Today is the 16th National Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Day, with the theme of "Everyone Stresses Safety, Everyone Knows How to Respond to Emergencies - Strive to Improve Grassroots Disaster Prevention and Risk Avoidance Capabilities".
Relevant data show that in 2023, a total of 95.444 million people will be affected by natural disasters across the country to varying degrees, with direct economic losses exceeding 340 billion yuan. During this year's "May Day" holiday, the collapse of Meida Expressway in Guangdong Province caused 48 deaths, the rockfall in Hengshan Scenic Area caused 1 death and 5 injuries, and the auditorium of Henan University was destroyed in a fire.
All kinds of disasters may occur at any time, disaster prevention and mitigation is "more important than Mount Tai", whether it is society or individuals, we must always tighten the safety strings, and constantly improve the ability to prevent disasters and avoid risks.
One
Even if we haven't personally experienced catastrophic disasters, the "apocalyptic scenes" of disaster films such as "Tangshan Earthquake", "2012" and "The Day After Tomorrow" will make us tremble. In the face of the earth shaking, the monstrous waves, and the raging fire, life is always small and fragile.
Since ancient times, China has been characterized by disasters such as "many types of disasters, wide geographical distribution, and heavy losses after disasters". In ancient times, a "catastrophe" was enough to shake the dynasty. As recorded in the "Yangwu County Chronicle", at the end of the Ming Dynasty, "the plague was a great work, with nineteen dead and countless extinctions", which exacerbated the collapse of the regional economy and society.
Disasters come in a variety of forms, including not only natural disasters such as earthquakes, typhoons, and floods, but also compound disasters caused by multiple factors such as fire and pollution. No matter how big or small disasters fall on individuals, they are insurmountable mountains, unbearable burdens of life, and irreparable losses to families and society.
Broken roads after the earthquake Source: Earth Magazine
In addition to the "immediate threat" to life and property, disasters can also take a psychological and spiritual toll.
A social survey on earthquakes has shown that disaster psychology has a long-term effect, and it is difficult to eliminate the fear of disaster victims for a long time, it is difficult to rebuild a positive attitude towards life, and even develop post-traumatic stress disorder, forming a "disaster victim consciousness". A momentary disaster may take a lifetime to heal.
However, with the increase in human activities, disasters have become more complex than ever.
According to a United Nations report, an average of 1.5 disasters per day will occur globally by 2030 due to human activities. Catastrophic events caused by droughts, floods and extreme weather will become more frequent.
At the same time, a number of new disasters have sprung up. For example, irresponsible behaviors such as Japan's discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea and the chaos of biological experiments in the United States have "planted mines" for the development of human society.
In addition, there are rumors such as the "Mayan Doomsday Propose", which can cause panic and damage that cannot be underestimated.
Nowadays, a number of cutting-edge technologies such as AI are being applied to the prediction of geological and meteorological disasters, which can provide earlier, more accurate and more comprehensive early warning of disasters than in the past, but it is obviously impossible to achieve "100%". What we can do is more to "not stand under the wall".
Image source | pixabay
Two
Compared with the uncontrollable nature of disasters, it is even more painful to miss rescue opportunities due to ignoring dangers and lacking the necessary literacy. In the past, we should be vigilant against the following three types of psychology when facing disasters.
The first is the "broken window effect" that leads to lightness.
According to Hayne's Law, behind every serious accident, there must be 29 minor accidents, 300 accident precursors and 1,000 accident hazards. In other words, there is always an opportunity to prevent disasters before they actually occur, especially in the case of man-made disasters. However, the "broken window effect" will paralyze people's vigilance, from individuals to groups, they will treat "big harm" as "small harm" and "small harm" as "harmless", and eventually brew a "big disaster", causing the tragedy of "a thousand miles of embankment, collapsed in an anthill".
Taking a factory fire in a certain place in 2021 as an example, before the fire broke out, the affected enterprises were punished and ordered to rectify many times. However, several "small fires" have never attracted the attention of enterprises, and eventually caused a big disaster.
The second is indifference under the "bystander effect".
