Learning from the tsunami – five years on

My friend and colleague Patrick Fuller, put together this short reflection which describes well the enormous challenge the Red Cross and others faced trying to cope with responding to the multiple disasters the tsunami left in its wake all across Asia Pacific and as far away as East Africa. The piece was originally written for our website but I think its worth reposting here. In the humanitarian world (and beyond I have no doubt) the Tsunami was a catalyst for a new modus operandi - it certainly was not business as usual and it never will be again. Patrick is our communications coordinator for the Tsunami operation with whom I also worked closely to produce a multi-media documentary that tells the story of four incredible people whose lives were changed forever by the Tsunami. Called Stories of Hope it is a testimony not only to human suffering but to human resilience - the incredible instinct to survive and move on.

When the tsunami struck on Dec 26^th 2004, millions of people watched in horror as the full extent of the worst natural disaster in living memory unfolded on their television screens. More than 226,000 people lost their lives across 14 countries and 470,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. Now, five years on, the story is a very different one. Communities have recovered and in some cases been entirely rebuilt.

The Red Cross Red Crescent launched a major recovery operation with programmes in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. In the space of five years close to 5 million people have been reached with humanitarian assistance and more than 51,000 permanent houses have been built.

“How are we going to cope?”

Al Panico, head of the IFRC’s tsunami unit first joined as head of operation in Sri Lanka in 2005. ‘My first thoughts on seeing the scale of the devastation were, how are we going to cope with this? We always said this was going to be a marathon and not a sprint and that it would take five years to rebuild’.

In Sri Lanka two thirds of the coastline had been hit and the situation was chaotic at best. The immediate priority was to get tents, food and water to the thousands of people camped by the roadside who had lost everything. ‘Our volunteers played a vital role in helping to avert the risk of a second tragedy’, says Tissa Abeywickrama, Chairman of the Movement Task Force with the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society. ‘We provided thousands of cooked meals to people all the way along the coast. Quick medical care and supplies of clean water meant that there were no outbreaks of disease’.

The story in Indonesia was similar but on a bigger scale. The waves had come in higher, 20 metres in some stretches, driving inland for miles and destroying entire settlements along parts of the coast.

‘Some of those who came to help had lost homes and family members themselves’, says Bob McKerrow, IFRC head of delegation in Jakarta. ‘Over a three-month period 200 young Indonesian Red Cross volunteers retrieved some 45,000 bodies in Aceh and took them for a proper burial. This was harrowing work’.

Operation Recovery

Recovering from such a massive disaster presented huge logistical challenges. Hundreds of skilled staff from all corners of the world were recruited together with thousands of local staff. The tsunami had affected an 800 kilometre strip around the coast of Aceh. Reaching communities meant mobilising boats, planes, helicopters and a fleet of M6 trucks specially imported from Norway that could travel cross-country. Wood was sourced from Finland and steel from Thailand to build over 20,000 high quality shelters in Aceh. In the Maldives everything had to be taken by ship including 15,000 rainwater-harvesting kits that were installed on 79 islands. Then there were the political challenges. The resurgence of conflict in northern Sri Lanka meant that access to areas was difficult and projects had to be put on hold. Land titles in Indonesia meant that in many areas it took years to be able to start building permanent homes.

‘We had to take some risks but this was because the needs were so huge’, explains Panico. ‘This was the biggest reconstruction programme that the Red Cross Red Crescent had ever embarked upon. We were getting into partnerships with government agencies and organisations that we had never worked with before, in areas where we didn’t have all the answers’.

Catalyst for managing disasters

In the early days of the disaster, coordination between humanitarian organisations, government agencies and people affcectey be the disaster themselves proved difficult.  But lessons have since been learnt. The tsunami was a catalyst for improving the way that disasters are now collectively managed. In recent years the UN cluster system came into being, in which the IFRC plays a prominent role. Now there are dedicated teams coordinating the response to disasters in specific sectors such as shelter, water and sanitation and health.

