Mongolia
Ministry of Nature and Environment

Country Report on Natural Disasters in Mongolia

CONTENTS

1. Geographical Considerations *2. Potentially Natural Disasters in Mongolia *2.1. Zud *2.2. Drought *2.3. Winds and storms *2.4. Flood *2.5. Hails and lightning *2.6. Biological disasters *2.7. Earthquakes *2.8. Forest and steppe ﬁres *2.9. Radioactivity and chemical toxic substances *2.10. Other hazards *3. Response to Natural Disaster *3.1. Challenges arising in connection with the elimination of the consequences ofnatural disaster *3.1.1. Challenges in responding to natural disasters *3.1.2. Requirements for eﬀectiveness of measures in response to disaster *3.1.3. Improvement of response to natural disasters *3.1.4. Improvement of response to natural disaster *3.2. Post-disaster rehabilitation and recovery operations *3.2.1. The current status of rehabilitation *3.2.2. Composition of recovery actions and their sequence *3.2.3. Factors of signiﬁcance and challenges posed during rehabilitation and recovery
actions *3.2.4. Resources for recovery actions *3.2.5. Objectives to be set forth in connection with the implementation of recovery
actions *3.3. Improvement of response to natural disasters *3.3.1. System of arrangement of actions in natural disaster period *3.3.2. System of communications and notiﬁcation and information *3.4. Improvement of response to natural disaster *4. Disaster Monitoring and Prevention System *5. Legislative and Institutional Background *5.1. Legislative background *5.1.1. Constitution of Mongolia *5.1.2. Conception of National Security of Mongolia *
5.1.3. Civil Defence Law *5.1.4. Law on environmental protection *5.1.5. Law on Water *5.1.6. Law on Air *5.1.7. Law on hydrometeorological and environmental monitoring *5.1.8. State policy towards ecological issues *5.2. Summary of Legislative Framework *5.3. Institutional Background *5.3.1. Ministry of nature and environment *5.3.2. State Permanent Emergency Commission *5.3.3. State Civil Defense Department *5.3.4. Ministry of Infrastructure Development *5.3.5. Other ministries *5.3.6. Public organizations *6. Disaster Mitigation Measures *6.1. Disaster reduction plan *6.2. Construction *6.3. Public awareness *6.4. Research and development of Disaster-reduction technology *6.5. Emergency Scenarios- Existing Responses *7. International Cooperation *8. Conclusions *1. Geographical Considerations
Mongolia is situated in Central Asia, 1600 km from the Paciﬁc '3000 km from the Arctic
Ocean and 5000 km from the Mediterranean. It experiences a continental climate, with hotsummers (temperature up to 410 C) and cold winters (temperatures to -53o C)..Diurnal
temperature changes too can be very large. Rainfall is relatively low, varying from 5 cm inthe southern desert region, to 40 cm in mountain areas. 80 to 96 % of precipitation falls in
the warm period from April to October. In the south, signiﬁcant rainfall begins in July.

About 40 % of the country is ~ 40 % hills (1000-1500m), and the remainder denotation
plain. The landscape includes alpine, mountain taiga, forest steppe, steppe, Gobi, anddesert regions. Rivers draining to the south and west terminate in inland lakes/salt lakes.

Crop growing season is short, 70 to 130 days, depending on location and altitude
Unseasonable frosts can destroy up to 30 % of crops. Crops are mainly root crops, wheat,garden vegetables,(including greenhouse vegetables near Ulaanbaatar) and hay fodder.
The main agricultural production is animal husbandry with herds of cattle, sheep, horses,
camels, and goats.

Wind speeds are often high, with dust and sand storms 40 days per year over a large partof the country, and in some regions over 100 days per year.

The population of Mongolia was estimated to be 2.3 million in 1994, with about 27% of the
population in the capital. The most densely populated rural areas are the river valleys inthe forest Steppe zone. The least populated are the semi desert, desert and mountaintaiga zones. Rural population is 34% of the total, urban population 57%.
Disaster losses must be seen in relation to the gross national products. Per capita income
is at present 100 to 110 US$. Although there is undoubtedly a signiﬁcant natural economy

which is non monetary (animal production and growth of vegetables for own Consumptionetc.). 510000 Persons or 23% of the total population are recorded as living below thegovernment established poverty line.

Agriculture is a dominant part of the economy, and livestock breeding is a dominant part ofagriculture.'[be total head of livestock is 25 million ,mostly sheep and goats, with 22%
being horses, cattle and camels. Livestock density is close to the carrying capacity ofavailable pasture, and in some seasons exceeds carrying capacity. Livestock losses per
year have varied between 500 000 and 1 million head since 1986, with the average loss
between 1986 and 1992 being 800 000, Between 50 and 93% of the losses are due todisasters. Note that the losses represent 5% of the herd and 6 to 10% of the Gross
National Product.

2. Potentially Natural Disasters in Mongolia
Mongolia is a country where the following natural disasters occur frequently:
meteorological such as blizzard; heavy snow; dust storm; "zud"; rain water ﬂood; dibasic
ﬂow; snow melt ﬂow; and others such as earthquake; wildﬁre; drought; anddesertiﬁcation.

Table 1. Types of natural hazards in Mongolia

Major hazards

Minor hazards

Blizzard

Lightning

Heavy snow

Locust infestations

Dust storm

PlagueZud

Epidemic disease

Flood (three types)

Ecological hazards

Cold rain

Industrial hazards

Hail

Toxic chemical

WildﬁreRadiation

Drought

Accident (road/air)Desertiﬁcation

A natural disaster is a natural phenomenon or phenomena occurred covering relatively
large territories and leading to human casualties or substantial damages to property andcausing thereby serious obstacles to smooth operation of the society. That whether this orthat phenomenon is a natural disaster or not depends upon not only its intensity but much
more upon its socio-economic and ecological consequences. In view of this, the issue ofnatural disaster shall be considered in association with the social economic situation at thelevel of a given countryʼs development, the peopleʼs life styles, infrastructure development,
etc. For example, the phenomenon of so called “white zud” (severe winter conditions)when pastures are snow-drifted due to heavy snowfalls taken place in winter-spring
seasons is referred to the category of natural disaster only under the conditions of ourcountry with its transhumance cattle-breeding economy and would not be regarded as anatural disaster in any other countries with the settled type of civilization. A strong
earthquake occurred in a desert place without human settlements is not disastrous for
Mongolia whereas if it takes place in any other country with densely populated areas it
would cause heavy losses and casualties which occurs rather frequently.
Also, it is not such a rare occasion when natural phenomena of seasonal character turns
into a natural disaster how insigniﬁcant its intensity may be. It refers to such events assnowfall occurrence in summer and rainfalls in winter seasons and the like.
Natural disasters can be qualiﬁed by their origin as geological (earthquake, soil heaving),
atmospheric (drought, zud, etc.), biological (epidemics, etc.)
The extent of a natural disaster area varies. For instance, if zud, extreme lowtemperatures, droughts are to extend to the territories of several soums (villages) andeven aimags (provinces), the lightning, violent wind occurrence is referred to only one
object. One type of natural phenomenon is frequent to be accompanied by another ones.
If a heavy snowfall is accompanied by strong winds it turns into a blizzard, when the cattle
freezes to death being buried under the snow and if this phenomenon lasts for several
days, the cattle eventually perishes. Due to a volcano eruption the snow of snow-cappedmountains thaws causing a ﬂash ﬂood. Some natural phenomena might overgrow to thelevel of a disasterdue to wrong human actions. The ill-considered cutting down of the forest growing on theriver estuaries increases the ﬂood risk. Due to soil erosion the excessive rainfall water thatcan not be absorbed by the soil vegetation or into the soil turns into a ﬂood water.
Though there is a Mongolian proverb saying “Disaster occurs all of a sudden without
warnings” nowadays thanks to the achievements of modern science and technology it istime to reject this belief. Any natural phenomenon, including diseases, has proper
regularities relating to its development which proceeds through several stages. The natural
disaster development can be divided into the following ﬁve stages depending upon theways to combat it and to mitigate its damages and consequences entailed.:preparation stage
approaching stage
performance stage

fading stage
recovery stage.
In order to mitigate consequences of a natural disaster actions shall be designed anddeveloped with regard to each stage of its development. Which option of steps shall bechosen for this or that concrete disaster shall be solved promptly at the preliminary
preparation stage. For example, a river overﬂows its banks due to heavy rains fallen or
thawing of snow-capped mountainsʼ snow or ice, therefore, preconditions for ﬂooding havebeen provided well before the event itself takes place, so responsive measures to beundertaken shall vary depending upon where, when and how much ﬂood is likely to occur.
It means that options and alternatives most suitable for each of such options shall beworked out and prepared long before it would take place.

2.1. Zud
Zud (severe winter conditions) is a phenomenon when cattle is lost en mass due to lack of
fodder in winter, spring and autumn seasons. Our herdsmen used to divide the zud
conditions into :white zudblack zud or tuurain zud
storm zudiron or glass zud

which depends upon the factors serving to their occurrence.

When heavy snowfalls take place late in autumn and at the beginning of winter and thepastures are under a deep cover of snow and cattle unable to reach the pasture fodder
perishes and dies in winter-spring seasons it is called a white zud, when due to a longsnowless period cattle perishes suﬀering due to lack of water and lots of cattle aregathered around a single well, the pasture is overgrazed and eventually the cattle perishes
is called black zud. The black zud accompanied by extreme low temperatures turns into areally “black” zud. The winter of 1969 is the classical example of such a black zud. Whensnowfall is accompanied with blizzards for an extended period, the snow is covered withcrust of ice, and cattle being unable to go up has to go downwind, it is called a stormy
zud. The zud of the notorious year of the Monkey (1944-1945) is the classical example ofthis type of zud. When wet snow fallen early in spring-winter and late in autumn or after
the snow cover has been formed, suddenly thaw sets in, due to which a thin crust of ice isformed over the snow so that the cattle could not reach fodder even if the snow cover isthin, and eventually perishes, is called iron or glass zud. In years with iron zud several
layers of ice are often formed over the snow. It sometimes occurs when rains fall in winterperiod. White and stormy, cold zud may occur in a combined manner and then it is thegreat zud. Some researchers prefer to call it a combined zud (Chogsom, 1962).

According to historical data, whenever zud occurs in Mongolia with its pasture cattle
breeding, it turns into a national level disaster. The disastrous consequences of zud havesome deﬁnite relationship with the previous yearʼs grassland yield. It is proved by many
evidences that most disastrous zud events occur mainly after a droughty summer-autumn
period. If the summer was droughty and arid, the zud should be expected to occur even if
there are not so much snowfall in winter. If the grassland yield was suﬃcient in summer,
the zud conditions would not be formed even if much snow would fall in winter. During thesummer before the year of the Monkey (1994-1945) there was a red zud covered theentire territory of Mongolia (a zud extended to the whole territory of the country happened
also in 1972 over the last 6 decades), the heavy snow started falling since November andits depth reached 15-28 cm, with bitter frost throughout the winter (after 1940 no such ayear with so low temperatures to keep on since November through January, February andtill March was recorded any more in Mongolia) and over 8 million head, i.e. one third of thenational herd of Mongolia that was recorded in the course of the 1994 inventory were lost.

As can be seen from the historical sources, zud extended to more than a half of thecountryʼs territory were recorded during the years of 72 B.C., 1308, 1337, 1340, 1450,
1608, 1626, 1821, 1825, 1839, 1884, 1875, 1891, 1901, 1935, 1944, 1949, 1953, 1956,
1963, 1966, 1967, 1987, 1992 A.D. Surveys conducted since 1640 in the eastern regionsof Mongolia (former Tsetsenkhan, Tusheet khan aimags) have shown that zud coveringover 75% of the territory of the country occur once in 20-22 year-period and winters when
zud did not occur even in one soum are very rare. However, zud can happen in any part ofthe country.

2.2. Drought
Drought is a natural phenomenon leading to the loss of cultivated and grassland vegetation
yields and moreover, to the depletion of soils fertility. Drought and desertiﬁcation are amost complicated process stipulated by a number of factors. If in any agrarian country the
drought and desertiﬁcation issues are directly related with that countryʼs survival, for ourcountry with its grassland cattle breeding-based economy it rarely causes suchconsequences as famine, mass losses of livestock but, nonetheless, is of especial
signiﬁcance for the countryʼs sustainable development.

A drought is the result of lack or insuﬃciency of precipitation and excessive evaporation
leading to a hydrologic imbalance and consequently, water shortages in the soil and thevegetation and, as a result, to the crop damage and reduction of its yield. The occurrenceof drought is of double dependence upon the grassland utilization and agrotechnicalculture (level of operation). The direct consequences of a drought are such as losses ofyield, its reduction and its eventual outcome is desertiﬁcation. Thereby, at the international
level the issues of drought and of desertiﬁcation are generally considered coupled together.

Chapter 12 of the XXI Century programme is entitled “wise use of sensitive ecosystems
and combating drought and desertiﬁcation” and the notion of desertiﬁcation is deﬁned as“the process of soil degradation and depletion owing to the impact of a range of various
factors in arid and semi arid regions without suﬃcient moisture content going on under theanthropogenic impact”. Some of our geographers understanding the desertiﬁcation
schematically as a desert and a process of alteration according to its original meaning tried
to conﬁne the desertiﬁcation studies to the issues of sand drift only. But in theInternational Convention for combating drought and/or desertiﬁcation aﬀecting the worldʼscountries including Africa it is clearly indicated “Drought and/or desertiﬁcation”, so it would
be appropriate to consider those issues together.
Over 90 % of Mongoliaʼs territory is referred to arid, semi arid, moderate arid and moisturedeﬁcient regions, 41.3% or 647.0 thousand square kilometers of its territory is occupied
by a Gobi desert region which makes the issue of drought and desertiﬁcation of especial
prominence.
The major factors causing soil degradation are drought and soils weathering due to windand humidity factors.

Drought is regularly recurrent once in 10 years in the countryʼs forest steppe and steppezone whereas in the desert zone it has a 2-year cycle. According to the historical
documents, the red drought occurred in Mongolia in 68 and 46 B.D. and 1248, 1254,
1337, 1372, 1727, 1827, 1952, 1854, 1860, 1882, 1884, 1885, 1892, 1927, 1935, 1941,
1944, 1946, 1951, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1980, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991 A.D. The drought
may be classiﬁed with respect to its intensity as slightly droughty - when the grassland
yield is poor, droughty - the yield is very scanty, red drought - no vegetation growth at all.
When drought lasts for years the ground waterʼs level lowers down, no vegetation
ﬂourishing raining incessantly.
The quantitative characteristics of drought may be estimated by diﬀerent drought indicesand vegetation index (meteorological satellite-based data). According to a drought
assessment index derived by D. A. Ped the drought occurrence tends to increase in
Mongolia since 1940. If in 1941-1950 a drought extended to over 50% of the countryʼs
areas occurred 3 times, in 1951-1960 and in 1961-1970 once, in 1971-1980 twice, then in
1981-1990 it recurs four times.
The soil degradation and depletion is intensiﬁed when the desertiﬁcation-related natural
factors are accompanied by anthropogenic actions. It can be illustrated by the state ofaﬀairs in Mongolia over the last 40 years regarding such factors as:
utilization of grasslands without any rotation for an extended period
woods and forests have been destroyed and cut down in larger quantities for wood ﬁring
purposes
powerful chemical substances have been applied to protect vegetation and liquidate pests
due to which many soil micro organisms have been destroyedthe irrigation activities not carried out according to a rational schedule, has resulted in thesoil salivation and swamping processes developed
due to such activities as geological prospecting, motor transportation and military actions
intensiﬁed the soil technogenic erosion and degradation rates have increased
During the last 30 years the total number of livestock has increased in Mongolia by 44 %while the volume of grasslands reduced by 20%. Due to the overgrazing of the existinggrassland its yield per hectare has dropped by 19-44%. On the countryʼs scale there are
1,2222 square kilometers of grassland reserves of which 24% are exposed to erosion (over50%), vegetation diversity changes as for 7.7 million hectares of grassland.
Over the last 40 years when agriculture started developing in the country 46.5% of arable
rotation areas are recorded to suﬀer of moderate and high degree of erosion.
Nearly 70% of the abandoned land are not cultivated due to heavy soil degradation. The
amount of humus in an erosion-exposed area is reduced by 29.3-48.7% which should beassessed as disastrous for our country with its poor soil resources.
Another factor leading to the soil degradation is a lack of forests. Nearly 10% of thecountryʼs territory is covered with forests but its scarce forest reserves are being reduced
due to the intensive timbering and logging, destroyed by forest ﬁres, or by insects.
Annually 10-14 thousand hectares are cut down, 2,3-2300.0 thousand hectares of land
destroyed due to ﬁres, approximately 100 thousand hectares of forests are damaged by
insects.
It is the other reason for Mongolian riversʼ waters being shoaled along with an increasing
threat of ﬂoods. The saxaul bushes growing in the Gobi and desert zone are increasingly
being applied as fuel which promotes the sand drifts. In a period between 1975-1990 theaverage vegetation duration of saxaul bushes is become as short as nearly a half of thatrecorded previously and an area with growing younger saxaul bushes decreased by 34.2%
and that with medium age bushes - by 42.0 thousand hectares, accordingly.

