Arun D. Ahluwalia
Panjab
University, Chandigarh, India
ETHICAL
AUDIT OF TSUNAMI FIASCO:
CHALLENGE
BEFORE LEADERS/MEDIA AND SCIENTISTS
After World War II, if there was another landmark moment in human history it was indeed on the morning of 26th December, 2004. That earth shaking day leaves several questions unanswered as well as ducked. These are going to haunt for ever all the powers that be on this planet. The three lakh citizens of our global village who died in the Indian Ocean region also included besides citizens of our 12 countries, a large number of tourists or expatriates of 39 developed countries across the world. More than double the total number are still missing and over two million if not more are homeless. Given today's demographic scenario with nearly three billion people residing in coastal areas all over the world, tsunami was not ever a mere national and regional responsibility. Though this tsunami killed only in the Indian Ocean region, it did travel into Atlantic and Pacific as well. The Table I illustrates how news and tsunami travelled and how data managers responded if at all.
______________________________________________________________________
· 00.59 GMT : Sumatra Quake ( clock
ticks…….)
· 3 minutes - signals received at Cocos Island Station in Indian
Ocean
· 8 minutes -seismic signals at PTWC (Pacific Tsunami Warning
Centre), Hawaii via sensors in Australia & an alarm triggered
· 15 minutes - PTWC notifies only an 8.0 quake & declares
Pacific had no threat (what a divided world! PTWC knew Indian Ocean had ample
threat even with 8.0)
· 25 minutes - US Geological Survey revises & quake put at 8.2
(no record of USGS alerting world media!)
· 30 minutes - Sumatra hit by tsunami, hell let loose
· 1 hour - PTWC revises: quake now put 8.5 & attempts to
warn Indonesia in vain but could not think of others in Asia and Africa
· 2 hours - E Sri Lanka hit; satellites passing over Bay of Bengal record
tsunami heights but data not received by scientists for many hours
· 2 hours 30
minutes -
internet alerts about tsunami hitting Lanka, India
· 3 hours - US envoy promises to notify Lanka about any
bigger after shocks
· 3 hours 22 minutes - aftershock of 7.1 strikes Nicobar
· 3 hours 30
minutes - Tsunami hit Maldives
· 4 hours 25
minutes -
Harvard team upgrades quake to 8.9
· 7 hours 15
minutes - PTWC alerts about
threat to Madagascar & East Africa which are hit
at that very point
· 14 hours 30
minutes -
PTWC informs tsunamis are in Pacific
* 11th Feb., BGS upgrades quake to 9.3
(2nd strongest ever recorded)
* US Geological Survey rates it as deadliest in
500 years
The question which travelled atop the tsunami crests across the globe on morning of 26/12/04 and shall have to be faced come what may, is: could the number killed or lost or injured or made homeless have been lesser with a little alert use of scientific data, communication skills available in the Indian Ocean region and outside the region? The developed world (including India and China) keeps a track of whole planet and even explores our moon, outer moons and planets day in and day out. If we ignore disasters on this planet, don't we look funny exploring outside planets and moons! No money for geo-science education/awareness on earth but too much for moons! Is it lack of a sense of proportion or lack of priorities or humanity or sheer ignorance of economics? If the lack of a systematic advanced tsunami warning is taken as local regional failure due to our own negligence and fate of our own citizens is treated as foredoomed due to this failure, what about the other helpless tourists from those 39 countries? Did their own governments and sophisticated instrumentation stand by them during a natural disaster? Could they not have been given any life saving information by any means? Did they not have a right to such information and are their families raising this issue of ethical let down by those who are funded by their own taxes? It may be that in their post tsunami trauma this may appear a mere academic question to the tragedy struck families. What has become of the free western press and parliamentarians? Have they lost their analytical powers or freedom of speech? Why are they silent on this colossal infliction bordering on criminal lack of geoethics? I have addressed this communication to all the listed journalists of the world and even to US President and Vice President and our own President and PM. Need of the hour is to have more science journalists and create awareness in our elected representatives at state and national levels. Lots of very well to do persons think tsunami hit in a flash across the whole region which is far from true.
