Crisis Management in Time Earthquake and Tsunami - Case Study Example

Crisis Management Introduction The Indian Ocean tsunami was as a result of the deep-sea 8.9 magnitude of the earthquake that that took place under the sea near Aceh, Northern Indonesia on December 26, 2004 causing the death of more than 350 thousand people. This has been recorded as the worst Tsunami the world had ever seen for the last four decades. Apart from the large number of the deaths that resulted from this disaster, it has two more unique features that make it a perfect case for studying issues of disaster management in the 21st century. To begin with, it was the first truly global disaster felt all over the world with many lives shattered in more 10 countries in two different continents. The next feature was the response that the countries, governments and local governments gave the Tsunami and this response was carried out in a way that the was globally accepted with thousands of millions of people digging deeper into their pockets to assist the affected people in addition to donor agencies and governments. The most generous donor nations such as USA, Germany, Italy and UK contributes donations that surpassed the considerable government assisting commitments and for the very time in the history of mankind, the corporate donations figured significantly among the private donors (WHO, 2005). The first aspect, the wide geographic spread of the Tsunami produced a large challenge in logistics for the international aid agencies and organizations. There was also a renewed international attention to setting globally accepted disaster monitoring initiatives and systems to increase public understanding of the natural calamities at the regional and global level. The second aspect, the enormous Tsunami aid flows, has drawn interest to a number of concerns by the international aid organizations that carried out the setting up of the procedures that were used to translate aid pledges into the actual flows of aid, avoiding the repetition of tasks and finding means of avoiding outward effects of the massive aids that were received at that particular time (EIU, 2002). In addition, the destruction caused by the Tsunami revealed a close connection between the extent of the damage that resulted from disaster caused by the fatal waves and the infringement of environmental rules in the countries affected by the Tsunami. Even though the force of the waves and their global stretch were entirely a nature’s fury, it is clearly evident that the great losses that resulted in terms of human lives were partly due to the modern progresses, adverse destruction of the natural resistances like the mangrove swamps and coral reefs, and construction of hotels on the coastal lines violating the coastal conservation regulations. (b) The 26 December Earthquake and Tsunami in Northern Indonesia. This was the worst natural disaster in the Indonesian history. Most of the people in Aceh and other regions in Indonesia felt the shake coming from the earthquake that occurred in the morning at around 8 am on December 26, 2004. Within fifteen minutes, the Tsunami had hit the Western part of Aceh, the Northern part of Aceh and the entire northern part of the country. By March 15, 2005, the official death toll from the Tsunami was 166 thousand with 130 thousand missing and more than 648 thousand persons displaced. The figures released by the Department of Social Affairs on February17, 2005, approximately 930 people were in refugee camps with around 480 people in hospitals. Going by the number of people killed, missing and displaced, Aceh was recorded as the region that suffered most in the occurrence of the Tsunami. The impact of the earthquake was mainly concentrated in Aceh and the surrounding districts. Based on the field interviews and visits carried out in Aceh, by the Indonesian Emergency Relief Coordination Agency (Bakonas, 2005) found out that women, children and the older people were more than two thirds of the victims and this dramatically changed the demographic components of the region and Indonesia as a whole. An outstanding feature of the Tsunami in Aceh was that the death tolls recorded higher numbers than the number people hospitalized or displaced. Several agencies available in Indonesia have the responsibility to check the natural disasters like the seismic activities in the country, such as the Geophysics and Meteorology, the Geological and Volcanic Disaster Management Department of the Ministry of Energy and even the Centre for Natural Research and Development. Up from the time the 1992 Tsunami of Flores occurred, several international organizations have been carrying out several researches on the Tsunami disaster in Indonesia. The subsequent Tsunamis in 1996 and 1996 in Biak encouraged more researches on this issue. A decade ago, these organizations jointly produced a report showing places where the Tsunami is likely to occur. These extensive studies did not lead to a systematic and comprehensive system developed to monitor the Tsunami due to lack of funds. However, the existence of such systems may not have made much difference in the mitigation of the 2004 Tsunami: the origin of the earthquake was very close to Aceh and the great forces hit the land within a span of 15 minutes (Deutsche Presse-Agentur 4 January 2005). (d) Disaster Management Governments and local governments respond to large naturally occurring disasters in a process that essentially involves three main phases: 1. Rescue and emergency operations 2. Reconstruction of the basic economic and social infrastructure while restoring and maintaining law and order. 