Disaster Management: Tsunami - Research Proposal Example

Disaster Management -- Tsunami Introduction Natural disasters like Tsunami are the risks that mankind faces its harsh reality with an expressed inability to control. It is beyond our reach to stop natural disasters from happening. But what we are capable of is -- how to manage disasters – whether they are earthquakes, landslides, floods, avalanche, fires or such other devastating natural calamities. After the occurrence of natural disasters, the primary concern of the authorities is to manage the rehabilitation of the local people who are severely affected by a disaster – to look into the health and security concern of the affected community. Process of risk management needs to test the strategic, organisational and risk management context for its analysis. It is important to test the criteria to measure the risk and decide its body structure or elements to be followed on by analysis. Context should be found out at the beginning to build the body structure to accomplish risk analysis. For this, a complete evaluation of the environment and related policies, mission of the organisation is mandatory to know the practical aspects of risk management (Hodges, 2000). In the context of disaster or risk management, it is first of all important to know about the risk, and then its strategic management becomes fit for analysis, as it is not the work of a single organisation to manage a disaster like Tsunami. For this we need to know what a Tsunami is, causes and impacts of Tsunami and how Tsunamis are generated before exploring on how to manage the survival of the people and property after the occurrence of Tsunami. What is a tsunami? Tsunami is a Japanese word, which means “harbour wave” – ‘tsu’ means ‘harbour’ and ‘nami’ means ‘wave’. Tsunami is a series of waves produced in a water body by an internal impelling disturbance that dislocates the water column vertically. Tsunamis can occur due to earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and explosions and also as an after-effect of passing of heavenly bodies like meteorites. A tsunami attack can be wild enough to cause wreaking destruction of life and property. How are tsunamis generated? According to Hodges (2000), the next step is to identify all the risks, which need to be managed with their reasons and effects. It is very important to identify risks at this point of the process otherwise it will be too late to mitigate the risks. The risk of Tsunamis comes suddenly, as the deformation at the bottom of the sea dislocates water over it. When tectonic earthquakes occur below the bottom of the sea, the earth’s crust gets a change in form that dislocates the equilibrium point of water above. It gives birth to waves as the dislocated water mass tries to attain its equilibrium working on the principle of gravity. Thus, a tsunami occurs when there is a large-scale rise and fall on the sea floor. Risk analysis is the third step, which has two crucial points: possibility and results. By analysing them collectively, guess on the standard of risk can be recognised. Analysis of risk can be qualitative to a certain degree or qualitative can be decided on the basis of given data, its authenticity, available resources and the type of risk, whether it is mild or severe. Using a qualitative approach, type of risk can be severe, mild or high. These estimates can be distributed on the basis of different choices of possibilities and results (Hodges, 2000). Let’s see how the possibility of a Tsunami and its results are determined. What happens to a tsunami as it approaches land? There occurs a change in the speed and height of a tsunami wave as it travels from the deep water of the vast ocean to the shallow coastline. The speed of a tsunami is related to its water depth – as the depth decreases, the tsunami slows. Its energy flow remains almost constant and depends on the wave’s speed and height. As it marches towards coastline, its speed decreases resulting increase in its height in shallow water. A tsunami may not be visible in the deep sea but its waves’ height increase many meters near the coast. Finally when a tsunami reaches coastline, it looks like a series of breaking waves or like a bore. Managing a Tsunami at organisational level comes later. First it has to be managed at individual and community level. Role of the government agencies, NGOs, and other organisations comes later. Survival skills are very crucial in this regard at individual level. Survival skills First of all, if you feel an earthquake on the coast, protect yourself until it is over. Next, walk inland or towards a high ground. A tsunami may be approaching in a few minutes and huge waves may continue for many hours. Tsunamis generated by under sea earthquakes may not give enough time, attacking the coastline within five to thirty minutes, disconnecting power and communication links. It won’t give sufficient time to officials to alert you – the only signal to save yourself is the shaking of ground i.e. the earthquake. Protection measures Sciences related to agronomy, geology and atmosphere can be of great help in protecting from the devastation after the occurrence of Tsunamis. A number of international organisations are strategising in the direction of minimum loss to life and property. Coastal forests can be built to reduce wind by using agricultural shelterbelts, as Gen Takle, professor of agronomy and geological and atmospheric sciences is doing research with his colleagues Mike Chen and Xiaoqing Wu in atmospheric sciences. These coastal forests and shelterbelts are called “bio-shields”. Workshops