Natural disasters affect a large of people around the worked and this is rising because of climate change and the rising concentration of people inhabiting the areas that are more exposed to natural disasters. These natural disasters reduce the economic growth and a significant impact on poverty and social welfare, which affects the developing countries, and their most vulnerable populations. While natural disasters cannot be prevented, actions can be taken to reduce their human and economic costs. This paper looks at a large-scale natural disaster such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, the effect it had on the large geographical areas, risk factors to humanitarian dimensions, the strategic response, and the humanitarian aid component of the response used as a means of mitigating the risks. The impact on the international security, politics and global trade are also examined.
Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004
Background
A massive earthquake occurred off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra resulting in a movement along the 1200km section of the sea floor. The waves propagated at about 500 km/h and had slowed down and reached heights of 20 meters at landfall in parts of Aceh, Indonesia. The water entered almost 3 kilometers inland at some places bringing in salt water and debris and eroding the shorelines while retreating, thereby damaging the fertility of the land permanently. The tsunamis that were generated affected 14 countries. The hardest hit countries were Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, the Maldives, and Thailand.
Humanitarian Dimensions of the Disaster
Some tsunamis caused damage up to 3km inland and more than 225,000 lives were lost with 2 million people being displaced. An estimated 13.5 billion USD in international aid was provided and the total economic cost of the damage was estimated at 10 billion USD. Though it appears as if there is a 40 percent over-funding, it is not true because the aid includes the cost of the international relief effort, parts of which, such as the U.S. military services, were quite expensive. The losses do not count the costs of transitional shelter or livelihood support, which were borne by the response. The cost estimates made initially for housing and other elements were proved later to be optimistic while there was some wastage in the material supplied as part of the response. For example, the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society supplied fishing boats that were unfit for use in Aceh . Multiple impacts were due to pre-existing vulnerabilities chronic poverty, overfishing, and deforestation resulting in environmental degradation. Some parts of Indonesia were hit within 20 minutes while others took several hours to be hit. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and preparedness, which could have been cost-efficient and effective, do not take precedence in receiving international aid. The country that was the most affected in terms of the economic impact of the losses, was Indonesia, but when the impact relative to the overall size of the economy was considered, the Maldives was the worst affected, with the damage equaling 86 percent of its GDP. In Indonesia, approximated 150,000 houses were lost, accounting for about 48 percent of the total damage, while 600,000 people in the fisheries and agricultural sector lost their livelihood, albeit some of them temporarily.
The loss of life was not unprecedented when compared the loss of 300,000 in Bangladesh storm surge in 1970, nor is the damage caused by it, unique. However, the sheer scale of the disaster, the number of countries affected so unexpectedly, the hundreds of kilometers of the coastline devastated by the tsunamis, and millions of families facing uncertainties due to the loss of breadwinners in their families. Thousands of people face risks to their health and wellbeing. A disproportionate number of vulnerable people died with most of them being over the age 50 or under the age 15. This tsunami was the most covered disaster in the world with its first six-week coverage exceeding the combined total coverage of 10 disasters of the previous year, dominating the internet as well. All this media coverage resulted in an unprecedented flow of official and private funding as well as material assistance. The devastation had many other facets with economic damage being only one facet. The other facets were the psychological and social consequences, a challenge to the livelihood program design, the environmental impact as the saltwater, debris had contaminated the land, and forests and ecosystems were damaged. This was compounded by the fact that the affected countries were already dealing with many issues such as poverty, ecological degradation, overly bureaucratic dispensation, and caste-based discrimination. Whole sections of the population were marginalized due to various reasons and these people of the vulnerable groups were the most affected.
Risk factors
The most active tsunami zone is the Pacific bay, but they have been generated in other oceans, according to US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the most destructive ones are generated by earthquakes exceeding a magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale. A tsunami consists of a series of waves with crests at 10 to 60 minutes, lengths reaching up to 100 kilometers, and able to travel great distances (more than 5000 kilometers) across the oceans without losing energy. They can travel inland across the rivers and tributaries putting a great many people at risk. Areas by the sea, earthquake-prone zones, poorly designed and poor quality buildings are vulnerable to a tsunami. The Eco degradation, the destruction of natural barriers, and poor coastal land-use planning aggravate the tsunami impact. The increased population at the coastal zones due to the development of tourist settlements increases the vulnerability. Since the Pacific Ocean and its marginal seas have a possibility of destructive earthquakes, they are the most tsunami prone. While all low-lying coastal areas are vulnerable to tsunamis, the waves of a tsunami can reach heights of 10 meters (and in extreme cases 30 meters), so all coastal areas are vulnerable. Therefore, the most risk-prone communities to direct impacts of tsunami waves, and the debris are those that inhabit areas within 200 meters of the coastal areas. Houses made of wood, mud, thatch, sheets, and similar structures at risk from tsunami waves and flooding. Tourist settlements that have not been educated about the tsunami risk and the fishing communities are, particularly at risk..
