Suchergebnisse

On the morning of 8 October 2005, Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir were hit by an earthquake that measured 7.6 on the Richter scale. Within 5 seconds, almost all buildings in two major cities of the north were destroyed: the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, and Balakot, a picturesque mountain city. This was about 9 a.m. Children were in classrooms and mothers were doing household chores. Many men were in the fields. Therefore, when houses and buildings collapsed, thousands of young children and women were killed, as a result of falling roofs and walls. All government buildings, universities and colleges were destroyed and thousands of students died. In one town there were no children left alive: a generation had been wiped out. In two schools alone people were trying to retrieve 600 bodies of young girls. The earthquake hit hardest in difficult mountainous terrain. Even under normal conditions, four-wheel-drive vehicles are required to travel in this area; after the earthquake, landslides had blocked access to large villages. Many small villages were buried.

This article uses 1937 and 1940 Census data to estimate the effect that hiring an additional relief worker in a county had on unemployment statistics for that county. The fundamental estimation problem arises because one cannot easily control for economic conditions that influenced both the number of individuals holding relief jobs and the number counted as jobless.

One of the most obvious problems for those involved with disaster relief work is coordination with other teams in the field, with headquarters, with the mother organization in the home country and having to deal with unanticipated situations. The central dilemma appears to be this: disaster relief workers either have the knowledge to know what to do or the authority to do it. Seldom, however, are the local knowledge of what to do and the authority to do it located in the same person. This mismatch creates instability which generates pressure for change. Such change occurs through what we describe as "renegotiations of authority" – where people or teams who are not officially in charge take authority to act, because they know what to do and how urgent it is to do it. This paper presents the concept of renegotiations of authority through cycles of breaking down qualitative data obtained from disaster workers from multiple organizations and countries.

Pt. 1, Foreword; pt. 2, War relief work in Europe and Canada; pt. 3, United States bureau of war risk insurance; pt. 4, Civilian relief work of the national Red cross; pt. 5, Commission on training camp activities; pt. 6, Religious organizations in relief work; pt. 7, Council of national defense; pt. 8, War relief of other social welfare organizations; pt. 9, Financing war relief.