Crisis Management Indonesian Tsunami and Earthquake - Case Study Example

Crisis Management People unexpectedly lost their lives through natural and man –made disasters. Natural disasters include hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The 2004 Aceh, Indonesia tsunami killed over 500,000 people from Indian Ocean region. An early warning system could have saved countless lives. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. In terms of definition of terminologies used, a tsunami is Japanese word that means harbor waves. It is caused by a displacement of a large volume of ocean or lake water. It is normally created by earthquakes occurring below or near the ocean floor. In addition, the eruption of volcanoes below the water surface can cause deadline tsunamis. Another source of tsunami is landslides. In the ocean floor, the length from the one wave crest to another wave crest could reach more than one hundred miles. However, the height of the waves may only reach a few feet or even lower and can reach 400 miles per hour speed. Thousands of lives were lost during the onslaught of the 2004 Aceh, Indonesia –centered tsunami attack as the high tidal waves rushed into shores of many countries along the Indian Ocean. (Srinivas 2008; 4). Specifically, the 2004 Aceh, Indonesia tsunami and earthquake shook the world. Both were catastrophic earthquakes with nearly identical magnitude 9 and accompanying destructive tsunamis. Both earthquakes have the same paradigms for Low Probability Extreme Events (LPEEs) as well as the normal reaction of the societies affected by the tsunami. Modern seismology developed from its birth as disaster management following the Lisbon quake that occurred 250 years before the 2004 Aceh tsunami. Many governments established prior tsunami warnings to improve their roles in enhancing society's preparedness for future tsunami catastrophes (Fuchs, 2006; 207 -220). The silently encroaching mild earthquake that drove a tsunami onto the Indonesian island of Java snuffed out more than 580 people in the great Sumatran tsunami of 2004 (Kerr 2006;742). In addition, the center of the Indonesian tsunami in December 2004 Aceh province was located in the north of Sumatra Island (Indonesia); it caused large –scale damage to property and killed more than 130 thousand humans in this province only. As for countries dotting the same Indian Ocean region, the installation of an effective tsunami warning process would probably warned people to scamper for their lives long before the tsunami reached their shores. The short arrival time makes local tsunamis especially dangerous and ruinous. Further, the impact of the 2004 Tsunami disasters not only has human dimensions, but also environmental damages. Environmental conditions may worsen the impact of a 2004 disaster, and vice versa. The disadvantageous aftermath of Tsunami catastrophes include deforestation, forest management rehabilitation practices, damage to property, and agriculture system damage repair (Srinivas 2008; 4). Due to the recent 2004 tsunami, the world now has a more realistic comprehension of the cyclical causes and impacts of nature’s movements; people realise that taking care of our natural resources guarantees future generations would be informed of approaching tsunami waves to run to safety. Tsunami early warning systems will ensure the future generations will have lesser tsunami –related damages and lost of lives. As the countless innocent deaths of the Asian tsunami of December 2004 continue to be evaluated, and people in the affected region slowly attempt to reconstruct a climate of normality after having learned the hard way that nature can wreak havoc without warning. This prods nations to prepare for the successful hurdle of future natural disasters at all possible costs. Affected countries of the Asian 2004 tsunami are now prepared to harness their nation’s resources to alleviate the next tsunami attack (Srinivas 2008; 4) In terms of Research, Analysis, and Discussion of What Recent Recommendations made, in response to the 2004 Aceh tsunami catastrophe, it is correct to set up a more effective Tsunami Warning System had been established in the Pacific. The system comprises about twenty –six (26) countries. The members monitor seismological and tidal locations within the Pacific Basin. The system is focused on painstaking prediction of the next ocean -based earthquakes to determine if tsunamis will crop up after each localised earthquake erupts. The system transmits data to affected countries before the tsunami reaches the shores of the affected country (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/brochures/tsunami.htm). The recommendations include setting a very effective tsunami early warning system. Another recommendations is to gather data on the best possible location of the tsunami early warning system and the most effective type of tsunami early warning system are very realistic in terms of reducing number of future lives that will be unceremoniously snatched from the shores. In response to the 2004 