Tsunami Emergency Management Systems - Case Study Example

Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Crisis Management Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction Crisis management is a process by which an organization deals with the unpredictable occurrences which threatens to harm the environment and its occupants. Eddie & Allan (2009) argue that unlike risk management which entails the process of assessing the potential risk hazards and coming up with the ways of avoiding them, crisis management deals with the threats after occurring. The study below is about the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami which was caused by a magnitude undersea mega thrust earthquake under the sea near Aceh, Northern Indonesia that occurred on 26 December 2004 at 00: 58:53. The local scientific community identified it as Sumatra-Andaman earthquake which is assumed to have generated the biggest tsunami across the world for at least 40 years. Various tsunami emergency management systems will be discussed together with the actions which governments and the local communities can take to best prepare to handle the occurrences of such threats (Eddie & Allan, 2009). Impacts of the tsunami The earthquake caused the wall of water to burst out across the Indian Ocean and at a very high speed slamming across the coastal area with no warning. The occurrence had physical, social and economic effects on the residents of the affected area. Many of them were injured or killed and others were left homeless or lost expensive property. All the affected countries suffered some financial losses due to damage of property and commercial infrastructure. Physical injury and death of the beloved ones affected the social and relationship life of people as well as their social activities. This also led to psychological suffering because many parents were left children, many children became orphans and others were left to be widows and widowers. The survivors live under the fear of the threat occurring again (Wimalaratne, 2005). Crisis management The occurrence of the event awoken the thought of many of the countries especially those which borders with the sea, to think about the systems of dealing with the occurrences of such threats and more severe ones. Many organizations are undertaking programmes which can help to improve public safety or reduce the effects of natural crisis. Most of the natural crisis like earthquakes cannot be stopped from happening but their effects can be controlled. Most of the governments and local communities are struggling hard to ensure that an occurrence of any natural crisis have little or no effects on the affected area. The most necessary measure of ensuring that the residents are not affected by any future threat of tsunamis is by discouraging people from living or investing along the banks of the sea. Andrew Steer, the country Director of Indonesia World Bank argued that if the affected countries had made efforts in an advance preparation for the worst-case scenario at least the effects would not have been that severe. He says that all the nations should have organizations which will enhance management of the threats in case they occur. At least every filed should be involved in the management ranging from communication, nursing to schools. These should contribute in helping the victims survive the effects or serve to minimise the possible effects to the victims, for example, warning people in advance to save their lives or offering the necessary medical services before the situations worsens (World Bank, 2005). Although it took several hours after the earthquake occurred and the impact of the tsunami almost all the victims were caught by a mass of water unaware. This is because there were no tsunami warning systems in the ocean which would serve to warn the populace dwelling around the coasts. With the advancing technology, the concerns are expected to set up communication infrastructures which can timely send warnings in case of any problem. The tsunamis threats are common in Pacific Ocean as a result of the occurrences of many earthquakes hence a network of the detectives was fixed long ago thus although the tsunamis are rare, if they occur they cause minor effects to the environment. After the occurrence of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami which killed around 230, 000 people, the United Nations organized a conference in Kobe, Japan to respond to the threat. It was decided that an International Early Warning Programme be established, like with the Pacific Ocean, the UN planned to establish Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System which ended up in a network of warnings in Indonesia. This is expected to save the lives of people by signalling advance warning of occurrences of any tsunami. Any tsunami detector consist of two components: a network of sensors for detection and communication infrastructure to pass any message of warning in case of any detection thus people can vacate the coastal areas (Jayawardena, 2005). There are both international and regional systems of tsunami warnings but both are based on the fact that if the speed of the tsunamis in open water is 500 and 1000 km/h, earthquakes can be detected at once and the seismic waves moves with a distinctive speed of 4 km/s. This means that the detectors have time to communicate warnings to the threatened areas. The regional systems are installed by the well established nations on the areas around their boundaries and works to detect any possible