In the wake of recent terrorist attacks and natural disasters in urban areas, disaster preparedness has been identified as a key factor to respond to such situations effectively, failing which casualties can be very high. This project aims to understand the effect of intervention options available to the authorities in the event of a natural or a man-made disaster in urban areas. The influence of information flow structures (or lack thereof) during a disaster and efficient use of infrastructure systems and services to contain the disaster is explored within this project.