We address the problem of designing a communication system for deploying under disaster situations where the pre-disaster communication infrastructure has been uprooted. The disaster communication system is required to aid in rescue effort by providing text, voice, and video communication links between the field worker and the operation center. It is also required to provide some communication services to the affected citizens so that the overwhelming demands made on the communication infrastructure during the times of disaster are mitigated to some extent. The other highlights of the design are (i) its low-cost nature achieved by exploiting the economies of scale, (ii) constant communication between the field worker and manager, (iii) the use of basic mobile phones with text-only features for gathering victim data and populating the victim database in real-time, and (iv) web-based applications for managing victim data. © 2014 IEEE.