Disaster Risk Reduction Measures
DRR methods are mostly about education about what a tsunami is, the manner of its development, and its impact. Developing a tsunami hazard map that designates the shelter and safe areas that can be reached quickly is imperative. Measures that can help avert damage and losses such as having a warning system, reinforcing building structures, moving buildings and homes away from the shoreline, and constructing essential infrastructure such as schools, hospital, harbors, and so on at greater heights, if possible, must be adopted. Building revetments, seawalls, and similar structures along the shorelines can help protect the shoreline from storm waves. By protecting natural barriers such as the dunes, mangroves, and coral reefs, the impact to the shore can be mitigated. Any indigenous knowledge and practices about the tsunami should be propagated, the population and the tourists must be educated about the tsunami risks, and tsunami education should be integrated into the school curricula. The warning system must warn the people that everyone must go to highland when the seawaters recede and tsunami evacuation signs must be placed clearly indicating the directions for the highlands (Leoni, Radford, & Schulman, 2015).
Multinational Economic Cooperation
The international coordination of humanitarian aid mechanisms is to a largely UN driven. Non-UN entities have coordinated with the humanitarian system have been within the ambit of Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and overseen by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), donors, and the Red Cross Movement. International agencies and donors work in the following four groupings:
The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), the IASC, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Humanitarian Coordinators (HCs), UN Country Team (UNCT) forum, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and NGOs through the UNCT
Under the Seville Agreement, International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) is the designated lead agency for the coordination of international relief operations linked to armed conflict and internal strife and in the case of natural disasters, it is assumed by the leading society of the affected country or by International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
NGOs use many coordination mechanisms at the sector or theme specific levels though the IASC, Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), Action by Churches Together (ACT), Alliance 2015 and so on
Bilateral and multilateral donors typically report through local consortia and through the national government coordinating committees.
Humanitarian Aid for Mitigating the Risks
The highest UN official to handle the complex emergencies is the Secretary General's Special Representative (SRSG), which was Bill Clinton for the 2004 tsunami. His responsibilities were to ensure that the funds were well-spent, coordination of efforts to minimize waste, managing to keep the attention on the affected areas, and championing the idea of building the affected areas into something better than they were before. The ERC and OCHA employed many agencies such as NGOs for regional coordination apart from IASC, Disaster Emergency Committee, UK, which raised 650 million USD, IFRC, and its members who raised 2.2 billion USD, apart from others. Humanitarian Common Services (HCS) included air services (UNHAS), Civil-Military coordination (CM-Coord), emergency telecoms, logistics (UNJLC), and disaster assessment and coordination (UNDAC) (Bennett et al, 2006).
DRR efforts have generally been poor. While technological approaches such as the use of ocean gauges, transmitters, and communication systems are being focused upon, community-based reduction of disaster risk by supporting communities in identifying local risks and helping them to develop collective mechanisms to reduce vulnerabilities and early warning systems and disaster response systems. The international preparedness is severely lacking with the national and local partnerships are not set up well in advance. All the guidance available focuses on managerial, material, and technical preparedness whereas the prepared by mapping local capacities to responses and developing strategic alliances during disasters has not been emphasized. Hence, the Hyogo Framework for Action has focused on DRR, but the opportunities to “build back” the communities damaged by the tsunami have been missed. This has happened though there is an international commitment for sustainable risk reduction. The Hyogo Framework was negotiated in the World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe (Japan) in 2005, which has been adopted by 168 countries. It has five priorities of action, which are:
Making the DRR a priority for the local and national agencies and developing their capacities accordingly
Enhancing the early warning capabilities by identifying the risks, followed by assessment, and then monitoring them
Building resilience and safety by educating the affected vulnerable population in a comprehensive manner, using innovation and knowledge to help in this mission
Reducing the risk factors that form the root cause of the disasters
Enhancing the effective response by strengthening the preparedness at every level
Conclusion
There is a need for fundamental re-orientation of the humanitarian sector and that is to recognize that the ownership of humanitarian assistance rests with those affected and that local agencies are the starting point, and that long-term sustainable risk reduction must be the aim while others have a supporting role only. This can happen only when the vulnerable population takes control of their environment so that they can escape from vulnerability. If this does not happen, they would have to depend on the international humanitarian aid all the time, which mostly depends on the Western public responses. The international humanitarian aid should emphasize on the delivery of goods and services to support and facilitate the local and national agencies. International agencies must focus on the priorities of the affected people rather than their bureaucratic preoccupations. They should focus on supporting pre-disaster capacity preparedness and risk reduction programs as well as tailoring the appropriate international response approaches during disasters.
References
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