The Role of Effective Management Systems in the Tsunami Emergency Management - Report Example

Introduction Many nations have had to deal with severe unpredictable events that have always threatened to destroy the general public. Such unpredictable events cause devastating impacts that spread on to the national economies of the affected nations. The results show in the large number of people dying as a result of loss of blood or severe injuries. Hundreds of thousands of people die and some get injured while million others are rendered homeless whenever such events occur. A number of affected nations also suffer from infrastructure damage leading to financial losses that are difficult to bear with. An example of such an unpredictable event was an earthquake that occurred in 2004 in Northern Indonesia. This earthquake occurred under the sea and had a magnitude of 8.9. It was able to produce the biggest tsunami the world has ever experienced in over 40 years (Phil 2009, p.147). The wall of the water expanded out across the Indian Ocean at a great speed slamming into the coastal areas with little or no warning. The credibility as well as the reputation of such nations that have felt the impact of great calamities like the Tsunami in Indonesia is mainly influenced by their perceptions towards their reactions on the event of the crisis. The organization and communication involved in such nations in reaction to such crisis rapidly brings out the main challenge. There should therefore be a more open and consistent communication throughout the system in order to come up with a successful crisis communication process. These unpredictable events have enlightened many vulnerable nations globally to consider an in depth analysis of their preparedness on how to deal with such events. As a result of this enlightment, many programmes have therefore been established so as to enhance the public safety in the event of such tsunami emergencies. The significant role of effective management systems is therefore increasingly acquiring recognition in the tsunami emergency management. This is particularly in Asia and the Pacific regions where most nations are vulnerable to such calamities. A number of nations have therefore come up with disasters management information systems with regards to their specific needs. This range from emergency response as well as plans to short range warning to long range mitigation and prevention planning. Information Requirements in Disaster Management The ability of leaders to come up with appropriate tsunami or generally disaster management decisions is very crucial to analyzing the risks involved as well as working towards the best measures. These can be largely improved through information integration. They need to be aware of both the short and long term impacts of such disasters. For instance, in order to understand the impacts of floods and to make appropriate plans, it requires significant analysis of relevant data such as soil characteristics, topography, population, vegetation, settlements, transportation, socio-economics as well as the materials. This is because this information is acquired from different sources and therefore posing problems to many nations to collect them together. They also play a significant role in developing preliminary information in order to come up with the disaster management system. Such type of information may be categorized into various related categories depending on the short and long term requirements. These include: Pre-disaster activities: These involves researching and analyzing in order to enhance the already available knowledge base, risk evaluation, prevention, mitigation and disaster state of readiness. Post-disaster activities: This involves responding to the crisis after the event of a disaster, making rehabilitations as well as doing reconstruction. All these can be done through the analysis on the pre-disaster on the affected nation and the risks. The same is done on the post-disaster data concerning the impacts on the affected nations and the available resources to encounter such disasters. The role of the system should also be determining those who are to use the final products coming out as a result of the employment of the system. The system should therefore be efficient enough to the extent of the management level in which it is serving. Failure to apply this will most likely result in the development of an unnecessary system which will only do more of than what is exactly necessary, with the final impacts being time consuming,costly,data being outdated and the system now being irrelevant to the requirements of its users. In most cases the information requirements of disaster managers go beyond those of other organizations and in this case the data may already be stored somewhere else. At the national level normally are databases for a number of roles. The major components of a disaster management system would be a data base consisting of the following: a) Geographical Distribution b) Vulnerability evaluation c) Hazard Evaluation and Mapping d) Communication Facilities e) Material Response Resources f) Transport and Logistic Routes The application of disaster management systems is therefore applied in various areas including: a) Disaster Preparedness planning b) Response to disaster and recovery c) Reduction All the data collected are very crucial to the preparedness as well as the actual response towards such disasters. Mean while the vulnerability evaluations as well as the hazard form the basis of the preparedness planning as well as the reduction programs. It must be recognized that the development of these databases in any affected nation has to be developed from the bottom up from the lowest administrative level in a nation i.e. the sub-district and district going by the level of the disaster preparedness plan. The district databases would feed into the provincial database and then into the national database. Examples of some of the nations employing the emergency management system Indonesia Indonesia, a victim of one of the greatest tsunami ever has employed the use of the emergency management system. This was developed through the Universal Disaster Management Coordinating board and financed by the UNDP as a means of dealing with unpredictable as well as unexpected disasters. The result has been the development of continuous flow of relevant and up-to-date information related to the tsunami related disasters. The scope of the disaster management system has resulted to the development of computer management systems and the Geographical Information Systems. With the Geographical Information Systems, risk maps have been developed alongside relevant information on areas that are more vulnerable to such unpredictable disasters. Resources can therefore be planned in accordance to the degree of vulnerability. All these aimed at disaster preparedness, planning and the actual action in any case they happen. Pakistan Recent disasters in Pakistan such as SARS of 2003, the Asian Tsunami of 2004, the 2005 Hurricane Katrina as well as the Rita and the Pakistan earthquake of 2005 have been an eye opener bringing out the need for the development of a disaster management system (Phil 2009, p.147). Such great disasters have highlighted the need for massive usage of data in the management of such disasters. This includes data related to the victims of such disasters, personell involved in the relief, Geographical areas, level of vulnerability of particular areas, logistics data, communications data, data on roads and other land marks as well as resources required to combat such crises. Great disasters involves the participation of many organizations;international,NGOs,governmental,communities and local industries therefore requiring such disaster management relevant data in order to facilitate the coordination in the event of a crisis. They have therefore been of tremendous value to the Pakistan Government and other autonomous organizations in the event of disasters. India India has been highly vulnerable to disasters due to its peculiar geo-climatic