It was not the first or the last large scale tragedy entailing huge human losses and suffering in Asia. However, the lack of concern of the western world for the citizens of 39 countries outside the region is appalling as well as mysterious. Never before one saw human lives being made so cheap in these countries better blessed with science and technology. Even if one presumes that out on the beaches, their own citizens were out of reach of radio or TV channels during those few critical hours or tens of minutes when tsunamis were having their death dance in the area, were they really out of bound for any saviour? Answer is NO for sure. It looks mobile phones have a rarely used text transmission technology which enables broadcast and receipt of messages through GPS (global positioning system) which keeps a track of every mobile phone user. Had there been a will there was a way to warn and save. The only way for a manageable coastal system across the world is to have an equitable dissemination of technologies across the globe and mentally tune the governments towards a social ethos of a genuine global village where everyone cares for and saves everyone distances and technological disparities notwithstanding. Global disaster management has to take priority over all expensive national egotist researches forever frozen in scientific reports or journals without ever touching humanity at the grassroots.
The scientific establishments like USGS (US Geological Survey), BGS (British Geological Survey), NGRI (National Geophysical Research Institute) and our Meteorological Department (not Geological Survey of India!) which strangely is responsible for earthquake warnings will have a lot to explain to posterity about their killing silence even after learning about a quake of intensity 9 in the ocean. Awakening about tsunamis could have meant "life" &/or "health" to nearly a million belonging to 12 countries in the region and 39 countries whose touring citizens, were hurt/killed/rendered homeless in Indian Ocean areas. Silence in such a matter by the elite scientific community otherwise very aggressively publishing in hi-fi seismological research in great journals, renders them worthless and guilty of unintended injuries/murders. There is an urgent need to audit the reactions of all of them during tens of minutes and couple of hours of the news of quake and its fore-shocks in November/December, 2004. International ethics and humanity called for a tsunami warning on governmental hotlines, text messages on mobile phones, radio and TV channels. Instead of vigil all over the coasts on 26th December, all over Indian Ocean for several hours, one by one, death danced making a mockery of all our progress in science and technology. Today we are trying and even UN is arranging to install a tsunami warning system in the area by 2006. India now wants to have its own tsunami warning system for strategic reasons. If these systems would be in operation when the next tsunami hits God knows. The excuses for inaction on 26th December are: it was too early in the morning; there had been a holiday on 25th; how can you expect government machinery to react within minutes or hours etc. etc. We had a near miss on 28th March last with an 8.7 scale quake again in Sumatra with no tsunami system installed.
Be it as it may, all the Indian Ocean nations as well as the UNESCO would do well to immediately set up Tsunami Museums on the pattern of Pacific Tsunami Museum. Without awareness at the level of every village student and teacher, the warnings if ever issued even after 2006, shall go waste. Due to systematic awareness created by Pacific Tsunami Museum, deaths have been much fewer in Pacific region compared to our region where a dismal record of misery has been set. Such museums would go a long way in creating awareness about tsunamis, spread a scientific ethos and save lives in future. Had our coastal population been made aware about tsunamis soon after severe earthquakes recurring for several weeks in Indonesia, they would definitely watch the sea behaviour and run upland about 30 feet high and saved their lives. Without a system of creating awakening constantly, this tragedy like all natural disasters would be forgotten. If aware, soon after an earthquake or even without a perceptible earthquake (because tsunamis can be caused by a distant quake, huge landslide or volcanic eruption in ocean or a meteorite impact), when they see ocean waters suddenly recede too far and stay there for a while, people would run uphill and away from the sea shore. This caution at least would happen if tsunami came in day time. We hear of smart and gutsy survivors and alert individual saviours from the Indian Ocean but not of one scientific establishment across the world that reacted to the fore-shocks or the main shock near Sumatra.