3. Rehabilitation of the governmental and economic systems. (Wheeler, 2002) Given the weird political and economical conditions of Aceh and the steep degree of the destruction and devastation of the available infrastructure, the first phase of disaster management took a very long time in Indonesia compared to that that took place in other affected countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka. There was a dispute between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement that had severely affected Aceh’s economic development and adversely strained the propagation of information on the province not only to the world at large but also to the rest of the provinces in Indonesia. The rest of the world and people in other parts of Indonesia came to know the severity of the Tsunami that had hit Aceh by December 28, 2004. However, things were very different with the communication of the news of the impact the Tsunami had in Thailand and Sri Lanka because they reached the world just hour after the Earthquake. In addition to lack of timely communication, the poor telecommunication and road network made it hard for many villages at the coast to be reached by emergency rescuers ((EIU, 2002). The second phase of disaster management was addressed by the Indonesian government starting from April 2005 and this projected to go on for the three years that followed. The Thirds phase was expected to take more than five years when the Indonesian Planning and Development Agency took several initiatives to develop outlines for the lasts phases of disaster management. According to the estimated figures released by the Development bank of Asia, the reconstruction was to coast over US$1.5 in 2005 and up to US$5billion over a period of approximately five years. The cost of only rehabilitating and reconstructing the housing infrastructure was estimated at around US$573 million. The funding was expected to be done by largely international donors and sources. International donor response were remarkably fast and overwhelming since approximately 33 countries and other international organisation had made pledges and commitments by February 15, 2005 towards supporting various emergency relief, reconstructions and rehabilitation in North Sumatra and Aceh. The total commitments and pledges that had particularly been targeted at Indonesia were about US$ 800 million. It is very significant to note that this particular figure did not include different soft loans for rehabilitation and reconstruction of Aceh. For instance Australia had agreed to give Indonesia soft loans valued at 500 million Australian Dollars for the five years that followed. Debt Swaps were also provided by other countries like France, Italy and Germany. The CGI (Consultative Group for Indonesia) members agreed to contribute more than US$ 1.7 billion in a meeting held on January 19 and 20, 2005 towards the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Aceh (Gunatilake, 2005). Of the US$ 1.7 billion, US$ 1.2 billion was give in form of grants and the remaining money was released in form of a project loans on terms that were not very hard like near zero and zero interest. The execution of the second stage of the management process of Tsunami was slow and has remained slower than the implementation that had been proposed in the various policy declarations made by the Indonesian government. Resettlement of the displaced people and rehabilitation of the housing infrastructure and the reinstatement of the basic utilities had not started by May 15, 2005; let alone reconstructing the roads and the bridges. Approximately over 90% of the people who had been displaced were still living in the rehabilitation camps and other provisional shelters. Individual agencies have seen taken part in the making of the progress in the resettlement of the displaced people and clearance of the roads along with the overwhelming impacts it had on the western coast of Aceh. On the other hand, the central government had not formulated a strategy to co-ordinate such activities. The role that was to be played by the local government was hindered by the loss of a lot of human force and required records. Therefore, the government capabilities were limited with the Indonesian Army remaining in de facto maintenance of Aceh for a period of 18 months before the occurrence of the disaster as it was meant to eradicate the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) which a rebellion group. The delay in the rehabilitation and reconstruction as more affected by the limitations in the procedural and institutional restricted access than with the accessibility to the available funds. The government was particularly faced with two main challenges. The first challenge as related to the one who owned the plan to recover and reconstruction of the country where the government had pointed Bappenas to be the main agency to carry out the planning for the recovery of the areas affected by the Tsunami in Aceh. The agency faced other major challenges in making sure that all the organizations and agencies involved in the rehabilitation process felt that there were equal partners and owners of the reconstruction plan, even though the original designers of the plan were Bappenas. As results, the local governments wanted to design their own programs and plans which al ended up being incompatible to the Bappenas. This led to the duplication of plans and inefficient use and utilization of funds. Another problem that arose from the lack of communication between Bappenas and the local governments was the poor coordination of activities that were to be carried out by the NGOs and Bappenas. Most of the NGOs have always resisted