2.3. Winds and stormsa) Blizzards
One of most disastrous meteorological phenomenon that causes in a very brief time
greatest damages to an economy with grassland animal husbandry is blizzard which isnext to drought and desertiﬁcation phenomenon with respect to its harmful consequences.
On estimating the damage caused by blizzards occurred in the eastern part of Mongolia in
between 1980-1984 it is established that on the average, 740 thousand US$ damage wascaused by one blizzard (D.Myagmarjav, 1987). If blizzards are recorded to occur in the
countryʼs desert regions and the Depression of Great Lakes comparatively rarely (about
one day per year) in the Khangai and Gobi boundary areas it makes up 10-15 days and in
the Khyangan rangeʼs western part up to 20 days.
In Mongolia a blizzard that lasts over 9 hours and is accompanied with over 16 m/s winds
is qualiﬁed as of special danger. Blizzards to continue less than one hour or over 12 hours
not occur so often, the occurrence of blizzards which duration ranges between 1.0-3.0

hours is 30%, of 3.1-6.0 hours - 20-30% and of 6.1-9.0 hours - 15% . According to thehistorical data, there are approximately 30-60 hours, on the average, of blizzards
occurring in the Khangai and Gobi boundary area and in the eastern steppe. During thesnowstorms cattle going downwind and the herdsmen following their cattle are frequent to
get lost and freeze to death. Also due to winds blowing from the south the cattle pens andcorals are snow-bound and ﬂocks of cattle could be buried under snow in their pens which
occurs sometimes. If winds are blowing from diﬀerent directions, the snow around thebushes and feather grass is drifted over by snow and then even camels can not survive
without fodder in the Gobi steppe. If we consider some facts referring to snowstorms
occurred during the last 30 years, it turns out that:during a heavy blizzard happened on April 15-21, 1980 which extended to a half ofMongoliaʼs territory, the wind speed reached sometimes 40-55 m/s and the blizzard thatlasted over 60-70 hours killed 43 persons and 0.9 million head of cattle.

during the March 19-22, 1987 blizzard occurred on the territory of Khentii, Sukhbaatar andDornogobi aimags claimed the lives of 19 people and 37 thousand head of cattle

during the snowstorm occurred on January 18-22, 1988 on the territory of Dornod,
Khentii, Sukhbaatar and Dornogobi aimags which continued 30-37 hours 6 people died and
114 people that were tendering their cattle had to stay overnight in the outdoors due towhich 5 people froze to death, 30 gers (national dwelling) fell down, 3 buildingsʼ roofs
were blown oﬀ with the wind, nearly 10 thousand head of cattle perished and 720 cattle
pens were blocked with snow

during the heavy blizzard raged on May 5-6, 1993 and covered the territories of 6 central
aimags of Mongolia 16 people lost their lives, about 100.0 thousand cattle perished andsuch examples can be continued.
b) Dust storms
Mongolia is regarded as a country where dust storms are rather common. The dust carried
with the winds from the Central Asiatic Gobi desert has deﬁnite impacts upon the countries
of Eastern Asia. On the other hand, the dust risen and carried away by the wind isconsidered as one of the major causes of soil erosion. Violent dust storms sometimes
hamper the driving of cattle to another pastures and they can block the road traﬃc. People
staying in the steppe overnight are frequent to get lost and freeze to death. A strong dust
storm that can be seen in the Mongolian Gobi called by the Mongolians “ugalz” (simoom).
Dust is often carried away when the wind is strong and there are plenty of such material
as sand and dust available so in the Mongolian gobi the number of dust days is 30-60 per
year. The most dusty place in Mongolia is the Mongolian sandʼs southern edge whereannually the amount of dust days accounts for 660 hours in total for 124 days. A dust

storm is likely to last for about 3-6 times, but in springs there are examples when it blows
for up several days.

Since the 1960s the process of urbanization intensiﬁed, a new economyʼs sector of
agriculture appeared, the soils started being ploughed in rotation, cooperative movement
overwon, the livestock was specialized by its kinds and placed en mass in one place to betendered by specialized brigades; new industries of geology, mining and motor transport
developed, the soil erosion coupled with the Gobi aridisation started developing and thethreat of dust storms increased. It can be easily illustrated by the fact that the number ofdust days has increased nearly 3-4 times during the 90s as compared with the 60s.
If we would take it by decades then in the Gobi aimags the number of dust days was 16,
on the average, during 1960-1969, in 1970-1979 it constituted 23 days and in 1980-1989
has risen up to 41 days.
There are neither reliable information nor deﬁnite criteria to assess the information on thedamages resulted from dust storms. On November 27-30, 1991 a strong dust storm withgusts achieving 28-40 m/s swept through territories of the countryʼs 12 aimags,
approximately 51.5 thousand square km of arable lands were left bared without topsoil sothat there were no possibilities for livestock grazing on the pastures.
According to the estimates provided by the meteorological instituteʼs research worker d.
Jamiyanaa, annually 4,000 tones of sand and dust are being carried away into theatmosphere out of an area of 1 square km in the region of Zamyn-Uud.

c) Strong wind
Annually strong winds with gusts speed coming up to over 15 m/s occur in the Gobi region30-76 days, in the steppe region 30-76 days, in the forest steppe region 5-15, in the
Khangai, Khovsgol, Khentii alpine taiga regions 1-5 days.
A strong wind (tornado) is recorded to last for about 1-2 hours in winter and summer
seasons and 3-6 hours in spring and autumn seasons. The maximum wind speed exceeds
40 m/s in the gobian and steppe region but when a foehn wind overgrows into a tornado
its speed is over 40 m/s which is possible to occur anywhere on the territory of Mongolia.
The wind with most speed measured was recorded on April 16, 1980 in the surroundingsof Ulaanbaatar on top of Morin-Uul reaching 55 m/s and when a strong tornado raged on
the territory of the centre of Batshireet soumʼs Tsagaan us brigade in Khentii aimag on July21, 1974 its speed exceeded 100 m/s. When a foehn wind occurred in Buyant-Ukhaa on
June 19, 1949 at 17.00 its speed was 40 m/s. When a foehn wind was recorded in thesurroundings of Ulaanbaatar on July 6, 1973, its speed registered at the meteorologicalstation was 28 m/s but its part stretched through the eastern part of Tolgoit from BuyantUkhaa and went by the back of Chingeltei uprooting and bending the forest trees. The
most disastrous tornado taken place recently was that happened on June 33, 1997 on the
territories of Arkhangai, Ovorkhangai, Tov and Bulgan aimags with a speed of 28-34 m/s
when many supports of high transmission lines were downed and many gers and property
blown oﬀ causing to the citizens only damages in the amount of more than 100 million.

2.4. Flood
Floods occurring in our country fall into rainfall, ﬂash and spring ﬂoods.
a) Rainfall ﬂood. Due to heavy precipitation in the riverʼs basin region the river waters
overﬂow against its banks, that is what is called a rainfall ﬂood. According to the historical
data, heavy ﬂoods took place in 1751, 1785, 1800, 1830, 1854, 1864, 1867, 1869, 1897,
1910, 1911, 1915, 1922, 1927, 1932, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1966, 1967, 1972, 1976, 1993,
1995 and 1997. The precipitation ﬂood has a 4-6, 9-11, 22-26, 40-50, 67-70 year- cycles.
The rainfall ﬂood causes great damages when it happens in more densely populated areas.
During July 11-12, 1966, the water level of the river of Tuul increased by 3.12m against its
usual level and a ﬂood occurred overﬂowing the capital cityʼs industrial region, damages
caused in the amount of 300 million togrogs, i.e. 7.5 million US$ and 130 people lost theirlives. In 1993 ﬂoods were recorded in Uvs, Zavkhan, Gobi Altai, Bayankhongor, Arjhangai,
Bulga, Selenge, Khentii aimags when scores of bridges were crushed and many
households whose gers were built around the river banks were swept away with theﬂoodwater. According to incomplete data being available, over 1.0 million USD worth ofdamage was caused.

b) Spring ﬂood takes place usually in the rivers originating from the Mongolian Altai,
Khovsgal, Khangai ranges and it was recorded to take place in 1962. This type of ﬂood
usually occurs in the spring when following heavy snowfalls the snow melts, the thawing ofsnow-capped mountains ice and snow goes on intensively.
c) Flash ﬂood is one of natural disasters which claims an immense toll of human lives.
After shower rains in mountainous localities their Quaternary loosen sediments are
dissolved and washed away with the rainfall water producing thus a ﬂash ﬂood.
This type of ﬂood may occur anywhere in our country. As preconditions for this ﬂood arecreated by shower rains it is frequent to be combined with foehn winds and hails.

2.5. Hails and lightning
Hails occur frequently in the summer in Mongolia and the damage they cause isconsiderable . Regions most vulnerable to hail and lightning risk are Khangai, Khentii andKhovsgal mountain regions. The information that is available concerning the damages hailscaused is not complete. According to the studies conducted in 1994 on territories ofSelenge, Tov, Khentii, Bulgan and Arkhangai aimags being the major granary region of thecountry, the harvest on 23,164 hectares of arable areas was lost due the hail. It meansthat estimating harvest per hectare to be 8.8 centners, its economic damage would
amount to 713 million togrogs at the rate eﬀective at that period.
On August 4, 1984 hailstones being the size of an egg fell in Khentii aimagʼs Bayan-Adarga
soum and, as locals evidenced, the soil was actually turned upside down. During a hailfallen on July 31, 1972 in Orkhontuul soum of Selenge aimag local people said that whenbig hailstones were falling down they heard a whizzing sound as if it were airplanes ﬂying
over the place.
On August 4, 1988 a strong shower rain and hail occurred in Nariinteel soum of
Ovorkhangai aimag destroying 4 gers and claiming the lives of 14 people as well as loss of
200 head of cattle.

2.6. Biological disasters
Though no fundamental studies have been carried out in respect of biological disasters
that occur in Mongolia, they obviously cause substantial damage.
Microtus brandtii mouse
This mouse (Microtus brandtii) being an endemic Central Asiatic species is the majorrodent spreading over an area of 24 million hectares in Mongoliaʼs gobian and steppe
regions that destroys grassland.
The most reproductive period of this mouse which usually happens in arid and dry seasonsis registered to take place during 1928-1929 and 1943-1944 in Eastern Mongolia, between
1955-1956 on territories of Khentii and Tov aimags, in 1964-1965 in Dundgobi andOvorkhangai aimags. As was noted by Dr. Davaa (1968), the outbreak of this mouse with
its spread to an extensive area occurs every 12-13-years.
Other insects
1. Grasshopper, dragon-ﬂy and meadow butterﬂy are widely spread on the pastures andarable areas of Mongolia and big populations of Orthoptera grasshoppers are recorded to
be available on the territory of Khovd aimagʼs Mos and Monkhkhairkhan soums. According
to the 1984-1994 studies there are 56 subspecies of 35 species of 4 genera ofgrasshoppers and 12 species of dragon-ﬂy in Mongolian Altaiʼs alpine pastures. The area
damaged only by Orthoptera grasshopper amounts to 422.94 thousand hectares of 16
soums in Gobi-Altai, Khovd and Bayan-Olgii.
A substantial number of harmful pests and insects as the Siberian khur butterﬂy, oroosgol
khur, biir suult, Jakobsonʼs tooluur, larch lynxʼs khuilagch, etc. are spread in the forests ofMongolia destroying woods and trees. The amount of area destroyed by the swarms ofinsects is as much as that aﬀected by ﬁres.
Table 2. Area of spread of forest pests (1,000 hectares)
Year

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

Area

116.0

150.0

150.0

141.0

106.0

24.2

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

26.6

32.2

24.0

27.0

33.1

25.2

29.1

32.6

135.0

3. Such diseases as plague, rabies, brucellosis, smallpox, meningitis and the like could turninto epidemics. Of them most serious consideration shall be given to plague. Many
ecologists believe that there is a cycle including such stages as drought and aridisation outbreak of parasite pests - development of epidemics - people infected. The plague isspread from the natural locus zones of this disease, among them are the Eastern steppe,
middle steppe, Ovorkhangaiʼs Baidrag-Tui, Bogd-Buyant, Khankhokhii-Bulnai, KharkhiraaTurgen, Siilkhem, Tsengel-Tsambagarav, Khokhserkh-Monkhkhairkhan (B. Avirmed andothers, 1993). The plague occurrences recurred in the middle of the 1940-1950s and since
mid the 1960s till the 1990s its occurrence is high. As for the plague outbreaks, since theend of the 19th century, during 1880-1894, 1899, 1918-1920 there was an intensiﬁcationof epidemics natural locus zones, their occurrences risen, too: if in 1931-1934 there wererecorded no plague outbreaks, in 1935-1944 there were 1-3 outbreaks per year on the
average. It intensiﬁed again and in 1946 there was recorded one such outbreak, in 1947
10, in 1948 14 and in 1949 29 outbreaks. During the 1950-1960s it dropped and since
1980s tends to rise again.

2.7. Earthquakes
The entire territory of Mongolia pertains to an active seismic zone. Earthquakes with over6 magnitude are recorded to take place in Mongolia more than 40 times during the lasttwo decades. Earthquakes with above 8 magnitude occurred 4 times in the 20th century
only.
As is clear from this ﬁgure most of earthquakes occur in the region of Altai, Khangai,
Khovsgol and Bulnain ranges.
Some data referring to the earthquakes taken place on the territory of Mongolia arepresented on Table 3.
Table 3. Large scale earthquakes
Epicentre

yearofearthquake

Loca

tion

Latitudelongitude

Magnitude(Richterʼsscale)

Intensity
intheepicentre

1.Bugs river

1500-2000

49.2

99.6

(68)(6.8)(9)

2.Chikht

1000-1500

49.2

90.3

7.1

9-10

3.Myangan

1000-1500

45.3

97.4

7.7

10-11

4.Chandman

500-1000

45.2

98.0

7.3

9-10

5.Bulgan

500-1000(46.2)(91.4)

(7.4)

(10)

6.Bij

500-1000

45.7

94.1

7.3

9-10

7 Bus river

500 1000(51 1)(98 8)(7 0)(9)

7.Bus river

500-1000(51.1)(98.8)(7.0)(9)

8.Jargal

500-1000(51.4)(99.9)

(7.0)

(9.0)

9.Malchin300-500(49.7)(93.2)

(6.6)

(8.9)

10.Zuun lake

300-500

49.0

99.8

7.8

10-11

11.Egiin davaa

300-500

47.0

99.6

7.8

10-11

12.Sagsai

200-

48.5

89.7

7.4

10

300(1570)
13.Ar Khotol

200-300

47.5

91.8

8.0

11

14.Unegt

1903

43.3

104.8

7.5

10

15.Tsetserleg

1905

49.5

97.3

7.6

10

16.Bulgai

1905

49.2

96.8

8.2

11-12

17.Mongolian

1931

46.8

89.9

8.0

11

18.Shand

1950

51.8

100.1

7.0

9

19.Gobi-Altai

1957

45.0

100.5

8.1

11-12

20.Bayantsagaan

1958

45.1

98.7

6.9

9

21.Buur khyar

1960

43.2

104.5

6.7

9

22. Mogod

1967

48.1

103.0

7.8

10-11

23.Uureg lake

1970

50.3

91.3

7.0

9

24.Takhiin shar

1974

40.5

94.0

6.9

9

Altai

2.8. Forest and steppe fires
According to scholarly surveys, 55.6% of the countryʼs total area is located in a zone
exposed to forest and grassland ﬁres and a considerable fraction of the countryʼs territories
covered with forests are in a zone assessed as of highest ﬁre risk. The ﬁre risk rates
established basing upon types of forests are given in Table 4.

Table 4. Fire risk rates according to the forest typology characteristics
Aimag, city

Categories
I

II

III

IV

V

1.Bayan Ulgii

100

2.Uvs

100

3.Khovd100

4.Zavkhan

94.2

5.2

-

0.3

5.Khovsgol

89.2

10.8

-

-

6.Bulgan

80.6

19.4

-

-

7.Selenge

60.0

39.0

1.0

-

8.Zuunkharaa

47.8

52.0

0.1

-

0.1

9.Ulaanbaatar

50.3

40.2

6.9

2.3

0.3

10.Tov

55.3

40.0

4.7

-

11.Khentii

87.0

13.0

-

-

12.Bayan-Uul

47.0

52.5

0.5

-

13.Ovorkhangai

95.0

5.0

-

-

-

As can be seen from the Table 4, 98.5% of the total territory is referred to categories I and
II according to the ﬁre vulnerability gradation.
The probability of outbreaks of ﬁre in the countryʼs forests and steppe areas substantially
increases in dry periods of spring and autumn. Over 60% of the forest ﬁres are recorded totake place during a period from April to May and 65.5% break out between 12.00-16.00
hours. Although in most cases ﬁre outbreaks were triggered by manʼs actions (63.6%),
there are also natural factors leading to ﬁre outbreaks. In other words, when there isplenty of inﬂammable material in the forest, the weather is dry, winds speed is higher, allthis provides favorable preconditions for a ﬁre outbreak. There is a very insigniﬁcantprobability of forest ﬁre outbreak when the amount of precipitation is over 2.0 mm. Fires
raging in arid pastures is often associated with the wind. When on April 11, 1986 a violent
wind rampaged through the territories of eastern aimags, a ﬁerce steppe ﬁre covering 711
thousand hectares of Dornod aimagʼs 7 soums killed 33,700 head of cattle, destroyed over
160 pens, 90 gers, its damages were estimated to amount to 10.6 million togrogs, and 14
people were injured and died. According to the recent statistics, 50-60 forest ﬁres and 80100 grassland ﬁres are recorded to occur in Mongolia every year. The ﬁre occurrence, andthe amount of area aﬀected by ﬁre are shown in Table5.

