Disaster and emergency state management:The case of the municipality of Bolu

Disasters are unpredictable events that cause being wounded, loss or death of living beings and damage or annihilation of any personal or real property, or product. Disasters can appear as natural events or events stemming from human. Turkey, because of its geological and topographical structure, is one of the countries that frequently face disasters. The foremost objective in disaster management is to save human life. Taking into consideration that natural disasters are unpredictable and 92% of the Turkish territory is considered to be earthquake zone, it is required that all public institutions should be well prepared beforehand. However, the earthquakes happened in 17 August 1999 and 12 November 1999 demonstrated how Turkey was actually not prepared for natural disasters. The earthquakes of 1999 in Turkey resulted with life and property losses, which even a years-long war can not cause, within a time slice of only 45 seconds. Unplanned urbanization, usage of improper land surface and poor public work applications played a great role in huge number of losses. As a result of this reality, the Municipality Law numbered 5393 tasks municipal authorities to redact a ?Disaster and Emergency State Plan? in order to let them determine their own courses of action for disasters. In Turkey, it is the local authorities who are basically responsible for struggle against natural disasters. The body of current law gives large competences and duties to governors and prefects in terms of readiness and reaction for natural disasters. The municipalities, in this structure, fulfill the supportive tasks under provincial disaster management. vi It is a public duty, too imminent to be considered as sacred, to help people become conscious against natural disasters, causing enormous economic, social and physical crashes to Turkey and to the Turkish people, and to take necessary precautions in coordination with every related institutions in order to reduce the level of probable life and property losses as much as possible. The fact is that it is not possible to evade from natural disasters, albeit it is, to prevent disasters stemming from human. On earth where we live, it is a must to get accustomed to survive with natural disasters. This reality makes us obliged to take precautions before disasters, learn necessary actions during and after disasters and put in execution these actions without losing time. It is a vital obligation for us to be proactive for disasters and reduce their effects to a minimum.