong because the Beaufort scale describes wind speed by its visible effects on the sea and on land. D is wrong because the Saffir-Simpson scale classifies hurricanes by their wind speed into categories one to five. Magnitude with Richter and intensity with Mercalli is the pair examiners want.

The correct answer is B, secondary waves. S waves are transverse: the particles move at right angles to the direction of travel, and that requires a medium with shear strength, which liquids do not have. The shadow zone created by the failure of S waves to cross the outer core is the evidence that the outer core is in a liquid state. A is wrong because P waves are longitudinal, travel as a push and pull along the direction of motion, move fastest and pass through solids, liquids and gases, which is why they are the first to be recorded on a seismograph. C is wrong because surface or L waves travel along the surface of the earth, are the slowest and cause the greatest destruction to buildings, but they do not travel through the body of the earth at all. D is therefore wrong as well.

The correct answer is B, four zones numbered II to V. The earlier Zone I was merged with Zone II, so the map now runs from Zone II, of low hazard, to Zone V, of the highest hazard, which covers Kutch, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, most of the North-East, parts of northern Bihar and parts of the western Himalaya. A is wrong because three zones never formed the Indian classification. C is a deliberate distractor built on the old numbering: five zones from I to V belong to the superseded map, and marking it is the commonest error in this question. D is wrong because no Indian zoning map has six classes. Remember that the number of zones is four while the highest number used is five, which is exactly the confusion examiners exploit.

The correct answer is B, 2005. The Disaster Management Act, 2005 set up the National Disaster Management Authority, the State Disaster Management Authorities and the District Disaster Management Authorities, and provided for the National Disaster Response Force and the National Institute of Disaster Management. A is wrong because 2001 is the year of the Bhuj earthquake in Gujarat, which, with the super cyclone of 1999 and the tsunami of 2004, created the pressure for such a law, but no Act was passed that year. C is wrong because 2009 is the year of the National Policy on Disaster Management, a policy document issued under the Act and not the Act itself. D is wrong because 2015 is the year the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction was adopted internationally, which is a global agreement rather than Indian legislation.

The correct answer is C, the Prime Minister of India. Under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 the Prime Minister is the Chairperson of the NDMA, which may have other members not exceeding nine, one of them designated Vice-Chairperson; the parallel offices are held by the Chief Minister in a State Authority and the District Magistrate in a District Authority. A is wrong because the President holds no executive office of this kind. B is wrong although the Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal ministry for disaster management and the Home Minister chairs the National Crisis Management Committee arrangements; the Authority itself is headed by the Prime Minister. D is wrong because the Cabinet Secretary heads the National Crisis Management Committee, a separate body of secretaries, and is not the Chairperson of the NDMA.

The correct answer is B, the Chief Minister of the State. The Disaster Management Act, 2005 makes the Chief Minister the ex officio Chairperson of the State Disaster Management Authority, just as the Prime Minister heads the national Authority; in a Union Territory the Lieutenant Governor or the Administrator takes that place. A is wrong because the Governor is the constitutional head of the State but holds no place in this executive structure. C is wrong because the Chief Secretary heads the State Executive Committee, which carries out the Authority's decisions, a distinction examiners test. D is wrong because although the Revenue or Relief department usually handles relief work in the States, the Act names the Chief Minister and not any departmental minister as Chairperson of the Authority.

The correct answer is B, Hyderabad. After the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 the country set up a tsunami early warning centre at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, which works at Hyderabad under the Ministry of Earth Sciences and uses a network of seismic stations, bottom pressure recorders and tide gauges to issue warnings for the Indian Ocean region. A is wrong because Chennai, though badly hit by the 2004 tsunami, hosts other ocean institutions and not the warning centre. C is wrong because New Delhi is the seat of the NDMA and of the National Institute of Disaster Management, which train and plan rather than issue tsunami bulletins. D is wrong because Port Blair, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has monitoring stations but is not the location of the warning centre.

The correct answer is B. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 to 2030 was adopted at the Third United Nations World Conference held at Sendai in Japan in 2015, and it took the place of the Hyogo Framework for Action of 2005 to 2015, which had itself been adopted in Japan at Kobe in Hyogo prefecture. A is wrong because 2005 is the year of the Hyogo Framework, which replaced the Yokohama Strategy of 1994, so the pairing is shifted by one stage. C is wrong because the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 is a climate change treaty on greenhouse gas emissions and has nothing to do with disaster risk reduction. D is wrong because the Paris Agreement of 2015 is also a climate agreement and is still in force. Note that both disaster frameworks were adopted in Japan.

The correct answer is C, about 27 degrees Celsius. A tropical cyclone is driven by the latent heat released when water vapour condenses, so it needs a large warm ocean surface of at least about 27 degrees to supply enough moisture, along with sufficient Coriolis force, which is why cyclones do not form within about five degrees of the equator, and weak vertical wind shear aloft. A and B are wrong because seas at 15 or 20 degrees cannot supply the latent heat required and are typical of higher latitudes where temperate cyclones form instead, from the meeting of warm and cold air masses. D is wrong because open sea surfaces do not reach 40 degrees anywhere on earth; such temperatures occur over land. The cyclone also weakens rapidly after landfall precisely because its supply of warm moist air is cut off.

The correct answer is A, the Central Water Commission. It maintains forecasting stations on the major rivers and issues level and inflow forecasts to the State authorities, working with the rainfall data of the India Meteorological Department. B is wrong because the Geological Survey of India is the nodal agency for landslide studies and hazard zonation, not for floods. C is wrong because INCOIS at Hyderabad is the tsunami and ocean information centre, which also issues storm surge and high wave bulletins but not river flood forecasts. D is wrong because the National Institute of Disaster Management in New Delhi is a training and research institution under the Disaster Management Act and issues no operational warnings. Matching questions on nodal agencies are common, so also remember the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment for avalanches.

The correct answer is C, meteorological drought. It is defined purely in terms of rainfall: a significant deficiency of precipitation over an area compared with its long-period average, and it is the first stage from which the other kinds of drought follow. A is wrong because agricultural drought is a shortage of soil moisture at the time crops need it, which can occur even in a year of normal total rainfall if the rain comes at the wrong time, and can be avoided by irrigation. B is wrong because hydrological drought is the stage at which reservoirs, rivers, lakes and the water table fall below their normal levels after repeated rainfall failure. D is wrong because socio-economic drought describes the effect on the supply of food, fodder, water and employment, which is a consequence rather than the meteorological definition.