ABSTRACT
The infectious disease of Coronavirus (Covid-19) materialized first in the Chinese megacity Wuhan and ever since it has become a pandemic disaster striking 220 countries with a mortality rate of 3.4%. Catastrophically affecting cities’ environments, economy, transportation, along with particularly crumbling health as well as social lives of citizens, Covid-19 collapsed the cities spine and altered people’s way of living drastically. The paper begins with exploring the scenarios of Covid-19 disaster in Indian cities and understands the mitigation strategies opted by the Indian government to combat the pandemic. The spread of Covid-19 disaster in Indian states reveals that nearly 65% mortality share of the covid patients is bestowed in four states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Karnataka. The concerns towards the disaster management of this pandemic arises with the megacities of the country becoming the covid epicentre. Further a causal loop diagram is prepared, using the system dynamics modelling technique which articulates the interconnections between various variables of urban functions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The dynamics between social, economic, environment and infrastructure subsystems reveal how the various covid management strategies adopted have affected urban dwellers. The results gauged from system dynamics modelling are further utilized to suggest recommendations for managing Covid-19 disaster in mega cities. Exploring disaster management strategies, using the system dynamics modelling technique for Covid-19 pandemic raises high hope for surviving this disaster in the context of Indian cities.
