Management Information System (MIS) can play a vital role in Disaster Management: Bangladesh Perspective.

Hasibur Rahman, Ph.D. student, Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Rana Plaza, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh (24 April 2013)

Introduction:

That day was 24 April 2013 an eight-story commercial building at Savar, Dhaka was collapsed by anthropogenic fault, negligence, unskillful management. There was very misleading infrastructural condition and management that companies linked to the Rana Plaza disaster. More than one year have past but still now few peoples search their close affectionate person who were not found at that time, were not in the list of missing persons. There was no accurate database of the employees, workers. In this situation Management Information System (MIS) can play a vital role in disaster management. Bangladesh occupies an area of 147570 square kilometers between latitudes 20°34° and 26°38°N and longitudes 88°01° and 92°41°E. The country is bounded to the west, north and east by India and to the extreme south-east by Myanmar. The Bay of Bengal lies to the south. Owing to geographical location the tropic of cancer passes through the middle of Bangladesh, the country falls in the tropical region and other environmental reasons; high density of population is 1174.33 per sq.km (World Bank, 2011) is sign of more dangerous for disaster. Population of Bangladesh is 156,050,883 (Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, July 2009). Population growth is the most critical and constantly changing factor in the ecological system affecting the demand on natural resources and environmental degradation. Greater numbers of peoples mean the demands of more food, water, forest products, more energy, more employment problem and consequently icon of severe environmental disaster. Information system can help disaster management in Bangladesh by disaster preparedness and post disaster management. Disaster Management Information Systems (DMIS) is a web-based working tool that can make accessible to search the database locally and internationally.

Description:

Bangladesh is one of the most populated countries in the world but unplanned urbanization and industrial setup making more vulnerable for lives loss in every year. Nearly, half of the populations in Bangladesh are living in poverty level. High density of population in Bangladesh is causing vulnerable to different kinds of disasters. Area of Dhaka city is 815.8sq.km and the population density is about 45,000 sq.km. Day by day rural people are coming to the city for searching income sources. The landless farmers, low-income people who don't have any shelter in rural area are gathering in the Dhaka City are creating slums. Slum population density is more than 6 times higher than the overall density of Dhaka's population. In every year disasters are occurring in different industry in Dhaka city due to fragile infrastructure condition of those industries. Most of the building developer doesn’t follow the law of building code, not sufficient fire exit and there are not enough fire-fighting systems in any factory.

Industrial disaster in Dhaka city occurring every year due to unplanned industrialization, industrial set-up in a domestic area and fragile infrastructures. Such a pathetic industrial disaster was held on 24 April 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-stored commercial building, collapsed in Savar, a sub-district in the Greater Dhaka Area, the capital of Bangladesh. Although, Dhaka Export Processing Zone, DEPZ is situated in Savar upazila but still now lots of industries set-up in the market places or residential area. There were five garments factories, a bank, apartments, and several other shops in Rana Plaza building, garment factories. A warning was given by local authority to avoid using the building after cracks appeared the day before disaster. But, the garment workers were ordered to return the following day and the building collapsed during the morning rush-hour. The search for the dead ended on 13 May with a death toll of 1,129, approximately 2,515 injured people were rescued alive from the collapsed building declared by the authority. According to the factories authority, there were employing around 5,000 people in separate factories, several shops, and a bank.

Fact:

On the day of disaster occurred, I went to visit the affected Rana plaza and I knew few workers of that garments who lives nearby my parents resident, in Ashulia, Savar. Still I can feel the pathetic moment of injurious works and search of their relatives. Aftermath, I had an interview with the garments workers. I found one garments employee, she is known to me. She told me, she was ordered to back to work among other employee. When she reached at the 6th floor of her working place there was no electricity in that building. Within a few munities she heard a huge sound like a blast, she along with her colleagues feel panic, try to escape from the building. Some of the employee rush at the stair to escape but failed, some other workers try to climbed at the top floor very hazardous way. All of them were hue and cry for their lives. She along with the few just sit-down under a swing table in that dark room and try to shelter their head. Local people and local civil defense peoples rushed there immediately for rescue but they can’t help without ladder of any rescue instruments. In the meantime few workers jumped from the window and injured very badly. In the meantime, her parents were there they search at local hospital and they were disheartened. She felt thirsty and very weak without food and water. Nearly, after five hours she heard the sound of roof breaking and rescue people was shouting “is there any one underneath”. She tries to shout but her voice was as low as she was weak. But, she doesn’t give-up, she took a broken piece of brick and try make big sound by hitting the swing table. At last rescue teams heard the sound and dig the roof and rescue her. She was taken to the nearby hospital and after treatment the released her. But she was so weak to unable to walk, she requested a hospital assistant to phone her father’s cell phone and inform about her. Her parents came to the hospital and she was taken to home safely. She told there were lots of workers were under the collapsed building before she rescued. More than one year past, but still lots of workers relatives claimed they never found their son, daughter, wife, husband. In April 2005, a factory in Savar called Spectrum collapsed, killing 64 workers. Still few of their relatives claim their missing beloved one. These types of disasters occurring in every year in Bangladesh, due to weak infrastructural condition, avoid building code and unplanned industrial set-up in a market places and residential area. It is clear that there were no clear database or web-based database information of the employees of those affected industries.

Role of MIS:

The Management Information System (MIS) can play a vital role in disaster management having a web-based working tool can make accessible to search the database of the employees from any place of the world. These include tools for resource management and tracking, communication under emergency situations (e.g. use of Internet communications), collecting database for the victims, and national and international help. So, I think every industry must have their employee’s web-based database including photograph, blood group, DNA samples and their guardian’s photograph with contact phone number.

Disaster Management at all levels continuous monitoring and evaluation can be carried out by managing information technology.

MIS Intervention:

Management information system (MIS) is one of the major computer based information systems. Its purpose is to meet the general information need of all the managers in an organization and the other subunits. Subunit can be based on functional areas on management levels. The information in MIS describes one of its major systems in terms of what has happened in the past, what is happening now and what is likely to happen in the future. The information is made available in form of periodic reports, special reports and output of mathematical simulations as make decisions to solve the problems. Specially MIS can play a vital role as disaster preparedness as well as post disaster management. A management information system can simplify the data management and speeds up information retrieval by storing data locally and internationally accessible via a network. So, MIS can play a vital role in search of loss of lives, administrative data including industrial equipment, financial data after disaster. The ultimate result is decisions, which will be quicker and more accurate for disaster management in Bangladesh.

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