Stories of Pacific tsunamis carry great lessons and are extremely interesting. The last significant tsunami before 2004 was in June 1998, in New Guinea. The last time a major disaster like Sumatra's happened was on May 23rd, 1960. Tsunamis triggered by the great Chile earthquake struck Hawaii. People born after this quake did not know until fateful 26th December, 2004. Awareness of tsunamis could have meant a life or a virtual rebirth. Internet has a lot of sites with tsunami information. The Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo, Hawaii, is special because of its human face and a human basis. Hilo was heavily damaged by tsunamis in April 1946 and again in May 1960. Tsunamis as such are always on Hiloans' minds. In 1994 the museum was founded to help keep the population prepared and alert. It takes a little extra effort to mobilise people against something they have not experienced. On November 26th, 1999, such efforts paid off. A seven magnitude quake stuck Vanuatu in south Pacific and a tsunami completely wiped out the village of Baie Martelli but only five lives were lost. A research team report quoted from About Geology.com (11thJan, 2005) says: "The small number of casualties was due to prior education and a party. Because of a wedding on the day of the earthquake, almost everyone was still up celebrating when the earthquake occurred. A lookout was sent to note the condition of the sea. When he reported that the water was receding villagers concluded that a tsunami was coming, and they ran to a nearby hillside to escape the wave. Villagers credited their response to a video of the 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami, which they had seen a few months before. The only casualties were those too elderly to escape the wave, those who returned for possessions after the passage of the first wave, and a man so drunk on kava that he ignored people who were directing him to safety." If you wish to learn more about quakes/tsunamis etc. or quickly want to create a wall magazine for school children in your area, all you need is to access about.com and search geology, geography. Such an effort will outperform any effort costing millions of dollars.
Hopefully part of the funds raised now would be used also for tsunami museums in our regions using local dialects and visuals to be more effective. TV and radio channels in local dialects can have a crucial role to play in such disaster risk reduction. In larger public as well as enlightened self interest, media will have to proportionate its coverage to focus on the human safety and geo-sciences applications. Millions could be saved by interesting innovative programmes breaking barriers between science developments and man on the coast. Had scientists reacted or had there been more science journalists chasing scientists, alerts would have been effectively and comprehensively communicated the moment quake of intensity 9 shook the ocean floor off Sumatra. Even the most vulnerable persons could possibly save their lives e.g. fishermen deep in the sea could have been told to remain there for it is safer over there than on the beach during a tsunami strike. With scientific establishments having goofed up, media and such tsunami museums can help people visualise and learn about the risks and about options for risks and disaster mitigation.
IUGS AND ISDR LESSONS NOT ACKNOWLEDGED BY MEDIA
Dismayed by the global failure, IUGS (International Union of Geological Sciences) has resolved:
A) To promote the development and application of scientific expertise and experience in understanding the geological forces at work in the development of all types of natural hazards and the processes involved in their mitigation of natural hazards;
B) To share this information as freely as possible with other members of the scientific community, government officials, policy makers and planners, the insurance industry, and the public as a whole.
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) has also circulated list of ten preliminary lessons learnt by its experts from this worst disaster of history which deserve widest circulation to our Ministers, MPs and MLAs as well as Panchayat leaders as well as media and citizens i.e.
a) We are all vulnerable to natural disasters while the immediate consequences of disasters are felt at particular places, the effects always spread more widely;
b) Careful coastal land-use planning is essential to minimise risk. Nearly 3 billion people, or almost half the world population, live in coastal zones, which in many cases are prone to natural hazards - especially tropical cyclones, floods, storms and tsunamis. Governments and local authorities need to undertake long term land use planning to ensure that disaster risks are minimised;
c) Public awareness and education are essential to protecting people and property. In Thailand over 1,800 lives were saved because a tribal leader recognised the imminent danger when the sea suddenly receded, and so decided to evacuate his people up to the hills. 100 tourists owe their lives to a 10-year-old girl from England who warned them to flee to safety, moments before the tsunami engulfed the beach. The girl recognised the signs after learning about tsunamis in her geography class;
d) Early warning saves lives. The tsunami highlighted risks that other regions face owing to the lack of regional tsunami warning systems, such as the Caribbean and countries located along the Mediterranean coastline;
e) Countries can work together ahead of time, as well as when disaster strikes. There were many instances of countries in the Indian Ocean region quickly providing help to affected neighbouring countries. But countries can also co-operate ahead of time, before disasters strike, for example on regional early warning systems, preparedness and response plans, in addition to developing necessary systems at the national and local levels;
f) Reducing risk depends on close interaction between the scientific and technical community, public authorities and community-based organisations. There is a need to strengthen the link between scientific and technical institutions, national and local authorities, and community leaders to build knowledge and the basis for avoiding future human, economic and social losses from disasters;
g) Developing and respecting appropriate building codes can minimise exposure to risks; construction of housing and hotels along vulnerable coastal areas along the Indian Ocean meant that thousands of people were engulfed by the enormous tsunami while they were sunbathing on the beach or sleeping in their hotels. Regulations to manage the construction of new buildings near the coastline and the development of multi-story designs that offer refuge on higher floors are examples that could mean fewer lives are lost from tsunamis in the future;
h) Humanitarian aid needs to invest more in disaster prevention in addition to immediate relief needs. Donors need to reduce risks in the long-term by including prevention in aid and relief programmes. The international community has summoned US $4 billion dollars in the two weeks following the tsunami to help relief and reconstruction. Let us allocate at least 10 per cent of this amount for investment in risk reduction measures;
j) Concrete action and good co-ordination is vital to ensure people's safety from disasters. Governments need to demonstrate their political will and commitment to disaster risk reduction through concrete measures. Governments could reserve a national budget line for disaster reduction; donor funds could be put to strategic use to support and build capacity for disaster risk management. Co-ordination is also an essential element, to ensure effective disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response across the entire UN system, governments and non-governmental organisations;
k) Telecommunications and the media have a crucial role to play in disaster risk reduction: Phone systems, mobiles, television, radio, news services and the internet are all examples of tools the media and telecommunications can contribute to risk awareness, education and early warning. Alerts can be communicated and broadcast to ensure that even the most vulnerable receive warnings that could potentially save their lives. Media systems help people visualise and learn about the risks they face and about options for reducing their risks.
