Page 6 - Business Travel

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An 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck

near Toyo, Japan (Haridasani, A .2011)
4 Natural disasters triggering tsunami warnings across the

region and closing Japanese airports.

Natural disasters can occur without warning but very often essential, while understanding the process and plan of how
they are, if not predicted then thought to be highly likely. to extract yourself or be extracted is key and should be
Earthquakes, tsunami, forest ﬁres and ﬂoods as well as many understood beforehand.
other natural issues could easily leave your people stranded
without transport, shelter, or provisions. Planning in advance and everyone knowing that a plan not
only exists but how to activate it, manage it and adjust it as
The timeline of how to plan and manage through a natural events develop is essential. Who within your organisation is
disaster is signiﬁcant. Firstly, there is preparedness and responsible for any of your staff in the vicinity or who may
planning (which of course should be in your country risk otherwise be affected by a natural disaster? Do you have an
assessment), there is the actual incident which for both those emergency policy, possibly as part of your insurance that
directly involved and their family at home can be terrifying. enables you to contact an external agency or does someone
Then there is the period of time immediately following the in house manage the situation? Who does what and when
incident and the following week. must be known beforehand.

Following the incident people who survived may be at risk It is important to recognise that indirect events may impact or
due to a second incident, falling buildings, lawlessness, affect your people and organisation. For example, a
dehydration, or medical issues. What action plan for those manufacturing centre could be destroyed, or staff could be
involved and communication plan is there for dealing with isolated due to lack of international travel as often happens
relatives of your staff who survived, missing, or conﬁrmed following a volcanic eruption.
dead.

Depending on the incident it could be the environment as
well as other people that are going to cause you immediate Following the 2005 ﬂoods in New Orleans there were
and further harm. It’s easy to assume that everyone pulls reports of rape, murder and violence (Rezaeian, M.
together for the greater good following a disaster but that 2013) although later it appeared these were
may not be the case. Rape, assault, robbery and looting may exaggerated (Smith-Spark, L. 2005). 2 of the 14 bodies
be some people’s response.
at the convention centre used as a shelter during the
disaster were found with gunshot wounds and the
If unprepared, then knowing how to keep safe from further
natural developments as well as your surroundings is Louisiana Foundation against sexual assault stressed
that just because a rape hasn’t been reported to police

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