Table 5. Outbreaks of forest ﬁres and amount of area destroyed by ﬁre (thousand
hectares)Year

Outbreaks

Aﬀected area

Average area

1971-1975

240

521.3

21.7

1976-1980

524

107.2

0.20

1981-1985

212

335.9

1.58

1986-1990

315

850.2

2.6

1991-1995

As for the amount of area aﬀected by ﬁres starting from 1980, some 25% of the countryʼs
forest resources or 2.4 million hectares of land were destroyed and their damages
amounted to 32.6 billion togrogs in 1996.

2.9. Radioactivity and chemical toxic substances
Although there are no permanent large-scale sources for radioactive contamination in
Mongolia as, for example, nuclear power stations, etc., the country is situated between
two nuclear powers, namely the Russian Federation and China, located nearby its frontierzone are powerful nuclear power stations already functioning or to be put in operation in
future. So far, we have not been provided with relevant information concerning theconsequences entailed due to nuclear tests made during the 1960s on the territories ofKazahkstan and China and in the atmosphere. The utilization in great quantities of coal
(Baganuur, etc.) with its high radioactive and thorium concentrations, when the air
pollution rate of the city increases, accordingly, the content of radioactive substances(radon 222, etc.) in the atmosphere increases as well which has serious eﬀects on healthof city residents increasing the rate of lungs diseases .
According to the general assessment made by the National Universityʼs Radiation control
laboratory with respect to the rate of radioactivity in the atmosphere over Mongolia it isestablished to be equal to 12-17 mcrad/hours. The content of radon in the atmosphere isabout 2.2 bc/m3 in the summer but in the winter with the start of heating season it isrecorded to rise thrice. The complex beta activity of the atmosphere is likely to grow to 2.4
mbc/m3 in the winter from 0.5 mbc/m3 in the summer. After the Chernobyl nuclear plant
accident in 1986 it rose to 264 mbc/m3 which was as much as 200 times in comparison
with the normal background and only after 25 days it was registered to drop to its usual
rates.
The uranium complex beta activity constitutes for Ulaanbaatar 8.9-29.9 bc/m2. But rightafter the Chernobyl power plant accident it was registered to go up 100 times comparedwith its usual rates amounting to 183.3 bc/m2 and only after a week since the accident its
values became normal.
During the last few years chemical substance and products are being applied in ourcountry in ever increasing quantities. If in 1990 about 1,000 kinds of chemical substanceswere used in Mongolia, according to a survey carried out in 1994, 1297 enterprises andbusiness entities were established to be applying 3,774.3 tones of chemical substances of,2765 kinds (including more than 10 thousand pharmaceutical substances andpreparations) out of which 52.4 tones of chemical substances waste were disposed of toopen landﬁll sites, of which 68 were released into the atmosphere, 790 into the water, 600
kinds of chemical substances were released in the soil. Parallel with that over 100 tones ofchemical substances which fail to meet relevant requirements for use are being stored inwarehouses. Given on the national level, of currently being used chemical substances 350
kinds of substances are to aﬀect the nervous system, 720 are harmful for the skin, 650
have asphyxiating eﬀects, 543 aﬀecting emotionally (fear), 130 aﬀecting the mental
faculties, 2,300 kinds of general impacts. During the last decade there have beenregistered 8 cases of large-scale poisoning related with the application of chemical
substances, or their storage as a result of which 587 people were recorded to be sick and17 persons died.
The storage and protection of chemical substances is inadequate. For instance, out of thetotal amount of chemical substances used on the countryʼs scale, some 56.7% are storedin warehouses designed for this purpose, 20.8% in warehouses not designed for thispurpose, 11.7% in the outdoors, 9.8% in oﬃces and premises. In Ulaanbaatar suchdangerous toxic substances as chlorine and ammonium hydrates are stored concentrated
in one place in large quantities.

2.10. Other hazards
Natural disasters, their combined socio-economic and ecological impact are not conﬁned toa few of above mentioned phenomena only. Any phenomenon and conditions that exceeds
some certain limits may turn into a disaster. Among them are such as early frosts
especially if they last for a long period of time, extremely high air temperatures, heavy
rains fallen after the shearing of sheep, heavy snowfall in spring and autumn, waterpollution exceeding its admissible limits resulted from accidents, air contamination level
overrating due to unfavorable weather conditions, avalanches from the snow-cappedmountains, snow slides, landslides, contamination penetrating from neighboring countries
through air and water, shortly, any phenomenon and event that takes place out of its
season may have disastrous consequences.
Of the above spring and autumn snowfall shall be regarded speciﬁcally. It diﬀers from thezud. For example, during March 15-21, 1993 a 57-62 mm rain over the southern slopes of
the Khangai range resulted in a 34-90 cm snow cover (snow drifts with a depth up to 160cm) which was reported up to the middle of April causing substantial damages as thelosses of 840 thousand head of livestock and the death of some 40 people because theroads were snow-blocked and they could not get any medical aid and care.
There are many cases when heavy rains in the summer (herdsmen call it “cold rain”)
resulted in losses of livestock, especially sheep, due to their chilling eﬀects upon the sheep
which had not adapted yet after their shearing and even herdsmen are reported to befrozen to death as well. According to surveys carried out, 84.8% of rains fallen early insummer had such eﬀects that the driving of livestock to pasture grazing was delayed, if
over 5.0 mm rainfall continues for a period over 8 hours combined with below -8oC air
temperatures or accompanied with winds lasting even for a short period, it leads to lossesof sheep, anyway. On the night of June 24-25, 1974 a heavy rain with strong winds thatlashed on the territory of Sukhbaatar aimag killed 60 thousand head of sheep.

The cases of livestock losses due to cold rains most likely to occur in the steppe and gobian
regions where there are no running water sources. In other words, the sheep after being
sheared were not treated properly (by washing in cold water, etc.).
By now, it is recorded that under the inﬂuence of global warming, the rivers and lakesʼ icecover tends to become thinner so there is a growing number of car accidents taken placewhen the ice broken down under the vehicles.
In connection with growing foreign contacts and ties of Mongolia and climate change goingon the global scale some new, biological, disasters might be added to the list of disasters
as well.
Due to late summer and early spring frosts the probability of agricultural yield losses is toincrease. On June 4, 1992 -5…-12oC frost was recorded in the countryʼs agricultural
regions as a consequence of which the crop harvest on 20 thousand hectares of arable
lands, of potatoes on 788 hectares, of vegetables on 73 hectares, of berries and fruit on
36 hectares of land and early vegetables on many hectares of land were lost
In connection with global warming the permafrost will gradually reduce, the soil heaving
and ice crust formation processes are likely to take place in addition. According to somestatistics, buildings in about a score of villages were crashed due to the soil heaving
phenomenon.

3. Response to Natural Disaster
The response to natural disaster includes immediate measures taken on the part of thePermanent Emergency Commissions of all levels (state, aimag, capital, soum and district),
ministries, agencies, economic entities, organizations and citizens in the event of natural
disaster or after it in order to save human lives, protect property and cope with its eﬀects.
Responsive measures shall be provided for in aimag, capital city, districtʼs civil defense
plans and also basing upon the speciﬁc features of a disaster occurred and its eﬀects
measures to cope with its eﬀects shall be determined by the Permanent Emergency
Commissions of all levels (state, aimag, capital city, district).
Aimags, capital city, districts shall specify in their civil defense plans measures to be taken
in respect of each type of disasters indicating their time limits and people (organizations)
to be responsible for when a natural disaster occurs or is pending and organize actions to
respond to the disaster and cope with its eﬀects in accordance with the above plans at thenational, aimag, local level.
On receiving the information about any disaster occurred at the national level, in
conformity with the decisions issued by the State Permanent Emergency Commission,
relevant measures for coping with its eﬀects with combined eﬀorts of military units of thecivil defense being its major force and 7 squads stationed in aimags and localities forcombating natural disaster, are undertaken by the Civil Defense Department of Mongolia.
Apart from the major civil defense forces, also eﬀorts and resources of ministries,
specialized organizations and aimag, capital city, soum and district organizations andcitizens are involved in the measures for coping with the eﬀects. If a disaster has covered

an extensive area, or coping with its eﬀects is beyond the capacity of the above forces,
then units and squads of the armed forces and other army units are mobilized to deal withresponse to disaster.

3.1. Challenges arising in connection with the elimination of the consequences ofnatural disasterIn the course of arrangement of actions designed to cope with the consequences of adisaster, some challenges are to arise depending upon the speciﬁc features of a disaster, its
risk, planning, organization, the level of forcesʼ preparedness, capability to function, etc.
Warning information sent out regarding the type of a disaster, within the established time
limits, or, not, if there wee no possibilities to notify about it, renders to certain extent
inﬂuence upon the actions on mobilizing forces and coping with the disaster consequences.
If it is predicted in advance where and when a climate dangerous or extremely dangerous
phenomenon is to occur, when actions to issue preliminary public warnings, prevent fromit and minimize its consequences are undertaken, then a possible damage that the
population and their property would sustain potentially decreases to due extent andnothing to hinder the activities aimed at eliminating its consequences are to arise.
But during climatic force major circumstances as the uruin ﬂood and earthquakes that are
to develop in a very short span with a greater intensity and which at the current level ofmodern science and technical, technological methodʼs are not possible to predict,substantial damages are to be caused to the population and property and lots ofchallenges are to cope with in arranging and carrying out actions for eliminating its
consequences. For example, a uruin ﬂood occurred in 1982 in Ulaanbaatar and a strong
wind storm raged in 1997 in Ovorkhangai, Arkhangai and Bulgan aimags occurred all of asudden and no measures to warn and notify the population were carried out.
Sometimes, when warning information on natural disasters is not sent out on time or thewarning information is wrong, all this only hinders the actions for eliminating theconsequences. For example, in the spring of 1991 when the warning issued from theMeteorological Institute and saying that a strong blizzard was expected in the threeeastern aimags, was announced wrong over the local radio that a strong dust storm was
to occur, due to which the local authorities, herdsmen and residents instead of providing
preparations to protect their livestock from the blizzard were engaged in activities for theprevention from and combat with forest and steppe ﬁres due to which the human lives
were lost and 26 thousand head of livestock perished covered with snow and muchdiﬃculties had to be cope with to combat the snow and severe winter conditions andeliminate their consequences. Also, sometimes it turned out that in some soums theirsystem to transmit warning information system did not function properly or at all, andeven if the information was received duly, the soumʼs communications oﬃcers conveyed
the information to the respective persons and organizations with a delay, and the
population who did not get any practical experience in carrying out actions in keeping withthe warning did ignore it.
As sooner actions for eliminating the consequences of a disaster could be undertaken,
accordingly, the more successful their outcome would be and it is more appropriate tocarry out such actions within a period of 2-3 weeks. In practical life, warning information is
not being sent out in due time, the preparedness and preparations of organisation tocombat disasters are inadequate, sometimes due to a coincidence with the festivities andcelebrations observed throughout the country the actions for liquidating the consequencesof a disaster are delayed drugged out considerably and fail to give due results.
Another challenge to hinder the actions for liquidating the consequences of a disaster isthat there are no opportunities to eliminate the consequences of a disaster with the eﬀorts
and forces of this or that localityʼs only or the reserve means and technical means ofmanagement control system of an organization dealing with the combat with disasters aredamaged. For example, when a steppe ﬁre breaks out annually in Dornod aimag covering
the territories of many soums, the communication between the soums and bags werebroken oﬀ because the supports of the communication lines linking the soums and bags
were destroyed due to the ﬁre which hindered actions on assessing the ﬁre situation andmobilizing man power and forces and means to extinguish the ﬁre.
While there are possibilities to take pictures of a forest and steppe ﬁre disaster area
applying the Ministry of Nature and Environmentʼs Information and Computer Centreʼs GIS
system to clear up the situation in the region, sometimes it is necessarily required that thestate, aimag and local commission visit the disaster area to clarify the situation on the spot
and meet with the residents of the soums, bags and households when there are no otherways to communicate with due to the eﬀects of the disaster.
There are no small air planes and aircraftʼs and amphibian with proper technical means
speciﬁcally designed to conduct observations and inspection from the air and the groundand as a result of that a few MI8 planes of MIAT company and of the armed forces arebeing hired at a high price to apply for this work. The aimags and local authorities have noplanes and aircraftʼs of their own due to which they have no possibilities to carry on
independently observations and inspection and, consequently, make decisions forthemselves during the disaster occurrence.
Under the current circumstances of a market economy the supplies required for theactions taken to eliminate the consequences of a disaster are the issue of concern. It
includes alongside supplying people aﬀected by a disaster, with foodstuﬀs, warm clothes,
temporary accommodation facilities, gers, tents, medicines and medical aids also the
supply with food of those people who are mobilized to eliminate the consequences of adisaster.
In providing the supplies, the ﬁnancial issue and relief aid to be granted to the victims
based upon the estimates of the aimag, localityʼs damages suﬀered, the activities on
raising, distribution and transportation of relief commodities and materials from thereserves of the standing emergency commission, economic entities, organizations andcitizens are dragging out.
On the other hand, in the budgets of some aimags and localities expenses required forcombating disasters are not provided for and reserve funds to reimburse the expenses
required for liquidating the consequences of a disaster are not set up from the local
budgets due to which the expenses of the organizations and citizens mobilized to liquidate
the consequences of the disaster are not possible to be covered for each of such cases. On
account of all this, there is a negative tendency towards evading to take part in actions forliquidating the consequences of a disaster shown apparently on the part of economic
entities, organizations and citizens.
Some challenges are to crop up during the arrangement of the actions on liquidation of thedisaster consequences in connection with the fact that economic entities, organizations
and citizens being involved in actions for liquidating the consequences of a disaster andrescue operations are not informed properly of the structure, organization and policies andstrategies of the organization in charge of the action on combating the disaster, and somespecialized establishmentsʼ experts have not been duly trained, so it causes diﬃculties inensuring their interactions and co-ordinate the management. Such was a case during the1997 plague disease incidence.
In the course of actions for liquidating the consequences of a disaster requests are raisedon the part of lots of international establishments and foreign countries on providing a
relief aid but due to a delay in submitting estimates on the expenses required for theliquidation of a disaster and reliable information on the amount of damages caused fromthe local administration there are frequently occurred such diﬃculties when the aid
promised to be granted from international establishments could not be obtained and had
to be given back or the assistance failed to meet the requirements of the given aimag andlocality or be delayed. For instance, during the 1996 yearʼs ﬁre a 165 thousand US dollar
worth assistance provided by international establishments and foreign countries was nottaken and distributed among aimags and soums in due time owing to the fact that theauthorities of the aimags and soums aﬀected by the disaster failed to notify in a timely
manner the standing emergency commission of their expenses incurred in connection withthe liquidation of this disaster.

3.1.1. Challenges in responding to natural disasters
In the course of arrangement of actions designed to cope with the eﬀects of disasters,some challenges are to pose depending upon the speciﬁc features of a disaster, its severity,
planning, organization, the level of forcesʼ preparedness and capacity to action, etc.
Alarm warning information shall be disseminated within the established time limits
regarding the type of a disaster, otherwise, if there are no possibilities to disseminate thewarning information about the disaster, it may aﬀect, to certain degree, the actions forcoping with its eﬀects and mobilization of forces and resources.
If forecasts are made in advance about such dangerous or extremely dangerous
phenomenon deﬁning where and when it is to occur, and, accordingly, measures areundertaken to disseminate alarm warning information, ensure protection and mitigation of
its eﬀects, then its possible eﬀects on the population and property would decrease to due
extent and the measures undertaken for coping with its eﬀects would not be hampered.
However, during such dangerous phenomena as ﬂash ﬂoods and earthquakes developing
rapidly and with great intensity which not always are possible to forecast depending upon
the level of scientiﬁc and technological development, the population and property areseriously aﬀected and lots of challenges are to be faced in arranging and carrying out
actions for coping with their eﬀects. For example, a ﬂash ﬂood occurred in 1982 in
Ulaanbaatar and a storm raged in 1997 in Ovorkhangai, Arkhangai and Bulgan aimags

started all of a sudden and no measures for alarm warning and information dissemination
were undertaken.
Sometimes it turns out that the warning information about natural disasters was not timely
disseminated or the warning was wrong, posing thereby additional challenges to themeasures for coping with eﬀects of disasters. For example, in the spring of 1991 when thewarning made by the Meteorological Institute about a strong blizzard to occur in the threeeastern aimags, was misunderstood and the local radio announced about a strong dust
storm, measures for prevention of and combating forest and grassland ﬁres were
undertaken by the misinformed local authorities, herdsmen and locals instead ofpreparations for protection of their livestock against the blizzard which resulted in thedeath of people, 26 thousand head of livestock were lost during the blizzard and mucheﬀorts were made to combat the heavy snowfall and zud and cope with their eﬀects. Also
It has been established that in some soums their communications system fordisseminating warning information was not functional, and even if the warning information
duly disseminated was received, the soumʼs communications oﬃcers delayed in conveying
this information to respective oﬃcials and organizations, and the population who hadneither practical experience nor training in undertaking measures due to be provided
according to the warning information just ignored them.
The sooner actions for coping with the eﬀects of a disaster are undertaken, the more
eﬀective they are. It is more appropriate if such actions are carried out within a period of
2-3 weeks. In practice, warning information is not disseminated in due time, the level of
preparedness and preparations of organization to combat disasters is inadequate,
sometimes the actions for coping with the eﬀects of a disaster, due to their coincidencewith the festivities and celebrations observed throughout the country, are largely drugged
out and, accordingly, their eﬀectiveness is low.
Another problem to hinder measures for coping with disasters is associated with the lackof capacities to cope with the eﬀects of disasters with the eﬀorts of a given locality only or
the resources, forces and technical facilities of the management system of organizations
combating disasters are destroyed. For example, when a steppe ﬁre breaks out in Dornod
aimag aﬀecting many its soums, the communication between the soums and bags often
fails because the poles of the communication lines linking the soums with bags aredestroyed by the ﬁre hindering thereby activities on assessing the present situation andmobilizing manpower, forces and resources to extinguish the ﬁre.
Essential for eﬀective organization of actions for coping with disasters are assessments ofdamages resulted from disasters, monitoring being carried on and assessments of thepresent situation made in shortest time possible during the implementation of actions forcoping with eﬀects.
While there are possibilities to clear up the situation in the region through using
photographs of a wildﬁre-disaster area taken from the air by the Ministry of Nature andEnvironmentʼs Information and Computer Centreʼs GIS system, sometimes it is neededthat visits be made by the state, aimag and local commissions to the disaster area in orderto get acquainted with the situation on the spot and to arrange meeting with local
residents of soums, bags if other communications facilities are damaged due to thedisaster.

