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Lessons from the TsunamiThe world is still reeling from the tsunami that struck the coasts of the Bay of Bengal and Africa on December 26, 2004. Already before the full scale of the disaster became apparent, speculations began circulating about who is to blame. Could the governments of the affected countries have prevented some of the stupendous loss of life?One of the first accusations we heard was that the affected countries failed to install an early warning system for tsunamis. While tsunamis are not uncommon in the Pacific Ocean, they are rare in the Indian Ocean. One documented tsunami occurred in 1883, and killed 37,000 people on Java and Sumatra. It was caused by a volcano, not an earthquake.* This is by no means to minimize the scale of the 1883 disaster, particularly considering that these islands were probably less densely populated then than today. But it would have been unlikely that the taxpayers in the surrounding countries would have wanted to support investment in a tsunami early warning system on that account. Even now that this horrible tragedy has occurred, the chance of repetition is slight. The wealthy, and by some standards, eccentric United States can be expected to invest in early warning systems for such unlikely risks as giant asteroids, or even invasion by extra-terrestrials, but citizens in the poorer countries of southern Asia have more immediate worries. Another accusation made is that US and Australian seismologists did try to warn of the impending danger, but that their warnings fell on deaf ears. They didn't know whom to phone, or the phones were not answered, or the warnings were not heeded. According to some reports, a Thai official decided that the risk was not great enough to warrant alarming tourists. In retrospect, we know (if the report is true) that he was badly wrong, though his reluctance was understandable. The memory is evoked of the 1991 Gulf war, when all Israeli citizens were issued gas masks, and warned to don them when the sirens sounded. We know today that the masks were unnecessary, but several people, including children, suffocated to death from their improper use. This is an example of a precaution doing more harm than good. No warning about the tsunami could have reached Aceh on time. A major portion of its population had probably already perished in the earthquake before the tsunami struck. The communication infrastructure would have collapsed at the same time. At that moment there were still an hour or two in which the other governments, had they been alerted, might have taken some action. But what? Coastal areas could have been evacuated. Or could they? How would it have been done? Perhaps policemen could have departed to the beaches and shouted through megaphones for people to run to high ground? There would not have been enough policemen to cover the entire Bay of Bengal coast, and recruiting other officials or volunteers would not have been reasonably possible within the time limit. Radio and television broadcasts might have reached some people, but many of the people in the fishing villages would have been unlikely to own such luxuries, and among the people who did, few would have been using them at precisely that moment. If in a certain area the warning had reached people, one wonders whether this would have made a difference to the death toll. It would have been impossible to provide sufficient buses so quickly to move such a large population out. Traffic jams would have held up private vehicles. There might have been a mad scramble, for instance causing bottlenecks at the entrances to the taller buildings. Older people and children might have been trampled. The move away from the water might have backfired for many. As one survivor put it, “I think I was relatively lucky that I was very close to the ocean - that meant that only water hit us. But if I had been 150m (500 feet) inside the coastline I would have been hit by flying debris, by 250 cars, by brick walls, by reinforcement bars.”** When the ocean receded, most people, unaware of what this meant, just stood there gaping at in in awe, or waded straight into the danger. Whose responsibility was it to teach these people about tsunamis? Is it the government’s job to warn citizens of all possible dangers that might befall them, no matter how remote? If people had massively recognized the risk, is it likely many more would have survived? According to the National Geographic, “Experts believe that a receding ocean may give people as much as five minutes' warning to evacuate the area. Because tsunamis can approach the shore as fast as 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour) it is often too late to get away if you see one.”*** That is a gross understatement. In short, the tsunami was a terrible, terrible disaster. No matter how much of the taxpayers’ money had been invested, no government could have prevented the horrendous losses. It's time we stopped looking to governments, poor and wealthy, to protect their citizens from all forms of disaster and disease as though governments had the powers of deities. On the other hand, the relief efforts revealed two important improvements over other relief efforts:
* http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2004/Dec/EEN41d0241db199f.html ** http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4138913.stm ***http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/ 2004/12/1228_041228_tsunami.html#main
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