Building from experience: Community perceptions and gaps

I recently visited a village in the Champaran district of Bihar in the midst of a cold wave and fell ill. The houses made of brick and mortar have large roshandans or a ventilators near the ceiling, which works well in the gruelling Indian summer allowing hot air in the room to escape but leave homes vulnerable in winters. The brevity of Indian winters leads many to ignore its malevolence, choosing to be exposed to the cold air sinking through the roshandans into the rooms. Although, in many regions the roshandans are shut off in winter with panes of glass the lesser informed or poorer households in Bihar choose to huddle and light a fire in the room to ward off the cold. Lighting a fire leads to heavy indoor pollution and in many instances results in carbon-monoxide poisoning. This strange imbalance between building architecture of the ancient and modern brings into focus the lack of direction within rural and urban communities in terms of disaster proofing.

Each disaster needs to be assessed keeping traditional building norms in sight, educating from the bottom-up. Masons to the top officials of the state can perhaps evolve a building plan for a region, keeping local practices in mind. It is imperative that disaster resilience is built upwards from the unit level with a multi-hazard perspective—optimum height of the plinth to combat floods, reinforced structures for earthquake proofing, cold and heat wave proofing among others.

This issue of G’nY discusses disaster resilience in India, at the household, community and at the country level. A paradigm shift in India’s disaster preparedness has resulted in better outcomes, especially for cyclones. Despite the reduction in lives lost in large scale disasters, there is little progress as far as loss to livelihoods is concerned. Building disaster resilience however, will aid livelihood proofing along with saving lives, to usher in a climate adapted tomorrow.