As there are no small aeroplanes, aircraftʼs and amphibians equipped with technical means
to conduct air observations and monitoring several MI8 planes of MIAT company and of
the armed forces are being hired at a high price to apply for this work. The aimags andlocal authorities have no planes and aircraftʼs of their own due to which they have no
possibilities to carry on independently observations and inspection and, consequently,
make decisions for themselves in the event of disasters.
Under the current circumstances of a market economy there is a problem in respect of
supplies required for the actions undertaken to cope with eﬀects of a disaster. It includes
along with supplying people aﬀected by a disaster, with foodstuﬀs, warm clothing,temporary shelters, gers, tents, medicines and medical aids, also the supply of food for
those people who are mobilized to cope with the eﬀects of a disaster.
In providing the supplies, activities on raising, distribution and transportation of relief
commodities and materials allocated from the reserves of the State Permanent Emergency
Commission and provided by economic entities, organizations and citizens are carried out
basing on the estimates of aimag and localityʼs damages, for solving the issue of ﬁnanceand providing relief aid to the victims, which usually drags out.
On the other hand, in the budgets of some aimags and localities expenses required forcombating disasters are not provided for and reserve funds to reimburse the expenses
required for coping with eﬀects of a disaster are not set up from the local budgets and,thus, expenses of organizations and citizens mobilized to cope with eﬀects of disasters are
not possible to be covered for each of such cases. As a consequence of all this, there is a
growing tendency for economic entities, organizations and citizens to evade participating inactions for coping with disasters.
Some challenges are to pose during the arrangement of actions for coping with disasters inconnection with the fact that economic entities, organizations and citizens involved inactions for coping with disaster and rescue operations are not informed properly of thestructure, arrangement, policies and strategies of the organization being responsible forcombating disasters, some of staﬀs of specialized organizations have not been duly
trained, which makes it diﬃcult to ensure their interactions and co-ordinate their
management, as it was observed during the incidence of plague in 1997.
In the course of actions for coping with disasters many international establishments andforeign countries oﬀer their assistance but due to a delay in providing estimates on the
expenses required for coping with disaster and information from the local administrationon the amount of damages there frequently arise such diﬃculties when the relief aid thatinternational establishments promised to grant had to be given back or the assistancefailed to meet the requirements of the given aimag and locality or too delayed. For
instance, during a ﬁre occurred in 1996 relief assistance in the amount of 165 thousand US
dollars provided by international establishments and foreign countries was not taken anddistributed among aimags and soums in due time because the authorities of the aimags
and soums aﬀected by the disaster failed to timely notify the Permanent Emergency
Commission of their expenses incurred in connection with coping with the disaster.

3.1.2. Requirements for effectiveness of measures in response to disasterAccording to international practical experience, there are two major factors as keeping theauthorities and forces properly informed and maintaining the forcesʼ capability andpreparedness to action, that are required to ensure the eﬀectiveness of actions designed
to cope with disasters. Without considering the above two important factors no actions forcoping with disasters would be eﬀective even if there are provided well-considered plans,adequate management and organization system and highly qualiﬁed experts. Moreover,the eﬃciency of responsive actions depends directly upon the measures to ensure thepreparedness and the relevant policies to be pursued in this sphere, planning,arrangement of management, training and many other matters will be considered in thefollowing chapters.
It is important to ensure uniformly the preparedness of forces and means to be applied inactions for coping with disasters, since sometimes non-preparedness of just one
organization badly aﬀects the ﬁnal outcome of the disaster combating actions. In view ofthis, it is desirable to strengthen with respect to the system of management to be provided
during a disaster period, the capacities of specialized organizations and agencies ofaimags, capital city and districts along with that of the military units of civil defense being
the major civil defense force, structures responsible for combating natural disasters inseven aimags
As is clearly seen from the state of aﬀairs concerning the organization at national, aimagand local levels of responsive actions for coping with natural disasters occurred recently in
our country, the management and co-ordination of eﬀorts during a disaster period isimproper, there are no regular systems existing at national, aimag and local levels, coordination and control in the disaster aﬀected area are often lost owing to which the
responsive actions are delayed, and, accordingly, the consequences exacerbated, as it was
during the ﬁre in the spring of 1996. It evidently shows that the current state oforganization of actions for coping with disasters carried out at levels of aimags, capital cityand its districts is inappropriate for the current, market economyʼs conditions and can notmeet the present dayʼs requirements.

3.1.3. Improvement of response to natural disasters

1. System of arrangement of actions in natural disaster period

It is desirable that the system of actions to be carried out under the disaster period in theconditions of Mongolia be arranged at national, aimag, soum and local levels in thefollowing way:Its structure shall include the aimagʼs governor, the aimag and soumʼs emergency force(team), the mobilization commission, planning, forces and means rear supplies, ﬁnanceand accounting divisions.
The planning, force and means division shall have its subdivision to be responsible for thecurrent situation assessments, determination and planning of requested forces and means,mobilization and demobilization of above forces, the rear supplies division shall have its

services and supplies subdivisions, the former being comprised by the communications,medical care and foodstuﬀ provision groups, the latter consisting of the supplies,
accommodation, means and facilities provision, mobile machines and appliances supplies
and service.
The ﬁnancial and accounting division will have its subdivision dealing with working hours
record, procurement of technical means, compensation issues.
On arranging in such a way the management and control during a disaster period
possibilities will be provided to ensure proper co-ordination in solving such issues as theplanning of actions to combat and respond to the disaster, forces, rear supplies, funding
and ﬁnance, which would be more cost-eﬀective.
This system of management and control without a permanent staﬀ of its own provides fornon-staﬀ personnel to be formed by the decision of governors of all levels (aimag, capitalcity, soum and district) to function only during the period of a disaster and including staﬀ
of governorʼs oﬃcesʼ as well as managerial staﬀ and executives of other economic entities
and enterprises to be mobilized on a temporary basis.
The emergency team will include persons assigned by the mobilization commission, andrelevant technical means and will be composed structurally of its chief to be in charge ofthe arrangement and control over the rescue and coping with eﬀects on the spot, or a
specialized mobile group or teamʼs head. The number of senior chiefs and a mobile groupʼsheads will be determined depending upon the extent of a disaster and opportunities
available with respect to the forces and means and it would be most appropriate if from 7
to 10 persons would be under one senior chiefʼs command.
Management system organization scheme to operate under crisis conditions Aimagʼs
Governor
Emergency team (senior chief, mobile groups and teamsʼ heads)
Mobilization commission (Planning, forces and means division (Force and means
subdivision, Situation assessment subdivision, Planning subdivision), Rear supplies division(Communications subdivision, Medical care subdivision, Foodstuﬀs and accommodation
subdivision, Mobile machines and appliances supplies and service subdivision), Finance andaccounting division (subdivision on operation (working hours) records, Technical meanspurchase subdivision and payment and accounting subdivision)

3.1.3.2. System of communications and alarm warning and information

The alarm warning and information communication system being of special signiﬁcance fora success of responsive measures to cope with disasters shall comply with the following
requirements:
early warning about the preconditions for a natural disaster to occur
if there is any doubt whether or not the pending natural disaster predicted would reallyoccur, alarm warning information shall be disseminated to a limited number of people,

notably managerial staﬀ in order to avoid disturbing the smooth operation of economic
entities, organizations and residents.
as soon as the alarm warning actions are accomplished respective decisions andresolutions shall be issued concerning the response to natural disasters and how to copewith its eﬀects
immediate actions shall be arranged to make the public informed of the decisions passed
With respect to our country it is necessary to change the former four-alarm signal systemdesigned for announcements in the wartime as the “air-raid alarm”, the ”all-clear”, the”radiation alarm” and the “chemical alarm” approved by Resolution No. 170 of thegovernment of Mongolia to be replaced by such alarm signals as the “earthquake”, the”ﬂood alarm”, the ”ﬁre alarm”, the ”human and animal epidemic disease”, the “tornado
alarm”, the “blizzard alarm”, etc. which shall be explained to the general population in mostplain and explicit form through the aimag, capital city and districtʼs civil defense
headquarters, with establishing required training schemes to train people in theirapplication.
Once the aforementioned alarm warnings are given it is required that all schools,
kindergartens, oﬃces and public places be closed, the preparedness of the emergency
power plants and other system linesʼ equipment for operation be checked, the supplies offoodstuﬀs, potable water, warm clothes, ﬁrewood and other necessities be made byresidents and along with that measures required to prepare the evacuation of people, etc.
shall be taken in the case of emergency.
In order to ensure that actions to respond to disaster are carried out in the shortest timepossible and with most eﬃciency a system is needed to be set up to arrange response tonatural disasters and ensure the co-ordination and general management of actions ofmanagerial staﬀ, forces and organizations involved in. For this, the actions to respond todisaster shall be carried out in relevant stages. There are three rates (levels) of the civil
defenseʼs preparedness state as the “day-to-day”, ”heightened” and ”general”. Though theabove mentioned preparedness rates are easy to put into practice in respect of theheadquarters, military units and divisions referring to the civil defense system as well asother military bodies but the civil organizationsʼ leadership has little experience andknowledge of operations that shall be performed according to the above levels.
Therefore, it is desirable that information on the main stages of actions in response beprovided to civil organizations in a plain and intelligible form adopted to their speciﬁcs, tobe guided by in their further activities. In particular, actions in response may be carried out
proceeding through such its stages as alarm warning, assemble managerial staﬀ andforces, ensure their preparedness to action, start their action and the like. The advantage
of a step-by-step implementation of responsive actions is that the head in charge of alarm
warning dissemination could stop the action without proceeding to its next stage if it turns
out that the disaster warned about is not to occur. Thereby opportunities will be provided
to ensure the preparedness to responsive action for all involved organizations and at thesame time it will allow to avoid undertaking unnecessary and thus ineﬃcient activities.
Proper regulation and co-ordination of joint eﬀorts to respond to disaster will be the major
condition enabling to use to full capacity all the organizations involved in disastercombating

actions,

ensuring

its

due

performanceandavoiding

anyfaultsandshortcomings. In foreign countries, the co-ordination of jointly implemented actions iscarried out from a speciﬁcally designed centre of command and co-ordination furbishedwith special equipment. Such a centre on co-ordination and management is needed to be
set up with the State Civil Defense Department to conduct operation on the national level.
In order to successfully carry out responsive actions it is necessary to provide a reliablecommunications system.
Another important matter relating to the organization of responsive actions is acommunications system supplied with its own power sources which would allow it tooperate when or if it turns out that the basic communications system can not function
properly due to the damages received during the disaster occurrence.
Regarding such speciﬁc features of Mongolia as its great territorial expanses, scarcely
populated, with a harsh continental climate, etc., the communications system shall comply
with the following requirements to be able to operate in the event of disaster:
to

cover

the

countryʼs

cities,settlements,

districts

andindustrial

regionswithcomparatively dense population and concentration of industries (a communications system
set up basing upon ﬁxed communication units)organize the communications system in such a way that it will cover every corner of thecountry, be linked up to the national and international communications systems andprovided with opportunities to communicate through telephone, fax, computer andsatellite systems (a mobile communications system)be provided with facilities allowing to work in co-ordination with a public communications
system but not limited to its capacities, if need be
be possible to be supplied with power from a low-power electrical generator, compact,
suitable to be used in ﬁeld conditions and easy to be handled by people without specialized
training and education
be strong enough to withstand any hard conditions of operation including shaking, dusty
and moist environments and harsh climatic conditions (temperatures ranging from -50 up
to +40oC, rainfalls, snowfalls, etc.)

made applying the latest technical and technological achievements and in compliance withthe standards and requirements established by the master plan for developing thecommunications system of Mongolia.
Proceeding from the above, a ﬁxed communications system it required for the state civil
defense headquarters, its units and squads to operate under the disaster conditions, being
independent from the public communications network. A SW radio receiver which capacity
allows to maintain a radio contact at a distance over 500 km, is considered to be the mostappropriate one. At present the Khovsgol, Arkhangai, Selenge, Khentii, Dornod and Bulgan
aimagsʼ civil defense squads to combat natural disasters communicate with Ulaanbaatar
applying such communications means. In future it is desirable to extend the radio
communications network to all aimagsʼ civil defense headquarters.

For ensuring immediate actions of the specialized units involved in actions in response tonatural disasters, their leadership working in the disaster-aﬀected area a mobile radio
communications system is of special signiﬁcance.
This system shall be comprised by a USW IM radio system to be applied forcommunications operations in cities, settlements and in the disaster area and a SW radio
system which will allow to communicate with Ulaanbaatar. Actions are being taken on thepart of the parliament to supply some aimagsʼ civil defense emergency squads with such a
communications system.

3.1.4. Improvement of response to natural disaster
It is impossible to carry out eﬀective actions in response without estimates of the damages
resulted from disasters, rescue operations and actions for coping with disasters, and manyother things that will need to be done. For conducting surveying and inspections andensuring an adequate assessment of the situation such matters shall be considered andcorresponding plans and arrangements made well in advance as air surveying andinspections, arrangement of observations and monitoring in the area, assessments of thesituation provided by all organizations and oﬃcers concerned with arrangement of actions
to combat disasters in the localities close to the disaster areaʼs centre. In most of cases
activities on general observation and inspection are required to be arranged immediately inthe area where the disaster has occurred.
The information, data received after respective surveys and inspection measures havebeen conducted, and assessments of the present situation made are of special prominence
for undertaking immediate response actions. In view of this, it is necessary to purchase for
the State Civil Defense Department low-power aircraftʼs and aeroplanes as well as
amphibious vehicles capable to travel over rough ground and go by water to supply to thecivil defense units and divisions and arrange training abroad of experts-observers.
The capability to supply materials, means required for carrying out rescue operations isanother factor that enables to achieve a success. The following items are required to bedelivered immediately to the people suﬀered from the disaster when itʼs over: foodstuﬀs,
potable water, warm clothing, materials to be required to build temporary shelters,
medicines, medical items, etc.
The issue of tentative estimates of expenditure to be incurred in the course of action in
response which shall be duly reﬂected in the local budgets and of allocation from the state
funds of the above commodities and materials is speciﬁed in the State Permanent
Emergency Commissionsʼ Charter.
If the responsive actions are not possible to be carried out by ordinary means, along withmobilizing forces and technical facilities of aimags and localities in conformity with relevantlaws, it is possible to mobilize the armed forces and other military units and squads to be
involved in responsive actions.
For instance, in carrying out actions for coping with disasters military units and squads ofthe armed forces may help conduct rescue actions, render emergency aid to thoseaﬀected, arrange ﬁeld hospitals, supply with foodstuﬀs, implement clean-up anddisinfecting actions in the disaster zone and organize engineering, transport andcommunications services.
The training provided to units and squads of the armed forces mobilized to carry out
actions for coping with disasters shall comply with the following requirements :Units and squads of the armed forces shall maintain preparedness to action under any
crisis conditions when there is a threat of large-scale disaster to occur in any aimag,
locality, city and settlement of the country.
Units and squads shall be capable to organize ﬁrst-stage response on arriving in thedisaster aﬀected zone showing such qualities as self-dependent management,
communications, reliable command, and high maneuverability
Units and squads shall maintain preparedness to action round the clock in any weather
conditions far away from their place of stationing
Training of high level shall be organized for personnel that will be involved in actions forrescue and coping with natural disaster.
During their actions in the disaster area they shall work in close co-operation with local
state and administrative bodies, civil defense headquarters and units, establishing a
ﬂexible management system
Within the scope of actions designed to cope with disasters units and squads are desirable
to be assigned to act in the following ﬁelds in accordance with the armed forcesʼ civil
defense task:
carry on air and ground-based observations, determining the level, extent and size ofdamages
conducting reconnaissance surveying in the disaster area, determine routes and ways
leading to the centre of the disaster area
set up a mobile group to deal with rescue actions
assist in rescue work by assigning engineer and technical staﬀ equipped with powerful
technical facilities with high cross-country ability
communications units and squads shall take actions to provide radio and telephone
communications services with the centre of a disaster area
rear units squads shall supply the population in the disaster area with foodstuﬀs andshelters along all roads and routes
apply military medical units and squads to help the medical organizations set up hospitals
in the disaster area, render ﬁrst and specialized medical aid and care, to strengthen theireﬀortsmilitary air crafts and air planes are possible to be applied for air transportation and air
reconnaissance purposes as well as in other actions.