are being organised by the stakeholder groups to popularise the concept, as in Thailand only hundreds of people lost their lives in the aftermath of 2004 Tsunami. According to Prof. Takle, “Much loss of life from this tsunami was attributed to destruction of coastal forests. Villages in India and Southeast Asia that preserved their coastal mangroves suffered far less damage”. Trees should be grown to as nearer as possible on the sea-shores by using small salt-tolerant shelters towards the sea side corners. Tall trees should be grown towards the direction of the land to create hurdles in the flow of wind. There should be sufficient gap between the trees and they should follow wayward pattern with the lines of trees to increase the protection area; it would not block the on-shore flow of cold sea waves when there is no such danger. There is need for further research to measure the shelter designs like length of trees, their density, width between trees and stakeholders’ interest in following the suggestions. In India and Southeast Asia, the authorities are applying the checklists for recreating the devastated coastal areas. Evaluation of risk (Hodges, 2000) is the next step after the completion of the analysis process. It requires a comparison of the risk types identified and decided risk criteria. A number of risks can be accrued in preference order to evaluate first. The level of some risks could be least concerning to require any treatment. Nonetheless, they should be filed, checked and revisited after regular intervals to determine their level. Other risks could be severe, requiring serious thinking. Certain risks can be totally unwanted; there are four choices available for such risks, which are postponing the risk, reducing the probability of risk, reducing its affects and transferring the risks. Such evaluation of risks helps in evaluating them but residual risks remain as ever that need to be mitigated. In the context of Tsunami, evaluation can be made with the help of technology and community level steps. Warning Signal Once it is acknowledged that a tsunami is approaching, it is up to local community to propagate the warning to its people as per their emergency plan, which might be the use of a siren or a telephone fan-out or a door-to-door system. Stick to your radios for latest information after getting first warning. Ships are given an alert by Coast Guard marine radio. Technology plays a very crucial part in knowing the intensity of the disaster. Here, the role of the concerned government at local, state and national level is significant as managing the disaster of such scale is the responsibility of the government the more than other welfare bodies like NGOs. Alternative communication systems available are the Disaster Emergency Logistic Telemedicine Advanced Satellites System developed with support of ESA, the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters signed by CNES, CONAE, CSA, ESA, ISRO, NOAA, and the UN, the Mozambique Flood Information System developed with the support of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Environmental Monitoring Information Network in Bangladesh under development by RADARSAT International (RSI), the GIS-Based Flood Information System (AWRA, 2003), the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System (FEMA, 2003), the Real-Time Emergency Management via Satellite (REMSAT, MDA, 2001), the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Thus, geo-information technology provides ample scope to back up disaster management in a variety of situations like industrial accidents, road collisions, complex emergencies, earthquakes, fires, floods and similar disasters (for example the recent huge disaster with the Tsunami in South-East Asia on 26 December 2004). Some of the basic conditions of the system are required information, easy availability of information to be exchanged and used in a large heterogeneous network made up of several local area networks and provision of high-quality care to the public. Technology can help in alerting the public of the arrival and its timing; it cannot help in minimising the possibility of a Tsunami, minimising its affects or shifting the risk involved. Only residual risks can be managed. Next after identification of choices is the need of an assessment process. It should consider the limit to risk minimising and added benefits to be gained. Without doubt preference should be on minimising severe risk to be implemented at low cost. In this process of reducing high risk at low cost, a time might come when it would be wrong decision to invest resources to minimise low-level risks. Decision has to be taken at some point of time to minimise the risk affect to as low a level as possible. Next is the making of plan to implement the zeroed-in choices to regulate the risk by the management. Responsibilities should be determined on taking action, performance means and the hopeful results of the treatment on the basis of measuring the impact. Although it relies on the management to treat and control the risk yet a system is crucial to the exact implementation of the plan. Checking the process stages and revising is a part of the process cycle the circumstances of which go on changing with the time in the context of the possibility of the happening of disasters or their impacts or both. Plan should include recognition of uninterrupted review process. Communication and advice are also very crucial for the organisation’s stakeholders whether inside or outside of the organisation for each step of the process. There should be no gap in two sided exchange of views enabling