 In Aceh, an early challenge emerged when most agencies miscalculated the time it would take to get families into permanent housing.  Thousands of people were still living in tents by the end of 2005 which lead to the IFRC stepping in and taking the lead in building 20,000 transitional shelters, many of which are still in use today as shops or annexes to permanent homes.

Rebuilding entirely new communities

The biggest single achievement for the Red Cross Red Crescent has been the permanent housing programme. Various different approaches were used to reconstruct more than 51,000 homes. Contractors were used to build entire communities on resettlement sites provided by governments. In the Maldives the IFRC coordinated the construction of an entire community on Dhuvaafaru an uninhabited island in the Raa Atoll. Six hundred homes, together with infrastructure such as schools, mosques, water and power plants, were built for over 3,000 Maldivians whose former island home was ruined by the tsunami.

Considerable funds were also channelled into ‘owner driven’ housing schemes.  In Sri Lanka more than 17,000 families were provided with cash grants and technical guidance to build or repair their own homes under a unique partnership between the IFRC, UN-Habitat and the World Bank.

Economic life and independence

The focus on ‘building back better’ has meant looking beyond simply helping someone to build a house. Over 650,000 people now have clean water to drink and better sanitation thanks to water supply plants, distribution pipelines and new wells constructed by the Red Cross Red Crescent.  Thousands of people have been helped to get back on their feet through livelihoods support programmes. Over 30,000 households have been reached by asset replacement or enhancement projects. Fishing boats, engines and nets have been replaced and people have been given opportunities to retrain in new vocations.

 Over 62,000 households have received livelihoods support grants which have enabled them to start up small businesses such as groceries or market gardens. Many people opted to start livestock and poulty rearing businesses. The expertise built up in the field of livelihoods is now an important part of the Red Cross Red Crescent approach to recovery programming. Helping individuals to cope with the trauma and stress of the tsunami has been another area where the Red Cross Red Crescent has developed considerable experience. Psychosocial support programmes have helped both children and adults to cope with the stress and trauma of the tsunami. Now, over 270,000 people are certified in community based first aid and pyschosocial support.

Allowing families and communities to take action on their own behalf, without becoming dependent on external support, has been one of the most important lessons drawn from the tsunami.

Saving lives before the next disaster strikes

‘Even though reconstruction projects are drawing to a close, disaster prone communities still need to be made safer and better prepared,’ says Al Panico, ‘a huge amount has been done to improve the technology around early warning systems, but this approach has to go hand in hand with risk reduction programmes at the community level’. Making sure that people have the right information, skills and knowledge to take early action and prepare for disasters is a long term priority for Red Cross national societies in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

These countries now feature community based disaster risk reduction projects focused on training volunteers, developing  village disaster risk reduction plans, and improving community capacity in mitigating the risks from disasters. Since the tsunami Over 38,000 people have been trained in vulnerability and capacity assessments or community based disaster management.

“The tsunami operation has given us the highest recognition we ever had from both the public and government,” says Indonesian Red Cross Society Secretary General, Iyang D. Sukandar.  Since the tsunami and subsequent disaster operations in Indonesia, the Government of Indonesia has recognised the Red Cross as a key member of a newly formed National Disaster Quick Response Team.  “We now have skilled volunteers and staff who always ready to help people in any disaster situation throughout Indonesia,” Iyang Sukandar says. 

/PC

What has the Tsunami really taught us?

Five years ago, on 26 December 2004, a massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra created a tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean. Millions of people around the world watched in horror as the aftermath of the biggest single natural disaster in living memory unfolded on their television screens. Almost 230,000 people lost their lives across 14 countries.

In Indonesia’s Aceh province, entire communities were wiped off the map. Constructing sturdier new homes and settlements with electricity, clean water and good sanitation is one step towards what is known as “building back better”, but genuine recovery requires a more inclusive approach that addresses people’s wider needs as they see them.