But in view of the countryʼs vast expanses, its population being thinly scattered all roundthe country, limited capacities that are available in terms of roads, communications, andalarm warning arrangement, operational movements of little groups to disaster areas, aquite diﬀerent approach is required to application of units and squads being alreadystationed in aimags and countryside for actions to cope with adverse eﬀects to be resulted
from natural disasters, emergency conditions, local nature, climate, geographic speciﬁcs.
For example, it is advisable to train units and squads positioned in Zuun bayan, Omnogobi
aimags in combating and coping with tornadoes, blizzards, droughts, zud conditions andwildﬁres, the occurrence of which is high in those aimags, while for units and squads of
Tov aimag and Erdenet city it is desirable to conduct a training in activities required during
wildﬁres, ﬂoods and earthquakes occurring often in Khangai, Khentii mountain regions.

Actions for coping with disasters and accidents

Shortcomings or challenges

Ways of solution, recommendations

Search and rescue actions

Role to be played byministries and agencies insearch and rescue actions
is not determined

set up within the structure of ministries
and agencies rescue and search groups,
arrange the training of people for thegroups2 Equipment and technicalfacilities required for rescue
operation is not suﬃcient

work out a programme on supplying civil
defenseʼs military units and squads andrescue groups with rescue technical

3 In some aimags there are
no search and rescue
groups to work on the local
level

facilities and equipment

4. Lack of specially trained
people to deal with rescue
operation

conduct training of rescue groups, draw
up training curricula, programmes andmethodics, build
logistical supportup

aneducational

set up rescue groups in Arkhangai, Khovd,
Dornod and Tov aimags

Disaster communications information and management

A

shortageofmobileEstablish a disaster data base in ministries

communications equipment
and technical facilities

and agencies and connect up to the state
information network

Disaster

set up a integrated disaster data base at

information

and

data
communication
betweenministries,
agencies and NGOs is notprovided timely

the state civil defense department

Actionson
disasterinformation
anddata
collection, their processing,summing up, distribution

relevant data and information in the state
civil
defensedepartmentʼs
disasterdatabaseare inadequateThecommunications

disasterandinformation
management
system is inadequate

conduct surveys and studies into potential
disasters and accidents at the level ofministries and agencies and include

include information and data on major
showings,
force,
material
technical
facilities, equipment reserves of ministries
and agencies in the reference database of
the state civil defense department
link ministries and agencies to the state
civil defense departmentʼs database topromote an exchange of data andinformationequip rescue groups and units with radio
sets to communicate

Rear supplies

No system of procurement
anddistributionofassistance
goods
and
materials

With introduction of a disaster andaccident management system the issue of
distribution, transportation and spendingof rear supplies will be gradually solved in

Goods
and
materials
designed for coping withdisaster
or
given
in

consistence with measures to be taken to
improve the systemʼs arrangement

assistance are wasted invain

Present situation assessment
Assessmentofpresent
situation and information tothesuperior
authority
informed is delayed

Perfectthetechniquesfordisasters, accidents and needs

estimating

The assessment of present
situation is not adequate
and correct

Disseminate information according to amastertable
onpresent
situation
information

No experience and skills in
estimating
thepresent
situation and its handling

Set up in the disaster data base an
operational information base to transfer
information on the present situation withrespect to disasters and accidents
Link aimag, capital city and districtʼs civil
defense headquarters to a computer
network

3.2. Post-disaster rehabilitation and recovery operations
According to the international experience accumulated, in order to ensure a perfectperformance of actions designed to liquidate the disaster consequences it depends upon
two major factors as to keep the authorities and forces properly informed all the time andensure the preparedness of the forces, their readiness for actions. Without taking into
account of the above two important factors whatsoever plans, management, organization
system, experts are provided the liquidation actions would not give proper results.
Moreover, the eﬃciency of responsive actions depends directly upon the measures toensure the preparedness and the relevant policies to be pursued in this sphere, planning,arrangement of management, training and many other matters will be considered in thefollowing chapters.
It is important to ensure uniformly the preparedness of forces and means to be applied in
the disaster liquidation actions, for sometimes non-preparedness of just one organization
badly aﬀects the ﬁnal outcome of the disaster consequences liquidation actions. In view ofthis, it is desirable to strengthen with respect to the system of management to be provided
during a disaster period, the capacities of specialized organizations and agencies ofaimags, capital city and districts along with that of the military units of civil defense being
the major civil defense force, structures responsibly for combating natural disasters inseven aimags
As is clearly seen from the state of aﬀairs concerning the organization at the national,
aimagʼs and local levels of responsive actions for liquidation of consequences of natural
disasters occurred recently in our country, the management and co-ordination of eﬀorts
during the disaster period is improper, there are no regular systems existing at thenational, aimagʼs and local levels, co-ordination and control are often lost in the disasteraﬀected area owing to which the responsive actions are delayed, and, accordingly, theconsequences exacerbated, as it was during the ﬁre in the spring of 1996. It evidently
shows that the current state of organization of actions for liquidation of consequences ofdisasters carried out at the level of aimags, the capital city and its districts are inadequate
to the current, market economyʼs conditions and can not meet the requirements of reality.

3.2.1. The current status of rehabilitation
The current status of actions for recovery, rehabilitation and coping with adverse eﬀects
resulted from natural disaster in Mongolia is assessed based upon the progress of postdisaster actions, challenges posed and experience gained after most serious disasters
occurred over the last few years, in particular after 1990. For example, a post-disaster
review made with respect to the liquidation of the damages, rehabilitation and recovery
operations implemented in connection with such large-scale natural disasters as a heavy
snowfall (zud) occurred in the spring of 1993 extending to the territories of more than 30
soums of Bayankhongor, Gobi-Altai and Zavkhan aimags, 417 wildﬁres raged on the
territories of about 120 soums of 16 aimags during the spring and autumn of 1996, theﬁrst incidence of plague disease broken out in August 1996, zud extended to the territoriesof nearly 70 soums of a score of aimags for a period of up to four months during the
1996-1997 winter, also a foehn wind damaged more than 10 soums on Arkhangai, Bulgan
and Ovorkhangai aimagsʼ territories in the spring of the same year, has established that, inmost cases, there was nothing excepting the plan of action of the civil defense systemʼsorganizations to serve as a guidebook; no funds ear-marked for disaster management
including relief aid to the victims, especially with regard to the administrative and territorial
units where due to the lack of proper funds and materials there were neither propercapabilities nor preparations for arranging actions to cope with the eﬀects, provide relief
assistance to disaster-aﬀected citizens rendered homeless, who lost their cattle andproperty, left without any means of subsistence; and undertake on their own rehabilitation
and recovery measures, which repeatedly has taken place.
As far as the actions for coping with adverse eﬀects resulted from natural disaster andtheir recovery are concerned, the composition and scope of such recovery actions,requirements for and sequence of recovery actions, factors of signiﬁcance in this respect
can be deﬁned as follows:

3.2.2. Composition of recovery actions and their sequence
The post-disaster recovery consists of a complex set of management, arrangement,
economic, technical and ﬁnancial measures and actions designed to bring to normal theoperation of organizations, economic entities and industrial sectors aﬀected by thedisaster.
The recovery actions include two major aspects as the recovery and reconstruction.
The recovery actionsʼ composition, types of actions to be implemented, funds to beallocated, duration and speciﬁcs may vary depending upon the extent of damages thegiven place, sector, territory suﬀered due to the disaster. Along with that, as a result of theeﬀects of particular types of disaster, some speciﬁc conditions may be created. For
instance, the activities on repairing and reconstruction of bridges and roads broken after
the ﬂood or of an industrial enterprise damaged due to an explosion, or aﬀorestationeﬀorts made to recover forest resources destroyed due a forest ﬁre all are qualiﬁed asrehabilitation and recovery actions but each of them has its own speciﬁcs.
The recovery actions are carried out in the following sequence:analyses to the extent of damages caused and to the respective estimates madearrange operations in the aﬀected zone of a working group and team of experts consistingof competent organizations and specialized establishmentsʼ specialists to get acquainted
with the progress of recovery actions and draw up appropriate conclusions
make a tentative estimate of funds required for coping with the eﬀects and recovery
actions, draw up respective designs and have them duly authorized at appropriate level ofmanagement
determine the subjects to implement actions referring to rehabilitation and coping witheﬀects, e.g., households, private persons, organizations, economic entities, administrative
and territorial units (aimags, the capital city, soums, districts, etc.), sectors (ministries,
agencies, departments), the state emergency standing commission, the government anddetermine the scope of their responsibilities
once those to implement (be responsible for) the above mentioned actions are
determined, there is a need to set the time limits for recovering this place or entity andspecify stages of actions to be carried out
when the issue of funding required for the rehabilitation actions has been solved,
organizations, economic entities and other subjects to carry out actions (rehabilitation,
reconstruction, recovery of production by means of short and long-term projects, etc.)
shall be assigned and contracts thereon made or tenders invited to select from among
Mongolian and foreign enterprises.
arrangements shall be made at any level for executing decisions by any level ofadministration including the government, ministry, aimag, the capital city, district,economic entity, organizations, taken on the above issues in respect of rehabilitation andrecovery of disaster-aﬀected establishments, cities, settlements, sectors, units.

3.2.3. Factors of significance and challenges posed during rehabilitation and recovery actions
The following factors are to have eﬀects upon the planning of rehabilitation actions andtheir implementation:
limited opportunities in respect of timing to ensure a realistic planning in keeping with thecurrent situation for rehabilitation and coping with eﬀects which is understandable
considering that disasters usually happen unexpectedly and therefore they are hard to beplanned beforehand,in the course of rehabilitation and recovery actions, there arises a necessity to solve
instantly, due to the current situation speciﬁcs, a wide range of issues referring to theindustrial, technical, technological, economic and social spheresin planning recovery actions according to the possible disasterʼ tentative assessment it ismade on the basis of averaged and rough estimates due to which it will be necessary toverify them carefully and estimate and determine all over again the components andcapacity of recovery actions, forces and funds to be requiredit will be important to determine properly the duration and sequence of solving issues tocrop up in the course of recovery actions
if as a disaster consequence there is no control to be enforced on the part of a given
economic entity, or the local and central administrative system, taking into account that it
will inevitably tell upon the direction and organization of the comprehensive rehabilitation
actions it is necessary to take immediate measures in respect of management andorganization
if there is a need for large-scale ﬁnancing and funds to be provided such issues shall beconsidered and solved properly at state, governmental, administrative unit andorganizationʼs levels and, in some cases, it may be needed to request for assistance fromthe international community and foreign countries
the shortage of technical facilities (aeroplanes, aircraftʼs, machines, tractors, otherequipment) required for coping with eﬀects and rehabilitation actions
it should be taken into consideration that provided all issues referring to ﬁnance, resourcesand others have been adequately solved, some diﬃculties may arise in connection with theinfrastructure damages as the traﬃc halted, bridges broken, failures in the power supply,
and, in addition to them, issues associated with its poor development.
Apart from those general factors also the positive and negative sides of a multitude of
diﬀerent factors ? namely, the local and sectoral speciﬁcs, the weather conditions of that
period, peopleʼs aspirations and commitment, logistical support, remoteness from thecentre should be regarded as well.

3.2.4. Resources for recovery actions
The basis for planning disaster combating and recovery actions in particular, shall be
adjusted in line with the economic and social development guidelines and conceptions ofsustainable development taken at sectoral, administrative, territorial and regional levels,and duly reﬂected in relevant documents and papers as the action programmes of thegovernment.
A greater portion of the funds allocated to combat disasters was spent on measures
undertaken to cope with their eﬀects and recovery actions, so, in order to avoid in future
so much waste of money an emphasis must be placed on ensuring due prevention andmaintaining proper preparedness levels. It could be summed up that such expenses arenecessary to be reﬂected in the annual central and local budgets.
On the other hand, it would be worthwhile to consider setting up on the national andaimagʼs scale a foundation for combating disaster that will be built up by allocations fromthe state budget, non-budgetary revenues, foreign and national contributions anddonations and spent in conformity with its regulations which shall be duly authorized.
In undertaking recovery action the principles of centralized utilization of resources andtheir partial utilization shall be implemented. When a disaster happens appropriate
corrections and adjustments shall be made in the plans outlined in peacetime and on thisbasis required arrangements shall be made to ensure their adequate implementation .

The major reason for a successful implementation of any recovery action is, apart frombeing provided with suﬃcient ﬁnancial capacities, also availability of a system ofpreparedness, training, expertise of administration, organizations concerned, forces,
means, responsibility and initiative of those responsible for it. The above factors areneeded to be addressed in peace time by means of policy, planning and regulations
provided at all levels of administration.
One of the major components of rehabilitation is the estimates made as for technicalfacilities, equipment and logistical support required, depending upon the rehabilitatedunitʼs state, kinds of actions to be done, and their procurement and supply from foreign
and home markets and enterprises in such quantities and of such quality that could satisfy
relevant standards and requirements.
Organizations dealing with the implementation of recovery programmes shall be suppliedwith information and data, and analyses be made; the programmes being implemented
shall be provided with management and its progress be supervised; the programmes shallbe successfully implemented; due assistance and support shall be rendered to theimplementation of the programme activities.
1.Organizations that should supply with information and data and make analyses andassessments are as follows:organizations directly concerned with combating natural disaster as the State
Permanent Emergency Commission, Mongolian Parliamentʼs Oﬃce
ministries and agenciesʼ departments and divisions in charge of planningministries and agencies of the government
international relief assistance establishments
non-governmental organizations andstatistical, press and information agencies.
2.organizations that should deﬁne categories and scopes of programmes
the government
aimag and local governorʼs oﬃces
non-governmental organizations
international relief assistance establishments
3.organizations that should provide the programme management and supervise its
progressministries, agencies and departments assigned by the government
4. Organizations that should be responsible for programme implementation:
ministries and agencies of the government

private sectorʼs organizations acting on contractual basis
international relief teams
international and national non-proﬁtable organizations
programme implementing specialists
5. Organizations
implementation:

thatshouldprovidesupportandassistancein

programme

6. n governmental organizations
banking organizations
other volunteer organizations
press and information organizations

3.2.5. Objectives to be set forth in connection with the implementation of recovery actions
1. The main activities to be done within the framework of recovery action include a wide
range of long-term comprehensive measures designed to recover the disaster-aﬀectedareaʼs social and economic sectors by rehabilitation and reconstruction measures, and,
therefore, are needed to be implemented, in the most of cases, under the schemes of thenational development master plan. To this end, particular aspects of recovery action shallbe reﬂected in the national development plan.
2. Before the implementation of recovery action it is necessary to collect relevant data andinformation, and the following sources may be used for gathering required information anddata:a) information to be obtained during the coping with eﬀects of disasters:
estimates of damages, their utilization, data and information on damages
progress reports
reports issued by ministries, agencies and non-governmental organizations on
accomplishing the coping with the eﬀects
information gathered at the command centre
reports and statements of international relief organizations
information released from mass media means
However, above information and data are required to be re-processed and brought intosuch a form thatwould enable to apply them for recovery actions

b) Post-disaster reports, statements and review

If they are provided as soon as the actions to cope with the eﬀects have accomplishedthey could be applied in the programme formulation as a source of informationc) Information from the development programme

Recovery actions are directly co-ordinated and adjusted with the national development
programme which is one of major requirements for recovery actions and, therefore, any
information and data referring to the programme can be applied for recovery programme
formulationd) Information from specialized working groups