following the plans and strategies designed by Bappenas. Presently various consortiums of NGOs are designing their own rehabilitation programs and plan towards the recovery of the areas affected by the Tsunami in Aceh. What is still unclear is how the plans designed by the NGOs have been relating with those by Bappenas or the Aceh local governments. These people preferred going back to their old homes with their old properties and they needed a solution to the rebuilding of their homes. Even tough they had lost most of the documents related to their property, the displaced people expected a more decentralized system that would help them reclaim their property. The will of these people seemed to be supported by the NGOs and the local governments (Wheeler, 2002). The second challenge that limited the rehabilitation and reconstruction process related to the setting up of institutional mechanisms for the implementation of the rehabilitation plan. The central government preferred the establishment of a new special agency that would coordinate the enforcement of the recovery strategy and implementation of the reconstruction activities. NGOs and local governments were not ready to support this idea since they preferred a decentralized system for the implementation of the rehabilitation of Aceh (WHO, 2005). They believed that this was bale to address and accommodate the local needs of the affected people. In addition to this, there as a great role played by the absorption of the foreign aid domestically. It is important that the NGOs and the Indonesian government to join efforts in the maintenance of effective communication with the aid donors and involve the donors in the development of programs and projects to reduce on the mismatch between the interests of the donors and the priorities to be given to the reconstruction process. Disasters Preparedness by Governments and Local Governments. Disaster preparedness involves the activities that should be put in place before a catastrophe takes place with the main purpose of facilitating the available resources, rehabilitation and relief in the best way possible. Disaster preparedness has to start with the local government and when the resources at the local government are insufficient, them it should be taken to the national level and to the international level, if needed (Gunatilake, 2005). The government and the local governments can be prepared to mitigate natural disasters like the Tsunami in different stages: before, during and after the disaster. Before the disaster the government and the local governments should check for hazards in the communities, identify safe places in each community, locate safe places in the higher grounds, make sure all community members know hoe to respond to an earthquake, the children should be taught how to use the emergency help lines, the disaster supplies should always be made available and an emergency communication plan should be developed in case a separation takes place during the earthquake between people of one family in that particular community (Wheeler, 2002). During the disaster, the government should make sure those people indoors take cover under piece heavy furniture and stay against an inside wall protection and stay indoors. If the disaster took place when the people were outdoors, the local government should make sure that people are moved into the open away from streetlights, utility wires and building and stay in the open place until the shaking stops. After the Shaking, the people should be prepared for the after-shock, the injured people should be given appropriate first aid, battery operated radios should be provided to the affected people for emergency information (Haque, 2003). The people should be asked to stay out of destroyed building and be returned home when the local governments and the central governments say that it is safe. Summary Countries should always be prepared to mitigate disasters like the Tsunami even outside their boundaries. The transport of the injured people and the victims from the disaster scene must start in the early stages of the disaster. Communications should be done using aircrafts and involved personnel should be improved in order to make sure that all the needed information on victims is relayed at alls stages of the transport. The hospital receiving the victims must have been prepared to train patients for their arrival and the government should be ready to carry out the reconstruction of destroyed places. Reference: Bakonas PBP (Indonesian Emergency Relief Coordination Agency. 2005. Buletin Bakonas PBP. 14 March, Jakarta. Deutsche Presse-Agenture. 2005. Governments not Interested in Warning System. January, 4. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2005/01/04/2003217997 (latest visit was 01/04/2005) EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit), 2005. Asia’s Tsunami: The Impact, London: EIU. Gunatilake, Ananda. 2005. Earthquakes and Tsunami: Causes, Effect and Lessons, The Island (Colombo), 4 January. Haque, C. Emdad. 2003. Perspective of Natural Disasters in East and South Asia, and the Pacific Island States: Socio-economic Correlates and Need Assessment. Natural Hazards, 29, 465-483. Wetlands International-Indonesia Programme. 2005. Tsunami of Aceh and North Sumatra 26 December 2004. http://www.wetlands.or.id/ (latest visit on 30/03/2005) Wheeler, M.C. 2002. Climate Variability on Multiple Time Scales: Monsoon Bursts and El Nino Clash over SE Asia. Paper presented in the International Science Roundtable for the Media, Bali, 4 June. WHO (World Health Organization). 2005. Tsunami & Health Situation Report # 26 (28 March) (www.who.int) Read More