Assessment of Hazards, Vulnerability, and Capacity for Disaster Prevention and Emergency Preparedness "in Addis Ababa
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Date
1997-12
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Addis Abeba Universty
Abstract
This community based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in
Addis Ababa to assess hazards, vulnerability, and capacities for disaster prevention
and emergency preparedness. The study was conducted in 720 households selected
by multiple stage sampling from 30 Kebeles of which 647(90%) responded, and in
66 institutions of which 55(83.3 %) responded. The most frequent and most worrying
hazards identified were !lood, tire, outbreak of diseases and car accidents. These
four hazards had caused signilicant number of injuries, deaths, and a large amount
of property losses in the past live years. The main factors of vulnerability identilied
were: unemployment, monthly income below the minimum government wage salary,
illiteracy, and housing crowdedness with difficult road access. The capacities for
preparedness, as measured by awareness of causes and prevention methods,
availability of resources, and presence of a preparedness plan were as follows: the
majority of the respondents were aware of the causes and prevention methods for the
identitied hazards, but the prioritization of concerns did not correspond to the extent
of damage that the different hazards had caused. The Majority of the organizations
claimed having various shortages of resources for response. Although most of the
organizations had no written preparedness plans, minority did have a written
preparedness plan which can be a good example to the rest. Overall, much needs to
be done on disaster prevention and emergency preparedness as most organizations
lack the capacities for preparedness. A number of measures can contribute to disaster
prevention and emergency preparedness. These measures include: Public education
through mass media on prevention and preparedness; strict traffic regulations
enforced by traftic police; strict licence issuance system; construction of fiood
protection walls; and strengthening the capacities of specilic service organizations for
response and encouraging them to have a written preparedness plan.
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Keywords
Assessment of Hazards, vulnerability