Valuable information is provided by specialized working groups sent to the disasteraﬀected area in post-disaster period to determine the need for any rehabilitation action to
be implementede) information on basic data for recovery actions programmeThis information includes data referring to the amount and scope of the recovery
programme, viz:project costs
project implementation duration, scheduleﬁnancial, material and manpower resources to be required for the projectinternational relief assistance capacityf) information and data on disaster occurrences recorded to take place in this region before
3. Recovery action policy is needed to be formulated and deﬁned at the governmentʼslevel. But the working group with a few members to conduct post-disaster monitoring isproved to be more eﬀective. When the formulation of a policy is accomplished it isnecessary to make certain that major components of recovery action are reﬂected therein.
For example:
is the participation of all major sectors desirable to be involved in recovery actions
provided for in the policy
it should be pointed out that it would take some certain period of time to study therecovery actionʼs composition and organization

co-ordination of the recovery action with the issues reﬂected in the national
development programme, their interrelationship shall be taken into accountan assessment shall be made to the capability of the forces to implement therecovery actions
responsibilities and functions of key organizations in carrying out the recovery actionsa system of supervision to be enforced on the part of the government over therecovery actions performance
4. After the recovery policy has been formulated, it is necessary to take steps on the
management and organization of recovery programme formulation. There are thefollowing options:members of the government
commission headed by one of ministers (state permanent emergency commission)
ministries and agencies provided with management from the government
Any of these management system will be eﬃcient for ensuring overall responsibility andmanagement in respect of recovery actions
5. On the basis of assessment and analyses made to all kinds of information and data therecovery action programme will be formulated and sectors and localities to implement it
shall be reﬂected therein. The programme shall concentrate on the following priorities:a) Issues to be formulated and developed at the governmental level:
economic infrastructure (roads, bridges, railways)
civic administration buildings and structures
education, health care spheresʼ buildings and structures
distribution of the populationb)At the private sectorʼs level:industrial, trade and servicesʼ buildings and structuresc) At the local level:
rehabilitation of the local cities, settlements, industries and services
6. Generally, recovery programmes are of high costs due to which before starting therecovery actions it is essential to secure funding required for its implementation. Also
assessments shall be made to the forces and facilities to carry out recovery actions as
equipment, materials, facilities, manpower, qualiﬁed professionals, etc.
7. It should be noted that the international relief organizationsʼ assistance will be essential
for carrying out recovery measures as it was for coping with the eﬀects. This assistance
may be provided in the following forms:

ﬁnancialequipment, instruments, materiel
ear-marked for the implementation of particular projects
international humanitarian assistance and that of religious establishments, etc.
8. A close co-ordination and adjustment of the recovery action with the national
development programme shall be provided. In view of this, decisions determining thesequence of actions to be undertaken shall be passed at the governmental level duly
adjusted to the national development programme
9. Irrespective of whether the recovery action is to be implemented entirely or partially,
supervision shall be enforced over its progress anyway. The supervision is desirable to be
carried out by one of the ministries. It would be easier to get any information required if
all information and data are concentrated in one place.
10. In the course of implementation of the recovery action supported by the governmentʼs
ministries and agencies there are limited capacities for organizations directly concernedwith disaster combating actions as the parliamentʼs oﬃce, and their executives to get
involved in it. Without specialized instructions provided by the organizations in charge ofdisaster management and their staﬀ of experts, new problems that could entail hazardous
eﬀects in the future may pose due to wrong assessments made in the course of
implementation of large-scale programmes of recovery and reconstruction. In view of this,
it is necessary that specialized guidance and advice be given on the part of organizations
dealing with disaster management and ensure their close co-ordination with the national
development programme.

3.3. Improvement of response to natural disasters
3.3.1. System of arrangement of actions in natural disaster period
It is desirable that the system of actions to be carried out under the disaster period in theconditions of Mongolia be arranged at the national, aimag, soumʼs and local levels in thefollowing way:Its structure shall include the aimagʼs governor, the aimag and soumʼs emergency force(team), the mobilisation commission, planning, forces and means rear supplies, ﬁnanceand accounting divisions.
The planning, force and means division shall have its subdivision to be responsible for thecurrent situation assessment, determination and planning of requested forces and means,mobilization and demobilization of above forces, the rear supplies division shall have its
services and supplies subdivisions, the former being comprised by the communications,medical care and foodstuﬀ provision groups, the latter consisting of the supplies,
accommodation, means and facilities provision, mobile machines and appliances supplies
and service.
The ﬁnancial and accounting division will have its subdivision dealing with the registrationof working hours, purchase of technical means, compensation issues.

On arranging in such a way the management and control during the disaster period
possibilities will be provided to ensure proper co-ordination in solving such issues as theplanning of response to disaster, liquidation of its consequences, forces, rear supplies,
ﬁnancial and funding, which would be more economical ﬁnancially.
This system of management and control during disaster periods provides for non-staﬀ
personnel to be formed by the decision of the aimag, capital city, soum and districtʼs
governors only during the period of a disaster and consisting of the staﬀ of the governorʼsoﬃcesʼ as well as managerial staﬀ and executives of other economic entities andenterprises to be mobilized on a temporary basis.
The emergency team will be formed of the persons assigned by the mobilizationcommission and relevant technical means and will be composed structurally of its chief tobe in charge of the arrangement and control over the rescue and liquidation ofconsequences activities on the spot, or a specialized mobile group or teamʼs head. The
number of senior chief and a mobile groupʼs head will be determined depending upon theextent of a disaster and opportunities available with respect to the forces and means and it
would be most appropriate if from 7 to 10 persons would be under one senior chiefʼscommand.
Management system organization scheme to operate during the disasteroccurrence Aimagʼs Governor
Emergency team (senior chief, mobile groups and teamsʼ heads), Mobilization commission(Planning, force and means division, Force and means subdivision, Situation assessment
subdivision, Planning subdivision), Rear supplies division (Communications subdivision,
Medical care subdivision, Foodstuﬀs and accommodation subdivision, Mobile machines andappliances supplies and service subdivision), Finance and accounting division (subdivision
on registration of working hours, Technical means purchase subdivision and payment andaccounting subdivision)

3.3.2. System of communications and notification and information
The information and notiﬁcation system is of special signiﬁcance for a success of
responsive measures for liquidation of consequences of a disaster and the following
requirements are to be raised in this respect:
the earliest warning of the preconditions for a natural disaster to occur
if there are doubts whether or not the predicted natural disaster would take place,
notiﬁcations shall be sent out limited to the managerial staﬀʼs scale only in order toavoid disturbing the smooth operation of economic entities, organizations andresidents.
as soon as the notiﬁcation actions are accomplished respective decisions andresolutions shall be issued concerning the response to the natural disaster and how tocope with its consequences
actions shall be arranged without delay to make the public informed of the decisions
passedWith respect to our country it is necessary to change the former four-alarm signal systemdesigned for announcements in the wartime as the “air-raid alarm”, the “all-clear”, the“radiation alarm” and the “chemical alarm” approved by Resolution No. 170 of thegovernment of Mongolia to be replaced by such alarm signals as the “earthquake”, the“ﬂood alarm”, the “ﬁre alarm”, the “epidemic disease communicable to people and or
livestock”, the “strong wind”, the “blizzard”, etc. which shall be explained to the general
populace in a most plain and understandable form through the aimag, capital city anddistrictʼs civil defense headquarters, with developing required training schemes to makethe people trained to apply them.
Once the aforementioned signals are given it is required that all schools, kindergartens,
oﬃces and public places be closed, the preparedness of the emergency power plants andother system linesʼ equipment for operation be checked, the supplies of foodstuﬀs, potablewater, warm clothes, ﬁrewood and other top priorities be made by residents and alongwith that measures necessary for preparing to evacuate the people, etc. shall be taken incase of emergency.
In order to ensure that actions for liquidating the consequences are carried out in the
shortest possible time and with most eﬃciency a system needs to be set up to arrange theresponsive actions with respect to natural disasters and ensure the co-ordination andgeneral management over the actions the managerial staﬀ, forces and organizations
involved in. For this, the actions for liquidation of consequences shall be carried out inrelevant stages. There are three rates (levels) of the civil defenseʼs preparedness state as
the “day-to-day”, “heightened” and “general”. Though the above mentioned preparedness
rates are easy to put into practice with the headquarters, military units and divisions
referring to the civil defense system as well as in other military bodies but the civilorganizationsʼ leadership has little experience and knowledge of operations to be
performed according to the above levels.
Therefore, it is desirable to explain to civil organizations the responsive actionʼs operation
stages in a plain and intelligible form that should be more adopted to their speciﬁcs, to be
guided by in their further activities. In particular, the responsive actions are possible toproceed through such stages as giving the relevant signals and warning hold a meetingwith the participation of the managerial staﬀ and forces, ensure their preparedness toaction, make them start their action and the like. The advantage of a step-by-step
implementation of responsive actions is that the head in charge of notiﬁcation andinformation could cease the action without commencing its next stage if it turns out thatthe disaster warned about is not to occur. Thereby opportunities will be provided to ensure
the preparedness to responsive action of all the organizations to be involved in and at thesame time it will allow to avoid conducting unnecessary and thus ineﬃcient activities.
Ensuring of proper regulation and co-ordination of joint eﬀorts for liquidation of theconsequences will serve as the major condition enabling to use to full capacity theorganizations involved in disaster combating actions, ensuring its due performance andavoid any faults and shortcomings to be made. In foreign countries the work on coordinating jointly implemented actions is carried out from a speciﬁcally designed centre ofoperative co-ordination and management furnished with special equipment and it isneeded to set up with the State civil department such a centre on co-ordination andmanagement to conduct its operation on the national level.

In order to carry out successfully the responsive actions a reliable communications system
is required to be supplied with.
Another important matter relating to the organization of responsive actions is to beprovided with a communications system supplied its own power sources which would allow
it to operate when or if it turns out that the basic communications system could notfunction properly due to the damages received during the disaster occurrence.
Regarding such speciﬁc features of Mongolia as her great territorial expanse, scarcely
populated, with a harsh continental climate, etc., the communications system to operate
during the disaster occurrence shall meet the following requirements:
to cover the countryʼs cities, settlements, districts and industrial regions withcomparatively dense population and industrial concentration (a communications
system set up basing upon ﬁxed communication units)organize the communications system in such a way that it will cover every corner ofthe country, be connected up to the national and international communications
systems and be provided with opportunities to communicate through telephone, fax,
computer and satellite systems (a mobile communications system)be provided with facilities allowing to work in co-ordination with a public
communications system but not be limited to its capacities, if need be
be possible to be supplied with power from a low-power electrical generator, becompact, suitable to be used in ﬁeld conditions and easy to be handled by people
without specialized training and education
be strong enough to resist any hard conditions of operation including shaking,tremors, dusty and moist environments and harsh climatic conditions (temperatures
ranging from -50 up to +40oC, rainfall, snowfall, etc.)
made by applying of the latest technical and technological achievements andsatisfying the requirements raised in Mongoliaʼs communications system development
master plan.
Proceeding from the above, a ﬁxed communications system it required for the civil defense
headquarters of the national level, units and divisions to operate under the disasterconditions, being independent from the public communications network. A SW radio which
capacity allows to maintain a radio contact at a distance over 500 km, is considered to be
the most appropriate one. At present the Khovsgol, Arkhangai, Selenge, Khentii, Dornod
and Bulgan aimagsʼ civil defense divisions to combat natural disasters communicate with
Ulaanbaatar applying such communications sets. In future it is necessary to extend theradio communications network to all aimagsʼ civil defense headquarters.
For ensuring prompt actions of the specialized services involved in the actions forliquidation of the consequences of a natural disaster and their leadership who work in thedisaster aﬀected area a mobile radio communications system is of special signiﬁcance.
This system shall be comprised by a USW IM radio system to be applied forcommunications in cities, settlements and in the disaster area and a SW radio system
which will allow to communicate with Ulaanbaatar. Actions are being taken on the part ofthe parliament to supply some aimagsʼ civil defenseʼs Standing emergency divisions withsuch communications system.

3.4. Improvement of response to natural disaster
It is impossible to achieve a success in carrying out the responsive actions without
estimating the damages inﬂicted due to a disaster, rescue operations and actions to beprovided to cope with its consequences, and many other things that will need to be done.
For conducting observations and inspections and ensuring an adequate assessment of thesituation such matters shall be considered and corresponding plans and arrangements
made well in advance as estimates to be made with respect to air surveying andinspections, arrangement of observations and control on the area, assessment of thecurrent situation provided from all organizations and oﬃcials concerned with thearrangement of actions to cope with the disaster in the localities close to the disasterareaʼs centre. In most of cases activities on general observation and inspection shall be
conducted without delay in the disaster area directly after the disaster has occurred.
The information and data received after respective surveys and inspection measures havebeen conducted and current situation assessment made are of special prominence forresponse actions to be undertaken promptly. In view of this, it is necessary to purchase forthe state emergency department low-power aircraftʼs and aeroplanes as well as
amphibious vehicles designed to travel over rough ground and in water to be supplied tothe civil defense units and divisions and arrange training abroad of experts-observers.
Capability to supply with materials and means required to carry out rescue pertains serves
as another factor which enables to achieve a success.

4. Disaster Monitoring and Prevention System
Measures to create a combined system on natural disaster information transmitting andprocessing, observing, forecasting and warning have been in operation since 1940. Today
this system is based on the telecommunication Systems of the hydrometeorological serviceof Mongolia. This System consists of the following subsystems:- Sub-system for observation and information collection- Sub-system for data transmission and processing- Forecasting and warning sub-system- Geological and wildﬁre sub-system

Sub-system for observation and information collection

The National Hydrometeorological Service (NHS) is responsible for observing, forecasting,
and warning of hydrometeorological disasters such as drought, zud, heavy snow, and dust

storms, strong wind, blizzard, cold rain, ﬂood, dibasic ﬂow, and weather conditions for
wildﬁre occurrence. NHS has more than 400 gauging points, including meteorological,hydrometeorological and agrometeorological stations, BAPMON and greenhouse gas
stations. Meteorological stations measure 8-11 elements 44 tires a day;agrometeorological stations measure 4-7 elements 3 times a day, hydrometeorologicalstation measures three elements per day.

In addition, there arc a number of stations for air, water and soil pollution monitoring.

Sub-system for data transmission and processing

Hydrometeorological observation data arc collected from 18 provinces and three cities bytelephone channel and transmitted to the information and Computer Center ('CC) of the
Ministry of Nature and Environment where they are processed. Data on earthquakes , andwildﬁre occurrence arc also collected by the same telephone channels. ICC also receives
AVHRR digital data from NOAA satellites of the USA ICC contains Mongolia's national
center for hydrometeorological communication This center is connected to Beijing andNovosibirsk and WMO regional centers, and it receives meteorological maps fromHabarovsk, Tokyo and Beijing.

All incoming data are processed by VAX computing equipment. Although data arc
processed, no natural disaster data-base system was created until now.

Forecasting and warning sub-system

The Hydrometeorological Research Institute of the Ministry of Nature and Environment has
responsibility forecasting and warning of imminent hydrometeorological disaster: blizzard,
dust storm, heavy snow, ﬂood, zud, drought.

The forecasting and warning ~ have been a- under Government Resolution no. 68 of
1993.

Geological and wildﬁre sub-system

The Academy of Sciences of Mongolia conducts research studies on earthquake
phenomenon. It has 10 study locations within the territory of Mongolia 'The ﬁrst
earthquake observation station was opened at Ulaanbaatar, the capital city in 1957.

There arc no special locations for wildﬁre observation. Information on wildﬁre occurrence isobtained by from local government oﬃces and people.

5. Legislative and Institutional Background
The purpose of this chapter is to review the institutional and legislative background to
emergency preparedness in Mongolia and powers and responsibilities of ministries andagencies concerned with combating disasters as well as their interrelationships and coordination of their actions.

