Enviornmental Hazard - Term Paper Example

Oloruntoba(2005) points out that tsunami often moves in all directions and when the huge waves surge into the land, it takes place in different countries and different populations at the same time. Evidently, each culture has different needs as they differ greatly in socio-economic and cultural conditions. So, it becomes necessary for the various relief and donor agencies to adapt themselves according to the environment. As a result, it takes a comparatively longer time for them to get a complete picture of the disaster and the needs.

It is pointed out by Oloruntoba that as the destruction is usually large scale, there arise issues in logistics and coordination. To support the claim, the scholar points out that in the 26 December 2004 tsunami, a landing plane hit a cow on the runway causing a blocked runway for many hours in Banda Aceh. According to Oloruntoba (2005) where there is such large scale destruction, the coordination of the relief response in a large geographical area by various international and national agencies becomes a difficult task.

Two immediate needs when such a disaster occurs are to evacuate the people to safer places and to repair the roads and infrastructure to reach the place of disaster. In addition, there should be measures to prevent spread of diseases and to ensure food and water. However, when the relief operations are not focused on these tasks, there arises a difference between the needed relief and the provided relief. Oloruntoba (2005) points out a factor that no other scholar in this review seemed to have pointed out.

That is, often, the promised donations and funds are not delivered by the donors. As Oloruntoba (2005) pointed out, in Darfur, Western Sudan, only one third of the promised financial aids were received after Hurricane Mitch. Here, it seems that Oloruntoba does not look into the fact that NGOs too can lack in communication and coordination abilities. For example, Nisha Sahai Achuthan, on the third anniversary of December 24 tsunami, looked into the way NGOs work in the State of Tamil Nadu in India where there was a lot of destruction.

Achuthan (2009) points out that when the scholar contacted one NGO named n-Logue, it was found that despite their claims of having 1500 internet and voice service kiosks in the tsunami hit areas, they could not provide any information about the locations of these kiosks. Admittedly, the work by Nigel Martin (2007) provides a better insight into as to what goes wrong in nations like Indonesia and India in the case of disaster management. It is pointed out that the very first reason for failure is government information systems and management failure.

Though the Indian Air Force was informed about the earthquake and tsunami in 2004 at about 7.30 am that day, the crisis management group of Indian government held its meeting at 1.00 pm, exactly five and a half hours after the initial alert. Similar was the situation of Indonesia too. In the view of Martin (2007), though Indonesia was alerted by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the country seemed to have taken no steps at all. Admittedly, all the scholars point out the fact that the existing political situation in the affected area will have a serious impact on the quality of service provided.

When there is discrimination in the existing social system, it becomes a difficult task for the international organizations to offer unbiased attention. The last two