In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context,-
(2)“hazard” means any unusual incident which is caused naturally, by technical errors or created by man and which results in endangering and threatening the normal life of people and creating sorrows and sufferings, including devastating and irreparable loss to the necessary ingredients of livelihood;
(5) “climate change” means global weather change which occurs as a result of long lasting change of physical elements of the atmosphere of any place on the earth within the process of absorption and radiation of sunlight naturally or due to the direct or indirect obstruction of the above mentioned natural process by humans;
(7) “risk” means hazards, factors of growing dangers and possible harmful situation created by internal process or coalescence and capability of the environment;
(9) “relief” means food, blanket and warm cloths including other essential cloths, shelter, medicines, essential materials for new borne baby and infants, fresh drinking water, money, fuel, seeds, agricultural materials, cattle, fries, corrugated tin or house building materials and any other assistance to fight disaster granted by Government and private efforts for common people;
(10) “affected zone” means affected zone declared under section 22;
(11) “disaster” means any incident mentioned below caused by nature or human or created due to climate change the massiveness and devastation of which causes such damage to life, livelihood, normal life, property, assets and the environment, including cattle, birds and fishes of the affected area or creates such level of sufferings to the community of such area, in fighting against of which their own resources, capability and efficiency is not sufficient and relief and any kind of assistance is needed to tackle that situation, namely:—
(a) cyclone, northwester, tornado, sea high tides, abnormal tides, earthquake, tsunami, excessive rainfall, shortage of rainfall, flood, erosion of river, erosion of coastal area, drought, excessive salinity, excessive pollution of arsenic, building slide, landslide, hill slide, gushing water from hills, hailstorm, heat wave, cold wave, long term water logging etc;
(b) explosion, fire, ship sinking, massive train and road accident, chemical and nuclear radiation, leakage of oil or gas, or any incident which may cause mass destruction;
(c) disease causing pandemic, such as pandemic influenza, bird flu, anthrax, diarrhoea, cholera, etc.;
(d) infection by bio based or biological infectious object including harmful microorganisms, poisonous materials and infection of life active objects;
(e) ineffectiveness or damage of essential service or disaster preventive infrastructure; and
(f) any unnatural incident or act of God causing massive loss of life and damage;
(13) “Disaster Management” means procedural institutional structure and programme to reduce the risk of disaster and response immediately after a disaster, through which the following steps or programme are taken to tackle disaster, namely:—
(a) to determine of imminence of danger, amplitude, scale and time of disaster;
(b) to manage as well as adoption of plans, coordination and implementation;
(c) to provide and disseminate early warnings, cautions, signals of danger or extreme danger and transfer lives and properties to secure place;
(d) to conduct search and rescue operation after disaster, estimate the loss of lives and damage of properties and determination of essentials, distribution of relief under humanitarian aid programme, manage rehabilitation and reconstruction and take initiatives for ensuring essential services, restoration and development; and
(e) to conduct other relevant programmes;
(15) “rehabilitation” means—
(a) to restore any infrastructure damaged by disaster or put in a better condition;
(b) to restore the normal life, livelihood and working environment in the affected area through developing organizational capacity as well as ensuring the psychological, economic and physical welfare of affected community;
(c) to transfer the affected people to another place, if necessary, to bring their normal life back;
(d) to manage the better treatment for affected cattle, fishes etc., and if applicable, restore the concerned farms back to the previous condition;
(e) to take immediate steps to remove the dead body, cattle, fish, etc. from ponds, river, canals, marsh and water bodies and to arrange pure and safe drinking water for humans and cattle as well as purify the water for them;
(f) to take necessary measures to remove poisonous objects from the affected area for cleaning the poisonous microbes and garbage, as well as to deal with the situation grown;
(16) “preparation” means the steps taken to develop the knowledge and idea about the risky situation to increase awareness and capability among the community to deal with the effect of the probable hazards and to conduct programmes to reduce the damage of predicted disasters, post disaster search, rescue and humanitarian aid programmes;
(18)“vulnerability” means any such existing socio-economic, geographical and environmental condition of any community which makes the expected capability of the community to adapt to the effect of natural or human made hazards or any adverse reaction vulnerable, weak, unskilled and limited;
(21) “response” means activities taken to protect life and property before an imminent disaster, during a disaster and immediately after a disaster to meet the fundamental necessity or essential services of the affected community;
(22) “services” means shelter, foods, fresh drinking water, cloths to wear, treatment, electricity and gas supply, telecommunication, sewerage, services relating to energy and transport, fire extinguishing, security, search, rescue operation provided by any organization, institution or individual to accomplish disaster management activities and services provided by police including other services specified by the Government.

(1) The President, if he thinks fit or after receiving a recommendation under sub-section (3), as the case may be, satisfied that, any incident of disaster has occurred in any area of the country to face which taking additional measure and to prevent further loss and devastation it is urgent and necessary to enforce special power, he may declare, by issuing notification in the official gazette, the concerned area as affected area.
(2) If it becomes urgent and necessary to take the measures to prevent further loss and devastation caused by the disaster by taking additional measures to face any devastating disaster that has occurred any in any region, any disaster management committee, group or organization in local level may submit a recommendation to the Government through the Deputy Commissioner to take necessary actions to declare the concerned region as affected zone.
(3) After receiving the recommendation under sub-section (2), the Deputy Commissioner shall verify the justification of the issue immediately and shall send the concerned recommendation with his opinion to the Government and the Government, having accepted the recommendation of National Disaster Response Co-ordination Group on the concerned issue, may submit the recommendation to the President to declare the concerned region as an affected zone.
(4) If notification is issued to declare the area as affected zone under this section, its duration shall remain in force for not exceeding 2 (two) months unless the President decreases, increases or withdraws it before the completion of such duration.

(1) If any region is declared as affected zone under sub-section (1) of section 22, the Government may, if necessary, direct the concern ministries, divisions, directorates, offices, Government and semi-Government organizations and committees constituted under this Act to perform the following special functions, namely:—
(a) to ensure availability of the resources in Government and private stock in the affected zone to tackle the disaster situation;
(b) to ensure the availability of additional resources, if necessary;
(c) to ensure public security and control of law and order situation;
(d) to take proper steps to mitigate the loss of life, property and the environment; and
(e) to take all necessary measures according to the local disaster management plan.
(2) All concerned officers and employees of the ministries concerned, divisions, directorates, offices, Government and Non-Government organizations shall be obliged to comply with the directions given under sub-section (1).

(1) The Government may take programme to provide necessary assistance for proper rehabilitation or to reduce the risk of community affected or vulnerable by disaster in such manner as may be prescribed by rules: Provided that preference shall be given on protection and reduction of risk of the poorest and underprivileged community, especially the older persons, women, children and disabled persons while providing such assistance.
(2) If any officer, employee or person assigned to provide emergency response or humanitarian assistance programme to tackle disaster become affected or endangered, the Government may undertake programmes to provide necessary support for their proper rehabilitation or reduction of risk by manner prescribed by the rule.
[Explanation: For carrying out the purposes of this section, ‘underprivileged community’ means the community, tribal group, small ethnic group and anthropological community which are deprived of socio-economic and different facilities.]