effective counselling to happen. All stages of the planning process need to be recorded to the satisfaction of the auditing concerns. All assumptions, means, data sources and conclusions would help in providing a relation of the process parts. Recording of the stages of the process would assist in making the followed up checks and reviews easy. Asia Quake and Tsunami of December 27, 2004 – the example of Maldives Island It was a community based disaster management. Red Cross – an international non-profit organisation for human welfare took the cause and issued an appeal as an emergency response to help people affected by the Asia quake and tsunami on December 27, 2004. Different world communities helped in raising funds for the affected people. Let’s take the example the case of Maldives – an island country where the injured and dead people were properly managed in the central Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Malé and in regional hospitals and island medical centers by the Australian Red Cross. The Australian community under the banner of Red Cross came forward with its team of specialist physicians, environmental health officers and GPs. After bearing the earlier attack of the earthquake and tsunami, people were worried about food and water supply along with the hazards of epidemics, which were well handled by experts. People were left with no escape route as tsunami attacked from both sides of the island but the community on the whole showed exemplary courage to face the nature’s calamity. It was not an easy task to provide medical care across 200 islands. Transportation of people, equipment, resources and patients was only through water. Small fishing boats, Coastguard landing craft, hospital boats and ocean-going ships to seaplanes and Indian Air force aircrafts were deployed to manage the task. It was decided to work along with local health staff to “value add” their struggle to reach all the corners of the islands. Many people had not seen medical aid since tsunami. People were advised to discontinue use of chlorine on dead fish and animals to maintain chlorine supply to wells. Public health team members worked in full cooperation with the concerned ministry to look into all matters of health concern. It was the community effort that paid well in the end. Conclusion Some lessons need to be learnt from the Maldives example. The role of local communities and local institutions after the happening of such a disaster is very crucial in rebuilding the broken infrastructure and remaking of new sources of living for the unemployed people. The healing process need to be applied universally to all in a peaceful way with the help of local people. After the Tsunami, there was lack of effort from local agencies in arranging basic facilities like water and cleanliness. Measures were not satisfactory and there was lack of communication between local, state and national institutions. Local institutions were found responsible for creating infrastructure but they depended on the central government for capital investment. They also lacked initiative to attend to the basic needs of the poor; debt went on increasing on the borrowed funds. State government’ attitude was one of indifference. Only in selected cases, state governments reacted quickly by releasing sufficient funds to continue relief operations. Rampant corruption in government departments delayed the relief work. The laying of pipelines and connecting them to the water plant of another locality got delayed due to communication gap. Funds were not used optimum by investing them in areas where they were not required after Tsunami. Financial resources were not effectively managed, which prompted corrupt practices. Fund transfer to state governments was delayed causing strategically wrong planning. Limitations Regarding risk management strategies, Patrick Helm of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in New Zealand has remarked in a paper in a Ministry of Civil Defence Journal, stating “Risk management strategies of themselves cannot guarantee better performance because of both the role that chance and uncertainly play, and the vagaries associated with human intervention. But the methodologies used for assessing risk can contribute to understanding where the most serious components lie. They can point to the more promising control options, assist policy development, and inform the allocation of resources. A shift towards prevention and variance in service, empowering the community, developing responsibility and encourage cooperation among government and private agencies is taking place. For that permanent staff and trained man power is needed to face disasters like Tsunami (Hodges, 2000). References Journal Hodges, Alan. (2000). Emergency risk management. Risk Management vol. 2(4) pp. 7-18. Palgrave Macmillan Journals. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3867920 Book Van, Oosterom Peter. Siyka, Zlatanova. Elfriede M Fendel (2005) Geo-information for Disaster Management. http://www.springer.com/geography/gis+cartography/book/978-3-540-24988-7 Websites http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/mitigation/itic.html http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/physics/meaning.html http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/physics/earthquake.html http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/physics/transform.html http://www.wsspc.org/tsunami/OR/Ore_wave.html http://www.pep.bc.ca/hazard_preparedness/Tsunami_Brochure/Prepare_for_Tsunami.html http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/04/070413215713.htm Read More