local threat of a tsunami. They issue warning to the public in less than 15 minutes. Although moment magnitude and epicentre of an underwater earthquake and the arrival of the tsunamis can be calculated sometimes it is impossible to know whether the shifts underwater will result to occurrences of tsunamis. The international are mostly installed by the United Nations and monitors a big area of the sea like the Pacific or Indian Ocean and sends signal to any region which can be affected (Van De Walle, Turoff & Roxanne, 2009). There are other systems which can be used as detectors of occurrences of tsunamis. For example, the duration and frequency contents of t-wave or the earthquake energy trapped in the ocean SOFAR channel can be considered to detect the potential of the tsunami of earthquake. This system was first tried to detect tsunamis in Hawaii in 1920s and advanced systems have been developed. The tsunami warning systems are connected to multiple mediums and channels of communication, for example, radio, television, SMS, e-mail, fax telex and so on, messages are also send to emergency services and armed forces together with other public alerting systems like sirens. World Bank (2005) notes that during the Indian Ocean tsunamis, the local mediums of communication got and reached the information when it was too late. The tsunami occurred between five to ten minutes after the struck of the earthquake so there was no time to warn the public. The information was conveyed after the occurrence of the first tsunami which had already caused the destruction. The health sector plays the greatest role in the management of the crisis. This is because there are a number of physical injuries which takes place hence serious medical attention required. As an aftermath of the tsunami, large number of casualties was flowing in hospitals across the affected nations seeking medical attention. For the purpose of managing the crisis, all the hospitals are expected to ensure that the Emergency Medical Service System (EMSS) is kept in place as well as good plans to handle any emergency situation. Each hospital should have good experience of handling mass casualties and should always be at a stand-by so as to respond immediately in case of any crisis without waiting for any instructions. These medical service providers should work together with other life saving organizations like Red Cross so as to save the lives of as many people as possible. These organizations responded to the occurrence of the Indian Ocean tsunami with the intention of saving the lives of the victims (Gunatilake, 2005). During the tsunamis, many people were swept and hurt by water. Members of Red Cross and other life savers organizations assisted by collecting these people and taking them to various health facilities or gave them aids in terms of food and shelter. At the beginning there were some problems in serving the numerous mass trauma victims with the necessary medical care in places like Thailand due to failures in communication. The tsunami disaster had affected a large area interfering with most of the communication channels and routes, for example in Thailand all aids could be accessed as a result of the obstruction of the communication routes from the mud and ruined objects like walls and fallen trees. Therefore there was no information on the magnitude and area of the disaster. The only teams which were able to mobilize their aids are the ones which used choppers otherwise for the others mobilization of aid could not be well collaborated until 4 months later when. The available choppers were not enough to serve the many victims thus many lost their lives still waiting to be rescued (Staff Writer, 2005). According to World Bank (2005), the strength and efforts of hospitals was felt all through the period because various departments in the Ministry coordinated their efforts to help the tsunami affected areas. For example, Health professionals from across Thailand moved to all places attending to the victims. All the health facilities were loaded with staffs; by 30th December the ratio of the patients to the staffs was almost at the normal level. According to the report of the provincial health officials On January 4th 2004 the needs for staff and suppliers were being met. The other Thai people also came up to assist the victims especially in nursing them. They provided them with the basic needs like food, clothes and psychological support thus they were able to overcome the trauma (Eddie & Allan, 2009). There were however some of the weaknesses which were obstacles in the medication services. For example, lack of adequate professional skills to handle the health problems commonly seen after the tsunami. These includes: trauma care, septic complications of wounds, drowning extra. According to the reports from most of the hospitals, roughly three quarters of the infections were polymicrobial and most of the professionals were not used to treating them. Communication barrier was also another problem with most of the professionals, a number of the patients were westerners whereas most of the nurses could not speak English or spoke very little. They were not able to make clarity especially on the prescription of the medicines, examining the patients and explaining the conditions. The nurses who volunteered from the other hospitals were not so conversant with the new facilities hence worked well under the guidance of the others (Jayawardena, 2005). Almost all the victims needed to be admitted but the beds were insufficient