Aceh Boxing Day tsunami catastrophe, the recommendation and actual implementation setting of a global tsunami response system was a very effective recommendation. In terms of Tsunami Emergency Management Systems, several countries correctly joined hands to set up a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean to prepare the affected countries for the next tsunami attacks. Steps in this direction were initiated in 2005 with plans for the deployment of up to 24 tsunami detection buoys. The buoy recommendation is the consequence of a study focused on the optimal placement of tsunami detection buoys and sea-level monitors. The goal is to provide warning to the greatest population potentially affected to increase the number of lives saved. The member countries had correctly established a mathematical programming approach to warn each effected country of future tsunami assaults. The research findings correctly indicated that ten buoy sites are a must to ensure that the maximum number of countries and people can be warned of any approaching tsunami harassments. The research findings served as the starting point for the usefulness of the construction and maintenance of the tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean -specifically the Aceh Indonesian community (Groen, Botten, & Blazek 2010; 174 -188). In addition, Ruth Banomyong et al. (2009; 414) emphasised that the circumstances surrounding the Asian tsunami emergency of 2004 was correctly used as a basis for proposing a relief logistics model that recommends replacing the current tsunami warning system with a more effective alternative response mechanism to improve the survival rate when future tsunamis land. The Aceh, Indonesia –centered tsunami killer waves hit the shores of Thailand, Indonesia, and other neighboring Asian nations on December 26, 2004. Consequently, the deadly mayhem that followed placed importance on the very low level of preparedness on the part of the Thai and other Asian nation authorities to hurdle tsunami occurrences. Further, this has led the Thai Government to concentrate on preparation for relief operation activities in order to be better prepared if a similar event will crop up. The recommended logistics response tsunami early warning model is focused on a 72-hour time frame should a tsunami hit Thailand again. The same model correctly describes the focus and job description/ responsibility of each tsunami preparedness agency in terms of safeguarding the lives of its residents against natural disasters like the 2004 tsunami. The recommendation of the study correctly indicates that there must be a synergy among the different agencies or departments in the government and private entities to warn people to pack up their things and speed away from a killer tsunami wave. The state must place priority on the complementing tsunami tasks within the horizontal and vertical linkages between departments to successfully implement the important areas of a successful overall tsunami -emergency response (Banomyong, 2009; 414). In addition, Roderico Ofrin (Ofrin 2006; 495) was also correct in emphasising the importance of having an overview scrutiny of the risks and hazards in the South East Asia Region, as well as disaster preparedness and response in countries in South East Asia (SEA) before and after the Tsunami of 26 December 2004 occurred. For, the 2004 tsunami disaster was a good starting point for setting up a more effective tsunami early warning system. The 20004 event become a reference point and turning point for most of the Aceh neighboring countries and organisations in reinventing a better disaster risk management program for the region. Consequently, changes have been correctly undertaken in terms of tsunami emergency responses thereby offering higher probabilities of lesser lives and property to be engulfed by future killer waves. In response, benchmarking for have been correctly established in terms of better preparedness and critical response to natural calamities. I. How governments and local communities can be best prepared for such events. In addition, governments and local communities can be best prepared for such events by setting up a more effective tsunami early warning system as compared to the tsunami warning system of the past. In this regard, the Indonesia government implemented a tsunami warning system to avoid a repeat of the 2004 tsunami debacle. Specifically, Indonesia has correctly switched on a tsunami detection system designed to thwart a repeat of the 2004 Aceh disaster. The disaster claimed the lives of more than 130, 000 of the Aceh people and nearly half that in each of the other neighboring South East Asian countries. The doomsday very high tidal waves is had been predicted to batter the shores of the Indian Ocean only about once every two centuries, on average (Ross 2009;18). Further, a study of the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) will be worth the money and time spent for looking for a more effective tsunami early warning system in terms of increasing the