5.1. Legislative background5.1.1. Constitution of Mongolia
Article 6, paragraph 4 reads: “the state may … conﬁscate the land if its utilisation runs
counter to health of people, nature, the environment and the national security interests.”
Article 16, paragraph 2 reads: “is entitled to live in a healthy and safe environment and beprotected against environmental pollution and ecological imbalance ”
Article 25, paragraph 2 reads: “a state of emergency, whenever there is a natural disaster,other emergency or threat to life, health, economic conditions or social environment of the
population of the entire country or part of it, may be declared to cope with their eﬀects
and safeguard the population and social environment ensuring its normal functioning”

5.1.2. Conception of National Security of Mongolia(Annex 1 to Resolution No. 56 of the Great State Khural (1994)
External factors that may disturb ecological balance are as follows:
1. As a consequence of world climatic change, such as intensiﬁcation of drought, change inamount and seasonal timing of precipitation, increase in the frequency of drought and jud
winters, depletion of ozone layer;
Uncontrollable ﬂows of radioactivity through air and water, chemical contamination,
increase in acid rainfall, the spread of human and animal epidemic diseases, an outbreakof insects and pests that can destroy the pasture land and forest;
Turning actions in most eﬀective way against nuclear tests to be carried out and organisedon the territory of and adjacent to Mongolia territories.
Implement a policy for restricting by legislative and economic levers any operation andactions which causes detrimental impact on the environment
Create a system for prevention of natural disaster and other emergencies

Study national conventional methods and technologies of providing for the populationʼsneeds in arid or desert areas, ensure the national preparedness to survive in the case ofany possible meteorological events and phenomenaEnter into international agreements and treaties on environmental protection and recovery
issues, introduce advanced technologies through developing projects in co-operation withsponsor countries in ecological sphere, create a system to prevent and combat any
emergencies possible in the most cost-eﬀective manner

5.1.3. Civil Defence Law
Article 6. Civil Defence functions are as follows:
Safeguard the population and property from weapons of destruction, carry out rescue
operations in the aﬀected area, render aid to victims and organise urgent recovery andrehabilitation actions
Undertake measures to protect livestock, domesticated animals, cultivated plants,
foodstuﬀs, water sources, property from radioactive, chemical toxic and bacteriologicalcontamination and cope with their eﬀects
Disseminate warning information about destructive weapons, emergency and accident
threat to the population, establish a warning information and management system andmaintain their preparedness
Provide training to citizens in measures and techniques to protect from destructive
weapons, disasters and accidents
Organize and train personnel required to carry out rescue and protection operations,maintain their preparedness, provide supplies of logistics (material, technical facilities,
tools, instruments and implements, supply with spare parts
Organize and carry out rescue operations in the disaster or accident aﬀected area.
Article 10. Structure and composition of Civil Defense management
Mongolian prime minister is the head of the State Civil Defense Department, governors of
all levels (aimag, capital city, soum, district) are heads of respective Civil Defense units
The head of the Civil Defense Head will provide general supervision of civil defense actionsof national level and the head of the state administrative organization concerned with civil
defense issues will directly guide its activities.
4. The head of an economic entity or organization will also be the head of its civil
defense
Article 13. Powers of the Civil Defense Department head are as follows:
Submit to the government for approval a plan of action for prevention of, protection,
rescue of the population, property from any destructive weapons, disasters and accidents,
response to emergencies and undertaking urgent recovery and rehabilitation measures,
enforce supervision over its performance6. Appoint commissions vested with the powers to carry out immediate actions forprevention of, protection and rescue from and response to emergencies, undertake
recovery and rehabilitation measures, deﬁne main priority areas of their operation
Article 16. Powers of heads of civil defense units of aimag, capital city, soum, district,economic entities and organizations and of heads of civil defense divisions are as follows:
2. Make a preliminary estimate of the state and conditions of destructive weapons,disaster, accident threat and the amount of possible damages it may cause, outline andimplement measures for protection from their hazards and carrying out rescue operations
7. Undertake measures to secure funding necessary for prevention of, protection fromdestructive weapons, disaster and accident hazards, actions in response, provide suppliesof required materials, technical means and facilities, supply with spare parts.
Article 17. Functions of the state administrative organization in charge of civil defense
issues
2. Equip civil defense organizations and units with qualiﬁed staﬀ, arrange their training andspecialization
4. Provide training to the population, build forces and means to carry out rescue
operations and maintain their preparedness
5. Organize dissemination of warning information about the threat of destructive weapons,disasters and accidents to the population
7. Take steps to ensure that the construction of buildings and structures designed to deal
with production activities possible to aﬀect human health and the environment or
employing a substantial number of workers to work all together, shall be provided incompliance with the major requirements set out in respect of civil defense
4.1.4. Law on ﬁres in forest and steppe areas
Article 6. Powers of governors of all levels (aimag, capital city, soum, district, bag,residential block) are as follows:
1. Implement a ﬁre protection and ﬁghting plan, include relevant expenses in the annual
budget, provide supplies of equipment, implements, foodstuﬀs and other items inconformity with standards and requirements set out from the government, supply spareparts
2. Undertake measures to train citizens in ﬁre protection and ﬁre-ﬁghting techniques andoperations
3. Governors of bag and khoroo levels shall exercise the following powers with respect toﬁre protection and ﬁre-ﬁghting:- Undertake immediate actions for ﬁre-ﬁghting, make available all their facilities, inform
about the outbreak of ﬁre and ﬁre-ﬁghting progress

5.1.4. Law on environmental protection

Article 9. Environmental impact assessments
Impact assessments shall be conducted for the development of proposals andprogrammes, as well as for establishing contracts for the operation, initiation andexpansion of production or services which may have adverse environmental impacts
Article 10. Environmental monitoring
1. The term “environmental monitoring” shall mean writing evaluations based on
permanent observations, measurements, and research on the state of and changes to theenvironment, as well as developing measures for the termination and elimination of theadverse changes discovered.
3.3. Develop proposals for the prevention of adverse eﬀects to human health and theenvironment due to natural disasters and eliminate damages
Article 22. Natural disaster and emergency areas
2. The government shall establish natural disaster and emergency area zones based on therecommendations of the State Administrative Central Organization
3. The State Administrative Central Organization, Civil Defense Department, governors of
all levels, and other relevant organizations shall jointly take measures on the prevention
and mitigation of natural disasters and emergencies, the elimination of damage, theenhancement of the environment, and the restoration of natural resources
4. All costs for the elimination of damages caused by natural disasters and emergencies
shall be allocated from the state budget. After the investigation of causes, the responsible
body shall be assessed for the full compensation of damage
Article 23. Environmental protection during states of emergency
Pursuant to the Constitution of Mongolia, measures for the mitigation of natural disasters
and emergencies, the elimination of damages caused by them, and the protection of theenvironment and its natural resources in the territory of a state of emergency shall be
conducted pursuant to the provisions and procedures stipulated by the Law on states of
emergency

5.1.5. Law on Water
Article 9. Plenary powers of the State Administrative Central Organization
4. provide management for water reserves protection, restoration, prevention of water
disasters, and elimination of damages to nature resulting from them
Article 10. Plenary powers of aimag and capital city governors
3. undertake measures to prevent the depletion, degradation, and pollution of water
resources and water quality
Article 11. Plenary powers of soum and district governors

1. submit to the Citizen Representative Khural for approval plans for water collection,
restoration, proper use, water quality protection, prevention of water disasters andelimination of their damages, and an estimated budget for implementation of such plans

5.1.6. Law on Air
Article 3. Administration of activities on air protection
2. The State Administrative Central Organization in charge of health shall fulﬁl thefollowing functions on air protection:
draft standards on the admissible content of air pollution substances and on the level ofhazardous impacts and have them adopted by the authorized organization
control air pollution and the hazardous impacts to human health
Article 5. Air quality monitoring
1. The State Administrative Central Organization in charge of nature and environment shallorganize a monitoring network to regularly monitor of air pollution, hazardous impacts,
and changes in small air components such as ozone and hydrogen
Article 8. Air pollution discharge and hazardous impacts permit
3. In the event of the unavoidable discharge of air polluting substances and the causing of
hazardous impacts for admissible volumes which have no standards, the State
Administrative Central Organizations in charge of health and nature and environment may
jointly issue a temporary permit based on the characteristics and amount of the substanceand its impact on human health and the environment
Article 9. Measures for the critical increase of air pollution and hazardous impacts
1. In the event of the critical increase of air polluting substances and hazardous impacts
caused by disaster, commercial accidents or other reasons which exceed the level in thestandards and becomes dangerous to human health and the environment, themanagement of the responsible economic entity and/or organization and the Certiﬁed
Department shall immediately inform the aimag, capital city, soum, and district governors
and the public
2. The economic entity or organization management, the Certiﬁed Department, and thegovernors together with other relevant organizations shall take urgent actions todetermine the reasons for the critical increase of air polluting substances and hazardous
impacts and eliminate the damage
3. To reduce air pollution and hazardous impacts, the economic entity or organization
indicated in paragraph 1 of this Article or its oﬃcial shall place the economic entity ororganization in an emergency status or suspend its operation, and, if necessary, takemeasures to protect and evacuate the local residents as provided by the Mongolian Law on
Civil defense
Article 15. Ozone layer protection

1. To protect the ozone layer and to prevent hazardous impacts on it, an organization
authorized by the Certiﬁed Department and by the State Administrative Central
Organization in charge of nature and environment shall monitor the status of the ozone
layer and ﬂuctuations in intensity of ultra-violet rays.
2. The State Administrative Central Organization in charge of nature and environment shallapprove a list of substances which have hazardous impacts to the ozone layer.
A draft law of Mongolia on natural disaster insurance worked out jointly by the ministriesof nature and environment and of defense has been submitted to the government forconsideration. The draft law envisages the legislative basis to regulate the relationships
associated with the extension of the scope of functions and operations carried on by the
insurance organizations concerning the compensation of losses inﬂicted to citizens,
economic entities and organizations and rehabilitation actions in the event of natural
disaster for ensuring a sustainable development of the national economy.
Losses suﬀered by the citizens, economic entities and organizations due to natural disastershall be compensated chieﬂy by the state and the present practice of cherishing hopes forthe state compensations and foreign credit and assistance is inadmissible any more under
the current conditions. Therefore, there is a need for more ﬁnancial capacities to be able tocompensate damages resulted from natural disasters, carry out immediate recovery
measures to make things functioning normally. In this, natural disaster-related subjects,
terms and conditions of insurance are given speciﬁcally to distinguish them from the typesof commercial insurance and cases when such insurance would not be applicable are
speciﬁed precisely.
The draft contains a provision saying that the natural disaster insurance shall be obligatory,
but as it is not possible that insurance schemes extended to human health, life, animals
are to cover them completely, it is dimmed that insurance is not necessary to be extended
to the above as well. The draft law has not been discussed at the Great State Khural as
yet.

5.1.7. Law on hydrometeorological and environmental monitoring
Article 4. Powers of the government are as follows:
4.1.2. Build up a system for applying hydrometeorological and environmental data andprevention of possible disasters and serious threats of environmental pollution
Article 6. Powers of the Central Administrative organization on hydrometeorological andenvironmental monitoring are as follows:
6.1.2. Take measures to provide services to citizens, economic entities and organizations
with hydrometeorological and environmental information and prevent natural disasters andenvironmental pollution.
Article 7. Powers and responsibilities of governors of all levels (aimags, capital city, soums,
districts, bag and residential blocks) are as follows:
7.1.3. Ensure adequate service with hydrometeorological and environmental informationand data to be provided to citizens, economic entities and organizations located on theirrespective territories, arrange
environmental pollution

actionstoprevent

possiblenaturaldisasters

and

7.1.4. Assessing the extent of damages sustained on their respective territories due tonatural disasters, make corrections to the procedure and regulations for mitigation of its
eﬀects, timely notify the state administrative organization of the damages incurred
Article 13. Dissemination of hydrometeorological and environmental information and data:
13.4. Any information on natural disasters shall be disseminated in the ﬁrst instancethrough all communications means irrespective of their forms of ownership.

5.1.8. State policy towards ecological issues
3.11.5. Minimize the consumption of radioactive and chemical toxic substances causing
detrimental aﬀects upon human health, the environment and animals, strengthen thecontrol over the sale, utilization, transportation, storage and import of some highly toxic
substances
3.11.6. Ensure environmental safety through prevention of releases of radioactive andchemical toxic substances possible to take place during natural disasters, industrial andtraﬃc accidents and elimination of their negative eﬀects
3.11.7. The goals of improving the quality of the environment and ensuring its optimum
spacious utilization shall be accomplished through remote sounding of environmental
carrying capacity in relationship with climate change and possible adverse eﬀects ofnatural disasters, the amount of pollution that is impossible to liquidate completely, be
properly disposed of in an environment that suits best with respect to air, water and soil
conditions, preserving the ecological balance, restrict the production, consumption and testof substances promoting the depletion of ozone layer and augmenting the greenhouseeﬀects, take actions to promote an increase in the amount of precipitation and water
reservoirs storage capacity, plant new trees and bushes, protect soil fertility fromdesertiﬁcation.

5.2. Summary of Legislative Framework
Thus, we have reviewed the provisions of 7 laws, 1 conception and 1 policy of Mongolia
concerning the prevention of natural disaster and industrial accident and coping with theireﬀects.
As a matter of fact, Mongolia is a country where such natural disasters as drought, zud,ﬂood, wildﬁre are common events occurring nearly every year in one of its regions, andalong with this, it is a country with a highly susceptible environmental system which iseasy to be aﬀected by changes going on the global scale as climate change, aridisation,and desertiﬁcation.
On account of the above, the fact that there are suﬃcient provisions on prevention andprotection of natural disaster and industrial accident, mitigation and elimination of theireﬀects, especially the provisions concerning such issues as monitoring and analyses ofnatural disaster, data and information, industrial accident information, mitigation andcoping with eﬀects resulted from accidents specifying them distinctly are the positive
aspect of those laws.
However, it should be underlined that there are some drawbacks and shortcomings in
those laws as:
There no provisions delineating clearly the particular areas of responsibilities and functionsof a number of organizations with similar powers and responsibilities including the ministryof nature and environment, the state civil defense department, aimag, capital city, soum,
district, bag and residential block. The laws fail to make it clear which organization shall be
responsible for the implementation of the provision on natural disaster and industrial
accidents. For example, there is no clear statement indicating that it is the local authorities
that are responsible ﬁrst of all for undertaking steadily a set of measures designed toprevent ﬂoods and wildﬁres, and, when such a disaster already occurs, for implementing
immediate actions. There is no denying that it may be used as a pretext to avoid accepting
responsibilities and undertaking active measures, conﬁning themselves to notiﬁcation totheir superior bodies and requests for assistance.
It seems to be appropriate to incorporate into the relevant laws additions andamendments specifying in detail the powers and responsibilities of the ministry of natureand environment, the state civil defense department and local authorities insofar as
natural disaster is concerned and clarifying in what stage which organization shall assume
overall responsibility (monitoring, database, formation of preconditions for natural disasteroccurrence, prevention, combating disasters, rescue, rehabilitation actions, etc.).
Also it is necessary to indicate eligibly the scope of powers and responsibilities ofenterprises, economic entities, organizations, the state civil defense department and local
authorities insofar as prevention from hazards relating to industrial accidents and chemical
toxic substances is concerned
It should be noted that there is a need for new provisions to be amended specifying thepowers and responsibilities to be followed and abided by in large industrial centres where
there is a greater concentration of population. The existing industries and economic
entities shall be able to carry out safety analyses and prepare appropriate emergency
plans on that basis and conduct relevant training and drilling.

5.3. Institutional Background
The major role during natural disasters and industrial accidents is to be played by theministry of nature and environment, the state civil defense department, the state
permanent emergency commission and local authorities.
In addition, it should be mentioned about voluntary public organizations and citizens
whose part in such actions is prominent.
United Nations Disaster Relief Organizationʼs management team in Mongolia
This team composed of staﬀs of the UNDF, UNDAF, UNCF and WHO as well as of UN
Permanent Representative in Mongolia, was set up to help build up capabilities to developmore eﬃcient co-operation with the government and conduct a wide range of natural
disaster combating actions.
Reﬂected in their regulations worked out by this team are many issues regardingorganizational, research and relief aid aspects as the appointment of their member
organizationsʼ oﬃcers to deal with natural disaster issues, co-operation with thegovernment and non-governmental organizations, foundation and ﬁnancing of natural
disaster management funds, co-ordination of its operation on natural disaster prevention
and mitigation of its eﬀects with the Mongolian governmental, public organizations andinternational establishments, sponsor countries.
It should be noted that the UN disaster relief organizationʼs management team in Mongolia
is an authoritative organization making its appropriate contribution to the national
programme formulation and implementation.

5.3.1. Ministry of nature and environment
The Ministry of nature and environment has been empowered with particular functions on
research work and studies, policy and information arrangement regarding natural disasterprevention and mitigation of its eﬀects. So far , however, there is no unit in thecomposition of the ministry to be dealing solely with the above issues.
But in August 1996 a structural renewal was made with respect to the ministry and now it
consists of four agencies and departments one of which is the natural disaster assessment
and information department. Also a new function on environmental monitoring set out
within the structure of the ministry was assigned to the hydrometeorological andenvironmental agency.
As a result of the above measures the research work, monitoring and information activities
have intensiﬁed, the draft law on protection of natural disaster has been worked out, anational committee has been set up to regulate a 10-year natural disaster mitigation
action, a tender was invited for developing a national programme for natural disastermanagement which is stipulated to be composed of such groups and subgroups as thoseon natural disaster assessment, analyses, long-range and short-range forecasting and adisaster alarm warnings information system.
Consequently, a system has been set up to supply in a timely manner all disaster-related
information and data to organizations and citizens, interested, supervise and ensure that
actions be undertaken to prevent natural disasters and mitigate their hazardous eﬀects.

5.3.2. State Permanent Emergency Commission
The Charter of the state permanent emergency commission indicates that when theundertaking of such measures as rescue operations, protection, relief aid to victims,
recovery, rehabilitation and coping with the eﬀects resulted from natural and other typesof disaster aﬀecting the community including earthquakes, blizzards, heavy snowfalls, dust
storms, droughts, zud, ﬂoods, wildﬁres turns out to be beyond the capacity of a given
administrative and territorial unit and region, any actions being implemented in connection
with this situation shall be guided and organized according to the provisions of this charter.

The staﬃng of the state permanent emergency commission is to be approved by thegovernment.
The oﬃce in charge of the commissionʼs day-to-day operation is the state civil defense
department. The commission has the following responsibilities and functions:in co-operation with concerned state administrationʼs central and local organizations
undertake actions to ensure prevention of disaster and accident and preparedness tocombat them provide an assessment to the situation and conditions of a disaster or
accident in co-operation with specialized organizations, concerned; if it is proved that tocope with the eﬀects of the disaster is beyond of the capacity of a given administration andregion, take immediate actions to mobilize requested manpower, forces and means,
undertake measures to cope with the eﬀects resulted from disaster, rescue, render relief
aid to those suﬀered during the disaster, and protect the population and the countryʼs
economy take decisions on and dispose in co-operation with organizations of the central
and local authorities, oﬃcers concerned, of issues of directing according to the respective
law manpower, means, transportation and communications facilities and materials fromthe reserve funds required for units dealing with such activities as coping with the eﬀects
of disasters and accidents, rescue, protection, rendering relief assistance to victims,
evacuation; propose mobilization of required additional manpower, technical means andtake part in taking decisions thereof.