to support the large number of the patients. Other facilities such as first aid kits were not enough hence some of the patients were forced to be transferred for their own safety. The first 2-3 days after the occurrence of the crisis most of the nurses were forced to work for 24 hours, although they did not give up they were physically exhausted and with time did not perform as they began. More of their attention was needed especially in dressing the wounds, intramuscular and intravenous antibiotics and other services inside and outside hospitals. Communication systems were also necessary during the time of the tsunami although they are blamed for not performing their duties well. Some people believe that if they passed information well they would have reduced the number of the affected. The tsunami affected all the systems in the area affected. The boosters of the waves were destructed and none of the wires was left functional, however the media organization from the areas which were not affected tried their best to create awareness of the incidence (Jayawardena, 2005). People were relying on the information acquired from the communication channels. The communicators also informed the life savers of the occurrence so that they could go and assist. The first tsunami was not as effective as the third one but most of the people had vacated the area. This was after getting the information from the media sources; the media showed the incident in details thus attracting the attention of the public especially the aider. For proper management of crisis, media played the role of analysing the incidence and report to the public about what is happening, thus they could for example trace their beloved ones. During the post crisis recovery many organizations came up to help and support the victims. Many of them had lost properties and others were declared homeless. The donors came up to give shelter and enable them recover their economic status, these were both public and private owned organizations but all the services that they offered were free. The tsunamis aid money was also assigned by the United Nations to support the victims. After the incidence many organizations also came up to control the effects of any future incident. For example, the detectors were put up to detect the tsunami before it occurs hence signal a warning to the public. The United Nations planned on an international one and another one was put up in Indonesia (Eddie & Allan, 2009). How governments and local communities can be best prepared for such events To reduce the effects of future tsunamis government and the local communities have a role to play. The government of various nations should ensure that the detectors are installed to warn the populace of the coasts so as to vacate them before the tsunamis occurs. People should be discouraged from settling or investing along the coasts. This means that in case a tsunami happens it will not reach anyone or destroy any property. The local community together with the government should work hard to ensure that all tsunamis management systems are put in place and are always at stand by. After the detectors have sent the warning, the communication devices should be ready and automatically send the message across the whole region. They should also cover and publish all the incidences which take place during the occurrence of the threat. The government should also ensure that there are enough resources both human and material to offer medical services in case of any accident as many lives as possible will be saved. The choppers should be enough to rescue the victims of the incidences; all these activities should be supported by the local community who should keep an eye on the detectors so as to notice any warnings for the respective action and contribute in maintaining of the public infrastructures (Gunatilake, 2005). Conclusion The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was one of the biggest and most effective for the past 40 years. It killed at least 230,000 people, destroyed a lot of property and left others homeless. Although its destruct was that severe, both the government and the local community had come up with systems to manage the crisis. At least everyone had a part to play in saving the lives of the victims or ensuring that they were less affected. For example, people struggled to take their friends and relatives to hospitals and the nurses worked for 24 hours to ensure that the lives of the victims were saved. Because of the destructions of the medium s of transport especially roads various live savers organizations like Red Cross used their choppers to rescue the victims as well as offering first aid services. Bibliography Eddie, N. & Allan, R. (2009). Tsunamis. Harvard University Press, Harvard. Van De Walle, B., Turoff, M. & Roxanne, S. (2009). Information Systems for Emergency Management. M.E. Sharpe, Michigan. Staff Writer. (2005). "Quake moved Sumatra by only 20 centimeters: Danish scientists". Agence France Presse, Masdar. January 31, Wimalaratne, K. (2005). Tsunami and Earthquakes in Sri Lanka: The Role of the Historian, Daily News (Colombo), January, 20. World Bank. (2005). Indonesia: Preliminary Damage and Loss Assessment: The December 26, 2004 Natural Disaster. Retrieved from. www. Worldbank.org. on 6th October 2010. Gunatilake, A. (2005). Earthquakes and Tsunami: Causes, Effect and Lessons, The Island (Colombo), January 4 Jayawardena, D. (2005). Mitigating the Hazards of the Tsunami, Daily Mirror. (Colombo), January 9. Read More