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Start with the distinction the whole chapter turns on. A hazard is the natural event itself — the earthquake, the cyclone, the flood. A disaster is what happens when that event strikes people who are vulnerable to it and overwhelms what the community can cope with on its own.
So the same earthquake is a hazard in an empty desert and a disaster under a crowded town with weak buildings. Nothing about the shaking changed; the exposure did. Risk is usually written as hazard multiplied by vulnerability, which is why disaster management spends most of its effort on the second term — you cannot stop an earthquake, but you can change what it falls on.
That is also why this is a geography chapter with an administrative half. The earth-science part explains where hazards happen. The governance part, which is where most marks sit, explains who is responsible when they do.
SSC CGL and CHSL, RRB NTPC, BPSC TRE-4 general studies, UPSC Prelims and the CTET social science paper all draw on this, and the administrative half is asked far more often than the physical half.
1. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is chaired by whom?
2. Which law created India's present institutional framework for disaster management?
3. The State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) is headed by whom?
4. Which global framework for disaster risk reduction, adopted in 2015, is currently in force?
5. In India's seismic zoning map, which zone carries the highest earthquake risk?
6. The Bhopal industrial disaster of December 1984 was caused by the leak of which gas?
7. Which body is India's specialised force trained and deployed for search and rescue during disasters?
8. A natural hazard is said to become a disaster when it does what?