conditions. The Bhuj earth quake India, for instance left about 13805 deaths whereas the Super Cyclone at Orissa left about 9885 people dead (Rajib 2009, p.112). Disaster management systems have therefore played a significant role especially to the country’s policy framework since it is majority of the poor and the less privileged that suffer most in the event of such calamities. A holistic as well as a more pro-active approach has therefore been developed towards preparedness, prevention and reduction in the event of such disasters. Bodies such as the National Institute for Disaster Management have been able to come up with exhaustive and relevant disaster management information and provision of consultancy information on disaster management to various states in India so that they are able to strengthen their disaster management systems. All these have been able to be efficiently applied towards disaster preparedness, reduction as well as response action in the event of their occurrence. They have therefore been of significant value to the Indian Government and other autonomous organizations offering their support in the event of such unexpected disasters. Sri Lanka Sri Lanka has also been highly vulnerable to unpredictable disasters that have hit it severally having adverse impacts on its economy and the general public. For example, the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in 2004 led to a number of well wishers support with relief for the almost one million people that were negatively affected. It now became clear that without resourceful information technology it would be very difficult to coordinate efforts to combat the effects on the affected persons. The Open Source Disaster Management System and the Sahan Free came in after the Sri Lankan tsunami of the year 2004(Rajamanickam 2006, p.157).Its main purpose was to assist in managing disasters. It was later put into application by the Sri Lanka government’s center for national Operations. This also included the Center for humanitarian Agencies. These projects have grown of late with the applications during the occurrence of other related disasters. The Sahan Project has for instance facilitated a more efficient wed-based solution management to provide large scale humanitarian solutions in the event of such crisis. The Sahana project was born as an important lesson learnt in the aftermath. Haiti Haiti is ranked as one of the most vulnerable countries to disasters according to the World Bank. It is also ranked as one of the nations with the greatest exposure to multiple disasters with 96% of its population living at risk (Bernard 2005, p.110). Haiti’s development gains have always been highly hit by such unexpected disasters. The national disaster risk management systems were put into use and this has achieved significant results towards the disaster preparedness, planning and the response action in the event of a disaster. Disaster risk reduction has been given a key priority in the government of Haiti. Over the years the national disaster risk management has updated its data collection for risk management. Haiti however relies on limited disaster data collection and still no well structured warning systems for such unexpected disasters. Majority of the data collected as well as the monitoring systems work but they fail to give out the required coverage in the event of such disasters. They have on the other hand successfully managed to reduce the death rates in the events of such unpredictable calamities due to the little spread of warning messages in such events. Though not adequately applied in Haiti, they have however been of great significance towards disaster preparedness, planning as well as the final response action in such events. Specific Recommendations and the way forward There is a need for most of the affected nations to come up with mechanisms consisting of many partnering groups for instance NGOs and communities around working in the affected areas. They should always be able to move on doing the process of monitoring and coming up with detailed, up-to date and relevant information from the affected persons. This however requires a lot of resources since they need transportation to the various locations of the affected areas. The data collected from such activities can be of significant role in the future assessment of such risks. In each of the nations affected, there is an urgent need to employ the use of the media particularly the internet in order to combine the relevant actions with the rehabilitation programs going on. The appropriate resources, funds as well as other personnells also be directed on those actions so that the needs of the affected people along with the resources from well wishers and the skills and services of other experts could be put together. This would allow for on time and appropriate aid to many communities and households that were not assisted by either the government of their respective nation or NGOS. The governments of the affected nations should also conduct vulnerability evaluations for the sake of preparedness, planning, risk reduction and risk analysis and do the facilitation as well along with the assistance of other autonomous organizations. Conducting vulnerability evaluations will be of significant role from various aspects. This will be able to strengthen the preparedness plans. This can also help in the reduction alternatives and population resettlement strategies depending on areas of disaster vulnerability. This should be done after the relocation of new infrastructures to safer areas. There is also an urgent need for the governments of the affected nations to enhance their data base management through relevant information gathering on tsunami victims as well as their subsequent needs. The figures of the survivors as well as those on missing persons. It is however a fact that the process of accounting for missing persons is often difficult task, imprecise counts will seriously affect the scale of resources directed to affected persons. The tsunami victims in this case should be involved in gathering and ascertaining the truth of the data. Relying upon the officials and other observers will not augur well as this will affect the credibility of the resulting data. The governments should also come up support facilities within the respective regions of the affected nations. These would serve as an advisory back up on disaster rehabilitation giving relevant advice and training within the respective nations to enhance the arrangements between the bodies involved. It will be also of great significance if a disaster risk management program is designed and put into use in accordance to priority basis so as to come up with the capacity involving the government and the society in general to put down the risks and enhance development gains. In all the affected nations there is also the urgent need to bring all the people so that are able to organize them and formulate their personal decisions on their own short and long term goals. In most cases they are supposed to work as a group so that they are able to acquire permanent housing in regions where they are able to regain their former livelihood. This could possibly be areas that are not very vulnerable to such disasters. In all the affected nations the approach and priorities in managing the disasters should in most cases given advance evaluation of the concerned risks. Thereafter the institutional and legal systems should be empowered to combat disaster risk management. Great disaster preparedness and planning and reduction actions including training and capacity building should also be strengthened (Veenema 2007,p.149). This should be applied in order to come up with a strategy with regards to the extent of vulnerability and the risk frequencies of particular regions of the affected nations. Tsunami is not a common occurence and designing a disaster risk management for tsunami risk is simply not cost effective. The strategy should therefore be designed on the basis of the vulnerability assessment. 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