In its wake came extraordinary generosity. Over the past five years the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has channelled public donations into recovery programmes that have supported almost 5 million people across the four worst affected countries - Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives. The immense  task of reconstructing homes, schools and hospitals is almost complete, allowing us to see more clearly what we have learned from the tsunami and how it has fundamentally changed the way we respond to large-scale disasters.

Building back better means helping to create safer and more resilient communities. Reducing risks as effectively as possible requires the full participation of communities exposed to potential disasters.

Since the tsunami, the Red Cross Red Crescent has helped to create community-based risk reduction programmes that are now active in more than 265 communities across Aceh. These risk reduction teams map the hazards faced in their communities and carry out small-scale prevention and mitigation activities such as improving drainage systems to prevent flooding during the monsoon. They also learn emergency first aid skills and involve all generations in their community in evacuation drills. Empowering communities to take preventive action on their own behalf, without being dependent on external support, is one of the clear, unalterable lessons learned from the tsunami experience.

On average, the Asia Pacific region experiences 41 per cent of recorded global disaster events. Two to three large scale disasters now take place every two years. This situation is compounded by an increasing number of localized smaller scale disasters that have increased the total number of disasters per month from an average of 21 in 2004 to 51 in 2008.

Since the tsunami, the Red Cross Red Crescent has responded to no fewer than five major earthquakes that have struck in ‘the Ring of Fire’, a highly active seismic zone running through the Indonesian archipelago.

When the latest quake struck the city of Padang in West Sumatra on October 1, a trained network of radio operators swung into action keeping vital lines of communication open between the Indonesian Red Cross headquarters in Jakarta and its field offices in the quake zone. Pre-positioned emergency relief items in the area meant that help was immediately at hand for survivors and 200 ‘Satgana’ (disaster response) volunteers fanned out into affected areas to assess the urgent needs. Psychosocial support volunteers who had been trained in Aceh also arrived in Padang to help adults and children cope with the trauma. Much of this effective disaster response capacity comes directly from our learning following the tsunami.

Perhaps the most important lesson that the tsunami has taught us is that systematic risk reduction efforts depends on building strong working partnerships between all stakeholders – communities, local and national government, governmental and non-governmental organizations and the private sector. The legacy of the tsunami is that the IFRC has moved significantly closer to this goal.

The key lesson still needs to be acted upon. Governments, donors, the media and the general public must increase their support and promote preventive action such as early warning systems.

But early warning systems alone are not enough.  While these help people to be aware of a disaster, true risk reduction can only be achieved by working and building the knowledge and skills of the people who live in ‘at risk’ communities. This is where the strength of the Red Cross Red Crescent lies. Our volunteers come from these communities and are there before, during and after disasters. 

The incredible public  generosity that the tsunami uncovered must be harnessed to invest in helping communities at risk adapt to known weather and seismic related threats but also to new disasters emerging from changing climate patterns. At the same time international donors must honour their commitments to increase funding towards risk reduction initiatives.

Responding effectively to disasters will always be essential but nothing is more effective than getting people out of harm’s way in the first place. Indeed is this not our moral obligation to those whose lives were taken by the tsunami five years ago? Let that be the great lesson of the tsunami – act early and save lives.


/PC

Disaster Response: Failure in not an Option

As the world continues to tune into the news of an ever growing death toll in the Asia Pacific region, questions are being asked about why more deaths could not have been prevented. This, the most disaster prone region in the world, has once again been torn apart by a series of natural disasters which have killed hundreds.  

The photo here shows a Samoan Red Cross volunteers directing school children to higher ground during evacuation of Apia during a tsunami warning on the 3^rd of October 2009. A practical example of how early warning through local action can save lives in real time.

In response, a massive global emergency response operation has been mounted to help reach those in need. But questions remain about why some of those communities affected were not effectively pre-warned. In a world of technological advances - when experts predict tsunamis and typhoons before they occur - why do the messages not reach everyone at risk in time to get them out of harms way?