The commission has the following powers:
provide preparations to combat and prevent disasters and accidents, assign tasks andcommissions with the state administrationsʼ s central and local bodies, aimag, capitalcityʼs governors on issues referring to the elimination of eﬀects resulted from them,ensure their performance and enforce supervision over their progressorders issued by the commissionʼs head are the legal document for the
implementation of the commissionʼs decisions and disposal of funds in connection
with the operations carried out
any decision issued from the commission on a legitimate basis are binding upon andshall be followed and abided by all organizations of the central and local stateadministration, economic entities, oﬃcers and citizens
staﬀs of aimag, capital city, soum and districtʼs permanent emergency commissions
shall be approved by governors of the given unit, their regulations shall be approvedby governors of aimags and capital city, the commissionsʼ day-to-day activities aremanaged by military, civil defense headquarters and oﬃcers. The permanent
emergency commissions are headed by the governors of their respective units

The state permanent emergency commission consists of a head, deputy head and 14
members, 22 aimag and capital cityʼs commissions are composed of their head,
deputy head and 8-10 members. Soum and districtʼs commissions are comprised bytheir head, deputy head and 3-5 members. The commissions have no permanent
staﬀ of their own and their day-to-day operation is carried out by the state civildefense department, aimag, capital city, soum and districtʼs military and civil defense
headquartersʼ oﬃcers, respectively.

5.3.3. State Civil Defense Department
The state civil defense department discharges the following functions:arrangement and management of all civil defense-related actions in peace-time
alarm information and warnings about natural disasters and accidents
organization of civil defense training of all levels on the countryʼs scale, promotion of
public awareness about civil defense
during natural disasters and accidents conduct actions under the guidance of thestate permanent emergency commission
the state civil defense department consists of its head, deputy head, 2 divisions and 5
agencies. Aimag and capital cityʼs civil defense units include 4-8 members and soumand districtʼs staﬃng ranges between 1-3.

5.3.4. Ministry of Infrastructure Development
The Ministry for infrastructure development approved and issued in 1995 a programme ofaction to be implemented within the scope of the ministryʼs powers and responsibilities
during natural disaster and accident occurrences. The programme speciﬁes how suchactions as prevention from disasters and accidents, rescue, relief assistance, mitigation ofeﬀects and rehabilitation actions shall be arranged and implemented within theinfrastructure framework including communications, transport, motorways, residential
estate, communal services and construction spheres. The programme shall be coordinated with the plans and programmes of the state permanent emergency commission
and the state civil defense. The programme includes the following priorities:
maintain preparedness of all levels regarding all technical means and equipment
including satellite-based of the communications department, the radio
supply with transportation facilities required in the case of natural disasters
determine the resistance capacity of communal and residential buildings andstructures to disaster eﬀects, the extent of their damage and rehabilitate themrehabilitate and restore roads and bridges damaged during disasters and accidents
annually procure reserves of materials, technical facilities and spare parts required
necessarily in the case of disasters and accidents
It should be noted that in 1996 the fuel and power industry was not included in thecomposition of the ministry for infrastructure development and accordingly its functions
were not speciﬁed in this programme. It is necessary that the functions and responsibilitieshaving been assumed by the fuel and power ministry in the event of disasters andaccidents be taken over, renewed and incorporated into the above programme of theministry for infrastructure development.

5.3.5. Other ministries
The Ministry of agriculture and industry is responsible for the supply of food for the
population and reserves of fodder for livestock in the case of emergencies
The Ministry of health shall be responsible for the organization of actions on rescuing
people injured during disasters, rendering ﬁrst medical aid and supply of medicines andother medical stuﬀ.

5.3.6. Public organizations
Along with the above state organizations concerned with particular responsibilities on
prevention of natural disaster and mitigation of its eﬀects, there are also a number ofpublic organizations eﬃciently working in this sphere including:

The Mongolian Red Cross Societyʼs council issued in 1997 the so called MRCSʼs conception
to be guided by in ensuring preparedness to render relief aid to victims and prevention ofdisasters. The conception speciﬁes in detail such matters as disaster prevention,
preparedness to render relief aid, carrying out of actions on rendering assistance tovictims, functions and major ﬁeld of operation of the MRCS, functions of aimag, capital city,
soum and districtʼs RCSʼs committees and the like.

The actions of the MRCSʼs head and local organizations are divided into pre-disaster,during and post-disaster stages, functions to be discharged by the whole membership,
activists, members of ﬁrst-stage groups are deﬁned and such issues as ensuring
preparedness to action and arrangement of training and practical drilling are speciﬁed

The major function of the Mongolian Scouts is to conduct training and help acquire
practical skills concerning the prevention of natural disasters, when a disaster occurs,
protection of people and themselves and mitigation of adverse eﬀects with the assistanceof the school and territorial Red Cross Societyʼs units.
Those public organizations conduct training to promote the public awareness about natural
disaster involving wide strata of the population and contributing duly to enhancing theireducational level and knowledgeʼs due to which they play an important part not less thanﬁnancial and economic relief aid.

6. Disaster Mitigation Measures6.1. Disaster reduction plan
The international Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR, 1990-2000) was
launched by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 44/236, adopted in December
1989, with the objective of reducing through concerted international action especially indeveloping countries, the loss of life, property damage, and economic and social disruption
caused by natural disasters. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes windstorms, ﬂoods,
wildﬁres, heavy snow fall, drought and desertiﬁcation continue to strike and increase.
Therefore a Program of actions was launched in order to implement the target activities of
the Decade at the national level and to prevent as well as to reduce the eﬀects of natural
disasters.

The National Program on Disaster Reduction will be considered an integral aspect of thesocial and economic development policy of country, and activities for the implementationof this program will be undertaken to the year 2000.
The objective of the Program is to provide follow-up activities in Mongolia in order toachieve agreed targets of the Decade, namely, the development and strengthening
national capacities and capabilities for natural disaster prevention, mitigation andpreparedness.

In order to fulﬁll objectives the following measures will be undertaken:

I. Disaster assessment, analysis and evaluation

a/ Disaster assessmentb/Vulnerability analysis
II. Short and long term prevention measures
III. Collection and dissemination of documentation and information to improve publicawareness of natural disasters and how best to deal with them6.2. Construction
Mongolia still does not have reliable earthquake - resistant construction technology. In
Mongolia, there are very few buildings equipped with earthquake-resistant facilities andmeans. However, gers (national houses) are more resistant to earthquake they can bedamaged, but to a lesser extent than conventional buildings

Since 1990 , a decentralization policy for people and industry has been eﬀected in urban
development planning and regional development.

a) Flood protection, River ﬂood protection darns have been constructed in Ulaanbaatar,
Darhan and other cities. Dibasic ﬂow protection dams also were ~ in mountainous area of
Ulaanbaatar city.
b) Housing: Due to accelerated urbanization in the last three decades, the demand forhouse building has increased greatly. In this connection, a large number of 5-9 store
apartments have been built in the cities. Schools and kindergartens are also in theseapartments which can be more vulnerable to earthquake than other ones. Since the1990s, government housing policy has basically changed. citizens are now encouraged toconstruct their own individual small houses. In Mongolia roots of small houses are easily
damaged by strong wind and dust storm. There is no project on wind-resistant roof design
so far.

6.3. Public awareness
There are insuﬃcient activities organized for public awareness of natural hazards.
Warnings and alarms for all types of natural disaster are transmitted through radio andtelevision over the entire territory of the country. But, there is no activity for increasing
public awareness among the people in non-disaster times. Unfortunately, radio, televisionand newspapers provide special programs only after a natural disaster has alreadyoccurred No propaganda is provided on natural disaster-related problems. No books andbrochures for public awareness have been produced. Warning and alarm systems caneﬀectively work in big cities and settlement areas, but due to scarce population density
and inadequate communication systems, people in the countryside sometimes cannot be
informed in time.

6.4. Research and development of Disaster-reduction technology
Since the 1970s , there have been attempts to study, evaluate and forecast somehydrometcorologlcal disasters. Today research studies on frequency and regime of snow
and dust storms, and their forecasting are being conducted successfully. Meteorologicalconditions for heavy snow fall have been identiﬁed. Methodological guidelines for ﬂood
forecasting are being prepared.

A part of the future work of the ministry involves reﬁning the analyses, adding more detail,and evaluating them at the province level. An attempt has been mane to make the values
given here as accurate as possible, but further data collection in the ﬁeld is r-d before
values can be used for decision making.

The eﬀectiveness of prediction and Warring depends both on the quality and lead time ofprediction, and on communications channels. Prediction of blizzards, dust storms, andheavy snow can now be made in Mongolia with a lead time of 2 to 3 days, and a reliabilityof about 90 %.

High reliability is a necessity. Unreliable warnings are unlikely to be believed, reducing theireﬀectiveness. Dissemination of information to herders is the least reliable aspect of thewarning chain, because of the lack of telephones, radios, and TV in herder communities .
It is estimated that only about 35 % have working radio. Note that a supply of batteries oraccess to electrical power is also needed.

6.5. Emergency Scenarios- Existing Responses
The following examples show some technological approaches for mitigation measures forblizzards, heavy snow and earthquake.

Blizzards

Blizzards occur in Mongolia generally between September and May. Duration may be short,just a few hours, or up to 10 days. Number of blizzard days varies between less than twodays in the west of the country ( except for mountains) to between 2 and 8 days in theeastern part of the country and 8-10 days m some mountains areas.
Blizzards can be extremely dangerous with heavy snow and up to 35 m/s wind. Table 6
gives a listing of recent blizzard disasters.

Table 6. Recent Blizzard disaster in Mongolia

Year Place Fatalities Livestock lost Other
Consequences
September
1995 Eastern Mongolia 8 48,000
May
1993 Central Mongolia 17 100,000
September1993 Central and East 11 5,000 20% potato crop lost
October
1992 Central and West 4 500,000
1988 Dornod, Hentii, 8 10,000 Properly damage
Sukhbaatar, Dornogobi

Heavy snowfall can often prevent by preventing livestock from reaching pasture. It is hardto distinguish the consequences of blizzard (due to chilling) and heavy snow (due toexhaustion and starvation of livestock).

The following safety barrier diagram (Figure 1) shows the structure of emergencies
involving blizzards, and the emergency measures which may be used to reduce risk. The
sequence of events in a blizzard disaster begs with the weather turning bad andterminates with harmful events to persons, livestock and crops. The ﬁrst barrier todisastrous consequences is prediction and warning. This can allow persons to seek shelterand given suﬃcient time can also allow herdsmen to gather stock and take them toshelter.

Heavy Snow Fall

Heavy snow fall disasters diﬀer from blizzards in that persons are not so much at risk
Damage is primarily caused by livestock being immobilized on the range or in shelters(pens cow shed, etc.) and unable to reach grazing. Figure 2 shows a safety barrier
diagram for this situation.

The problems of warning and stock collection in the case of heavy snow fall are similar to
those described above for blizzards. The consequences are less direct however. There are
two major aspects of the problem, that of people obtaining supplies if snow lasts a longtime, and that of providing fodder for animals which cannot reach pasture due to snow.

On farms there is unlikely to be a large shortage of food The primary problem is invillages, where direct access to food may not be available if transport is halted for a longtime. This is a question of the amount of snow falling and the length of time it remains.
The mean depth for heavy snow fall is typically 10-15 cm, in mountain areas 2O~25 cm.
Extreme snow falls are up to 1.5 min mountain areas. Transport becomes diﬃcult withsnow falls greater than 40 cm..

A problem is communication. Communication of snow warning to farmers can be made byradio, to the limit of access to radio receivers. Communications from farmers requesting
aid, generally have to be made on foot or horseback.

When snow is heavy and the snow remains for Longer periods, animals begin to weakenand die. Delays in feeding of one day are unlikely to cause signiﬁcant damage But
following two days without fodder, mortality begins to increase.

Earthquake

Earthquake are - frequent in some parts of Mongolia. The consequences in villages are
generally destruction of housing, roads and bridges. On farms the traditional gers houses
are very resistant to earthquake damage. A safety barrier diagram for earthquake
disasters is shown in Figure 3.

Earthquake prediction is diﬃcult, but can be made in a percentage of incidents, particularly
with a 1 to 2 day warning But here again, there are the same diﬃculties in communicationout to rural areas as described above for ﬂoods and blizzard warnings. Prediction can beused for increased awareness and possibly for evacuation of collapse-prone buildings, atleast in summer. Earthquake preparedness train' is an important aspect of this kind ofdisaster mitigation (Table 7).

Rescue, rehousing and rebuilding are important aspects of disaster mitigation forearthquakes, particularly in winter. There are two major problems in Mongolia which limit
the speed of response at present. One is the diﬃculty of communicating from rural areas.
The other is the diﬃculty of access, particularly during winter.
Table 8. Eﬀectiveness of disaster mitigation measures for earthquake

Safety Response Reliability Eﬀectiveness Eﬀectiveness Rehousing Overallmeasures time of prediction of warning of rescue eﬀectiveness

Earthquake days, hours 30% <30% <10/.
Prediction

Evacuation
Rescue days Depends on Depends onhumans location location
Rehousing days Depends on Depends onlocation location

7. International Cooperation
Mongolia has joined the International Conventions on Climate Change Biodiversity
Desertiﬁcation and Ozone-layer protection. Its representatives have actively participated inconferences, regular meetings and other undertakings of the parties to the International
Conventions concerned. It has explained its position and policy in relation to those aspects,
and has taken measures to carry out its commitment in respect of the international
community.

Mongolia actively participates in the International Decade Natural of Disaster Reduction,and collaborates with some countries in the ﬁeld of information exchange, studies of newtechnology and personnel training. Its representative has prepared Mongolia's National
Report and took part in the Yokohama Conference 1993.
Over the last two to three years, joint venture projects have been implemented with somedeveloped countries. For example, with the US Environment Protection Agency work has
been done on a Country Study Program on climate change, inventory of “greenhouse” gas,vulnerability assessment and mitigation policies. We have successfully completed an initialstage of this work, and have now started a second stage.
The Ministry of Nature and Environment of Mongolia in collaboration with some Japaneseorganizations have developed project proposals for natural disaster reduction and havepresented them to potential donors.

Currently, we are cooperating with the Tsukuba University of Japan to implement a project on
Global warming and climate change and studies of the mechanisms of the Central Asian
climate.

With the help of the Asian Development Bank, we have started realization of a Project on
Environment Management Capacity. Within the framework of this project, we haveorganized workshops on disaster management and early warning systems, ʻʼprimitʼʼ
system for tens of Mongolian specialists. These are the ﬁrst steps designed to build
national capacity. On the basis of the output of the workshops, we are now preparing anaction plan for development and training for disaster analysis, prediction and emergency
planning support.

With the assistance of UNEP and UNDP, a national Action Plan to combat desertiﬁcation
has been elaborated, and a National Workshop on the combating of desertiﬁcation has
been held in Mongolia.

Mongolia is concluding agreements with its neighbors on natural disaster reduction.
Recently, Mongolia and the Russian Federation signed an agreement on cooperation incase of industrial accidents, natural disasters and the eradication of their consequences.

Because of the economic situation, we are now experiencing some diﬃculties sending our
representatives to international scientiﬁc conferences and workshops, and for training
abroad.

In future, Mongolia is interested in cooperation with its neighbors in the Subregion andInternational Organizations on the subjects of measures for natural disaster reduction,
prevention and management.

8. Conclusions
1. Natural disasters are very sensitive issues for Mongolia, especially from the economic
point of view. Losses to herds, ﬂocks and crops annually aﬀect a very signiﬁcant part ofthe country.

2. The high frequency of natural disasters and their extent presents a serious constraint
which delays development of the country.

3. Natural disasters cause signiﬁcant loss of life and of property.

4. The sheep ﬂocks, cattle and horse herds of Mongolia represent a large portion of thewealth of the nation, and are an essential part of the livelihood of most Mongolians.. In themost extreme disasters in the past, over half of the national herd has been lost. Evenlarger disasters are possible.

5. The disasters contributing to losses of herds and ﬂocks are heavy snow, blizzards, dust
storms, drought, and ﬂoods.

6. Disaster response outside UIaanbaatar is hampered by diﬃculties of communication,very long distances, and limited resources.

7. There is a weather monitoring and weather forecast' service which has a wellfunctioning network of weather observation stations, and a well functioning forecasting
capability. Eﬀective use of this service will help to a establish well functioning disasterprevention system.

8. There is a weak link transmitting natural disaster information to herders in remote partsof the country who especially need it. That is the ﬂ link in communications. Only a fractionof herder families have radios. The supply of batteries is also a problem. These herderfamilies who do have radios tend to use them sparingly, and they reserve battery power
for weather forecasts and other disaster warning information.

9. Civil Defense activities could beneﬁt from the use of modern risk assessment andemergency response ,eﬀectiveness assessment methods, in order to optimize the use oflimited resources.

10. The action plan should involve a program of training risk assessment, computer
programming for risk analysis and emergency response communications, and disastermitigation planning assessment.

11 The action plan also should involve development of pilot projects in risk assessment,
disaster communications, and emergency planning