The journalists and media all over the world, learned societies, UNO as well as International Court of Justice, intellectuals as well as common men, women, school children and teachers, should look into this unethical attitude of so many across the globe which resulted in denial of life saving information definitely easily available to all those who could have transmitted it in time and effectively. If as a result of such a global and ethical awakening, some swollen heads hang in shame; our three billion populations on the coasts would be safer. Right to information giving protection against natural hazards should become a fundamental right of all global citizens. Geo-scientists especially retired ones should organise to educate school teachers and children about quakes, tsunamis as well as all natural hazards and preventive measures. Scientific awakening and research must be intertwined and made obligatory. All those who have received fat funding for seismological research should explain their inaction/apathy in analysing fore-shocks in the Indonesia region and prognosticate about tsunamis. Our armed forces must introspect as to how their personnel were ignorant about tsunamis. Military geologists are employed all over the world but not in India possibly. With a little vision our saviours would have been saved in Andaman. Government of India and all the states must realise it is penny wise and pound foolish to not introduce geological education across the schools and colleges and all universities in the country. In the long run it would accelerate mineral exploration and mineral based cottage industries and become much more than economical. At times what looks economical is actually most extravagant. The money we saved in not installing our own tsunami system in spite of Indian Ocean having been hit by tsunamis ten times in last 250 years was not worth saving. Attacking all geo-hazards in a war mode is better than providing relief. UNO also needs to learn this lesson right now for it has stopped geo-sciences funding last month to its IGCP Programmes. Geological processes as well as fruits come slowly and it lies on the shoulders of geologists to explain to national leaders frankly. Government of India would do well to integrate all the geological investigations and responsibilities under one ministry like China and Russia. Ignoring geologists has been counterproductive. China sent 500 geologists to last International Geological Congress in Florence, 2004, Geological Survey of India (third oldest in the world) sent mere three. Saving on air travel of geologists and denying them international exposure is extremely short sighted. Better policy would be to be understanding towards scientists, give them funds and promotions in very tough but transparent competitions but punish them if they let the nation down in a tsunami. The present Director General of Geological Survey of India can easily excuse himself saying he is not even a geologist. Nepotistic changes throttling scientific leadership in such key organisations do not augur well for a country aspiring to be a developed country by 2020. We need to organise our coastal areas urbanisation as well as geo-scientific institutions and initiate regional collaboration in South Asia or within SAARC which would bring out our real human resource potential towards tackling hazards and exploring and exploiting mineral wealth successfully. Neighbours exploring their mineral resources jointly and tackling hazards jointly certainly makes diplomatic wisdom. Last but not the least the scars of tsunami have left precious scientific information which if not studied immediately would be lost to posterity. We lost a precious opportunity to document tsunami in its grandeur because our own administrators and armed forces in Andaman failed to alert N Delhi. For our scientific big wigs at Delhi, Hyderabad, Calcutta silence seems golden, they learnt of the tsunami from TV channels it looks!
Professor Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia, arundeep.ahluwalia@gmail.com, +919815612973, +911722722973
Geology
Dept., Panjab University,
Type:1,
Bungalow No.2,
PU
Complex Sector 25,
Chandigarh
160014,India