The Red Cross Red Crescent has been active for many years in supporting communities to reduce vulnerability, and increase their resilience to natural disasters. This was put into practice on Tuesday as scores of Samoa Red Cross volunteers took to the streets to warn people in coastal settlements to stay clear of beaches. These dedicated, trained, and prepared volunteers helped evacuate people in and around the island of Apia, opening five temporary shelter sites across Samoa. In Vietnam, Red Cross volunteers also sprung into action, helping to evacuate more than 160,000 people before Typhoon Ketsana hit. This people centred approach was crucial because technology alone will not save lives.

In many poverty stricken areas there is no access to TV or radio to help communicate warning messages. Aid agencies must work with communities to find out which methods of communication work for them at the time of an emergency and run simulation exercises to put this into practice. Often mobile phone text messages or even sending people out into the streets with megaphones, as was the case in these emergencies, prove to be most successful.

But despite the progress made the number of lives lost this week underlines that much more needs to be done. Early warning, early action in high disaster risk countries needs to be seen as a mindset, not a mechanism or technology, and works best when it spans timescales, anticipating disaster by days, hours, months, years and even decades. It must also be firmly linked to early action by decision-makers, and must cover 'the last mile' -linking early warning mechanisms not just to the most 'at risk' communities, but to the most vulnerable people within those communities.

Strengthening community capacity to prevent and/or cope with the impact of disasters and crises is a concrete way to save lives and better protect livelihoods, and prevent such shocks from crippling development within the poorest countries. Early warning and early action is also more cost effective than traditional disaster response and saves more lives per pound spent: public money buys four times as much humanitarian 'impact' if spent on preparation and risk reduction, rather than on relief items. Rightly, we are currently focussed on meeting immediate emergency needs in the aftermath of these disasters.

But we must take time to reflect and learn. We have made great progress in ensuring early warning and early action is part of our programmes in countries which are vulnerable to emergencies. But we need a global strategy that integrates governments, NGOs and most importantly, local communities. Sadly, experience has taught us that this won't be the last emergency of this kind in this part of the world. Next time we must all be better prepared.

This blog is written by colleague Mike Goodhand who is Head of Disaster Management at the British Red Cross. For further information and backgrounders on Disaster Management please visit the relevant web section in the IFRC's website.

Dispatches from Disaster Zones

An extremely intensive week and more trying to support four near-simultaneous disasters in Asia Pacific. I just wanted to post some links to daily diaries from a number of friends and colleagues who are on the ground, supporting local Red Cross societies and coordinating international relief efforts. With this wonderfully wired world it is a real bonus to be able to get first hand accounts so readily from the field.

Rosemarie North is a Kiwi who has been on the ground in Samoa since the early hours. She is a long-time Redcrosser and her diary captures very well the upset and shock that comes when communities have to grapple with the aftermath of an natural disaster - a disaster which ranks up there with one of the most feared i.e. an earthquake followed by a tsunami. Rosemarie's diary is here. Rosemarie is also tweeting on a regular basis. Check back on the ifrc.org site for further updates during the week.

Patrick Fuller, another colleague with heaps of experience working in natural disasters in on the ground in Padang. His daily diary has been picked up by the BBC online and will continue for the rest of the week. Also, on his own blog, our Red Cross colleague (who is head of operations in Indonesia) and sometimes contribute to Head Down Eyes Open, Bob McKerrow, is blogging his experiences from the quake zone on his own blog.

Another disaster zone in Viet Nam has received relatively less attention but where the floods and destruction left in the wake of typhoon Ketsana as uprooted hundreds of thousands of people and caused more than a hundred million dollars worth of damage according to initial assessments. Our colleagues Nguyen Hungha and Lasse Noorgard are trudging though the mud and reporting back in their daily diary.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have. For more up-to-the-minute accounts of what is happening in the disaster zones you can follow the official Red Cross twitter stream as well. Would love to get your opinions and feedback on this type of real-time reporting.

Also - if you have a moment do take a look at these incredible and moving photographs from the Boston Globe. They really drive home the power of good photography and bring us extremely close to the suffering and devastation wrought by Ketsana.

/PC