In the face of disasters, there are no bystanders, everyone is a "person in the situation", and in the face of distant disasters and unfortunate misfortunes around them, they should show sympathy, help, and take warnings, instead of "not caring about themselves, hanging high". In particular, it is necessary to resist the "entertainment" chaos of disasters that have occurred in the past two years. Some people with ulterior motives regard the disaster situation as a "traffic password", treat emergency rescue and disaster relief as a child's play, pose for short videos, make memes, play jokes, and maliciously interpret them, becoming accomplices of public opinion after the disaster. This is not only not conducive to disaster relief and the restoration of post-disaster life and production order, but also makes people ignore the necessity of disaster prevention and mitigation to a certain extent, and may also cause secondary harm to the victims.
Then there is the luck of "the gray rhinoceros is still far away, and the black swan is not coming".
Potential dangers such as global climate change and rising sea levels that are often mentioned but are difficult to take seriously are often referred to as "gray rhinoceros" events. This kind of crisis seems to be "far from life", and countless people regard the "rhinoceros" as a "snail", but once it "runs wild", it will be unavoidable.
Disasters with a small probability and huge impact, such as a "once-in-a-decade" heavy snowstorm, a "once-in-a-century" drought, and a "once-in-a-millennium" rainstorm, are often referred to as "black swan" events. Such disasters may seem accidental, but from the perspective of disaster prevention and avoidance, they should not be taken lightly.
Whether it is facing the "gray rhinoceros" or the "black swan", we should adhere to the bottom-line thinking and leave nothing to chance.
Joint Rescue Exercise for Super Typhoon Prevention and Severe Flood Disaster Source: China's Emergency Management
Three
At the end of the Compendium of World History, Wells writes that "human history is increasingly evolving into a contest between education and disaster", and expresses the essence of "human history", that is, the "history of struggle" to fight disasters with perseverance, wisdom and courage.
To this day, we are still battling disasters. Disaster prevention and mitigation is a long track that requires us to work hard for a long time.
If you don't want to "ring the alarm for a long time", you have to "ring the alarm bell often".
Over the years, the importance of disaster education and disaster research has been widely recognized. In order to cope with future disasters, it has become a general consensus that people should start from me, start from a young age, and start from a baby.
The Plan of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction states that education is at the centre of disaster reduction programmes and that knowledge is the key to success in disaster mitigation. Nowadays, many primary and secondary schools and communities have seized the nodes such as Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Day and National Safety Education Day for Primary and Secondary School Students to carry out disaster prevention and mitigation education and flood prevention and disaster prevention emergency drills, etc., to teach a good "key lesson" of disaster education. In the future, it is also necessary to ensure that disaster education becomes a "regular lesson" rather than a "supplementary lesson".
Students are learning the use of rescue kayaks Source: Xinhuanet
Keep learning and evolve your "antifragile" capabilities.
After the test of various disasters, the Chinese people have not been defeated, but continue to learn, with strong will and united strength, to overcome disasters, make themselves stronger, and evolve "anti-fragile" capabilities.
In the midst of uncertainties, our ability to respond to disasters in stride depends on our ability to thrive in difficult situations. Don't "talk about disasters", but be mentally prepared and have the ability to avoid or reduce disaster losses as much as possible. For example, you can go to the disaster experience hall, safety experience hall and other "disaster simulation places" to learn, master disaster knowledge, common sense of risk avoidance, and improve safety awareness.
Source: Qilu Evening News
Start from the source, don't let disasters "change from 1 to N".
Many accidents and disasters all show that the catastrophe starts from "taking it lightly", starting from "taking it by chance", and starting from "letting you go", such as frequent fires, such as frequent engineering accidents, etc., all of which are related to the source of "looseness", the source of "not tight", and the follow-up is often out of control. This enlightens us that in the matter of disaster prevention and mitigation, we must fulfill our responsibilities at every level, "grasp the problem as early as possible", eliminate the problem in the bud, and prevent it before it happens.
On a broader scale, global non-traditional security challenges are becoming increasingly severe, and no country is an island in the governance of major issues. We need to help each other with the concept of a "community with a shared future for mankind", work together to deal with direct disasters, resolve all kinds of secondary disasters, and make disasters from "0 to 1" no longer "change from 1 to N".
Respect for life, reverence for nature, disaster prevention and mitigation, more important than Mount Tai. I sincerely hope that natural and man-made disasters will no longer be "staged continuously".