number of future tsunami –endangered lives saved in the same Indian Ocean region. The study of the GITEWS warning system will surely a correct addition to the improvement of the Aceh tsunami warning system to be set in place in detecting the effects of both relatively small earthquakes and the lesser waves on the lives of the people living in Thailand, Indonesia, and other nearby countries. The GITEWS tsunami detection system harnesses the tsunami detecting ocean-floor devices (buoy - based) that will quantify variances in water pressure, rise in water level, speed of water wave travel, and the speed in relaying the tsunami –triggering information to a satellite network to augment the current advantages of the Aceh tsunami early warning system. (Ross 2009;18). Likewise, the United States NOAA/NWS tsunami warning centers have based their Tsunami warning study on earthquake location and depth, as well as the presence of scalar measures of earthquake size and slowness to assess the potential for the generation of a destructive tsunami by an earthquake. The United States tsunami warning center is global in nature. The center will transmit information on a possible tsunami attack to the countries along the warpath of the tsunami wave, including the Aceh or Indian Ocean countries. In addition, recent earthquakes that occurred in Peru 2001, Sumatra 2004 and the Java 2006, indicated that there are more room for improvement in terms of reducing the current difficulties hounding the disaster warning centers as they try to cope with unusual earthquakes. A group of researchers correctly undertook a study of a simple teleseismic waveform inverse model. The researchers applied the same teleseismic waveform inverse model to the study of earthquakes last June 23, 2001 in Peru and of July 17, 2006 in Java. Synthetic numerical experiments suggest that the most salient features of the rupture history of an earthquake can be recovered. Furthermore the calculations can be conducted quickly enough to be useful in a warning center context. The researchers have applied the same tsunami prediction technique to the Peru 2001 and recent Java, Indonesia 2006 earthquakes. The overall findings are consistent with those obtained from prior tsunami early warning system studies. The results show that the Peru warning system initially looked slow and that the Java event is a very slow or tsunami earthquake in accordance with the US tsunami warning center data. Clearly, the tsunami early warning system centers of the Aceh and the Southeast Asian nations will stand to benefit from an increased understanding of the earthquakes they monitor with the help of the United States and other country’s tsunami early warning systems. More scientific scrutiny into the slip distribution of the earth’s crust any time along a fault will enhance tsunami wave-height forecasts in terms of predicting future tsunamis at a more faster speed (Weinstein 2008; 451) In addition, the catastrophic tsunami of December 26, 2004 in Southeast Asia had correctly influenced the urgency of implementing the most effective tsunami early warning system in the regions of the World’s Ocean where these systems are still absent but the potential hazard of tsunami generation exists. The general characteristic of the Ache 2004 tsunami hazard should also include setting up a tsunami warning system in the Black-Sea region, the specific advantages of tsunami propagation, and the parameters of tsunamis according to the data of observations and the results of numerical simulations. An exchange of information between the Black Sea tsunami early warning system and the other nations’ tsunami warning systems would help create a globalised tsunami watch tower that incorporates the importance of the synergy of the most effective tsunami early warnings on the basis of the operative data provided by the network of hydro meteorological and seismological observation stations (Dotsenko 2008; 288). Furthermore, countries must invest in the latest tsunami warning system models in order to effortlessly calculate tsunami travel times. In the Andaman Sea, and the world’s other water regions the Thailand tsunami early warning model has been firmly installed. The model specifically provides more accurate travel time estimates for tsunamis propagating to Patong Beach on the west coast of Phuket, Thailand. The model offers more reliable information in terms of accuracy and resolution of bathymetry data on the accuracy of travel time calculations. The dynamic Thailand tsunami early warning model is correctly grounded on solitary wave theory, and a lookup function is used to perform bilinear interpolation of bathymetry along the ray trajectory. The model was calibrated and verified using data from an echo sounder record, tsunami photographs, satellite altimetry records, and eyewitness accounts of the tsunami on 26 December 2004. Time differences for 12 representative targets in the Andaman Sea and the Indian Ocean regions were also computed. The model demonstrated satisfactory time differences ( Read More