Tsunami-battered Asia slow to prepare for new disaster
Tsunami-battered Asia slow to prepare for new disaster
by Barry Neild
= (PICTURES) =
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, June 24 (AFP) -
Tsunami-battered Asia slow to prepare for new disaster
Barry Nield
Agence France-Presse/Banda Aceh
Aftershocks still jolt Indonesia six months after the huge quake
and tsunamis that took Asia by surprise, but despite an urgent
need to prepare for a new catastrophe, little has been achieved.
Warning systems, evacuation procedures and a swift emergency
response to future disaster were promised after December 26, when
a magnitude-9.3 tremor off Sumatra island left 180,000 people
dead around the Indonesian ocean.
The need to put in place contingency plans for an event
scientists say is a near certainty was underlined on March 28
when an 8.7 quake exploded off Sumatra, killing more than 900
people and spreading region-wide panic.
"The 28th of March was a wake up call for all of us about the
need for preparedness," said Michele Lipner, head of the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in
Indonesia's battered region of Aceh.
Yet, despite the two major earthquakes that were among the
strongest ever recorded, none of the 11 countries affected by the
tsunamis have completed an effective warning system and few are
ready to cope with subsequent disasters.
In Indonesia, which has been hit by more than 4,000 tremors
since December 26, the government has not even managed to mount a
basic public information campaign on what to do when the next big
one strikes.
"This is something that we are well aware needs to happen,"
says Lipner, whose office walls in Aceh are covered with charts
pinpointing the epicenter of every earthquake this year.
"A recent aftershock of 5.6 created some panic because there
was a coincidentally high tide. There is a jitteriness in the
population and a tendency to panic."
The International Organization for Migration has mounted a
successful education program on the island of Nias -- worst
affected by the March quake -- but other patchwork information
campaigns offer conflicting advice.
In the meantime, many Aceh residents have taken matters into
their own hands. In the minutes after the March tremor, many were
seen running through the streets with prepacked bundles of
clothes and provisions.
More progress appears to have been made in Thailand which,
keen to safeguard its lucrative tourism industry, staged
evacuation drills in beachside resorts in late April, with high
pitched alarms preluding a mass evacuation to high ground.
In India, however, there was heavy criticism of television,
radio and loud hailer tsunami alerts issued on March 28.
Activists said they caused unnecessary panic.
"We need to do more and in a coordinated way all along the
coast. Drills must be practiced involving the local villagers so
that there is no delay," said Sarbani Das Roy of the Ireland-
based Hope Foundation.
"The response needs to be planned in a better way instead of
creating fear and panic."
Key to any disaster preparation is the establishment of
regionwide tsunami warning systems. These are expected to take
several years to develop, but wrangling over the location and
type used has done little to expedite matters.
India says it will have a tsunami warning system in place in
the Indian Ocean by 2007, giving up to three hours notice to
evacuate coastal areas, but needs Southeast Asian help to develop
the 26 million dollar plan.
Although Indonesia is working with German assistance to
install its own system and Australia is working on another, the
goal of creating a coordinated network of national warning
capabilities still looks a long way off.
Officials in charge of rebuilding tsunami areas have also been
looking at ways to mitigate future disasters through creating
coastal buffer zones to prevent people from living near the sea,
but these have been criticized for keeping people from their
former homes and professions.
In Aceh, a reconstruction blueprint released earlier this year
offered ambitious plans reshaping local geography to provide
shelter from rising waters, but these have mostly been dismissed.
"There were some plans that were unfeasible, such as
artificial hills. But in some places, people are already building
escape routes," said Reiko Niimi, the UN's senior advisor for
tsunami recovery.
In the village of Meunasah Tuha, on the outskirts of the
region's main city Banda Aceh, 250 survivors out of a pre-tsunami
population of 1,500 have already mapped out a way to retreat from
the waves in case of emergency.
"We're building a road to the hills where there is already a
pathway cut to higher ground," said village head Subki Basyah,
indicating a pegged out swath of land stretching a kilometer to
higher ground.
Work also needs to be done in preparing a response to any
further disaster, so that countries can cope without the need for
the massive level of emergency assistance deployed by the
international community after December 26.
Indonesian Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab said despite the
frequent calamities that befell his country, it remained ill-
prepared. His department has drafted a disaster management act
that will help put logistics and goods in place.
Yet some officials acknowledge that if a catastrophe on the
same scale as the tsunamis strike again, there is very little
that can be done.
"If the same earthquake and the same tsunami hits this region,
there's no way we can prevent an enormous loss of life. It is too
huge an event for humans to defend themselves," said Aceh
reconstruction chief Kuntoro Mangkusubroto.
burs-bjn/sdm
Asia-quake-6months-preparedness
AFP
GetAFP 2.10 -- JUN 24, 2005 08:59:59