Stepping Up a Gear in Haiti

One long year after the earthquake that has crippled Haiti humanitarian needs are still urgent and the road to recovery is strewn with rubble. Even the most seasoned aid workers I know have never witnessed a disaster as daunting as the Haiti earthquake. 


The Red Cross boss on the ground, Marcel Fortier, said in an interview with the BBC that in more than thirty years working in disaster zones all over the world he had never witnessed anything of similar complexity or magnitude - and this from a man who played a key role during five years operation for Tsunami relief and recovery. 


The most immediate challenges start with the sheer scale of urgent needs where basically the entire country is in need of some form of assistance and the central authority has been seriously weakened. The earthquake brought the Haitian government to its knees in an instant, and it has understandably struggled after 20 per cent of its workforce was wiped out and almost all its buildings reduced to rubble.

Early on, we in the Red Cross Red Crescent identified sanitation as the number one threat to life in Haiti and set about tackling this as our overriding priority. In the absence of fully functioning national agencies, we continue to lead a metropolitan-wide response that is vast in magnitude and provides access to sanitation services and clean water to more than half a million people every single day.

And yet, the spectre of cholera still hangs over the people of Haiti. The outbreak was born largely as a result of the country’s almost entirely collapsed infrastructure. By all accounts, it is clear that our collective efforts are not enough - an opinion voiced forcefully by our colleagues from MSF. By the standards of other major disasters and crises, it is a flashing indicator about the limitations of the humanitarian system.

Not for the first time, we call attention to the fact that this is a situation which is neither acceptable nor sustainable. Aid agencies are stretched beyond capacity and are not designed to be a substitute for municipalities or national governments.

The Haitian authorities must receive the funding that has been pledged to them and all the support required to rebuild their capacity to provide, as a priority, the basic sanitation services that the Haitian population so desperately needs and deserves. 


As if predatory cholera was not enough, more than a million people in Haiti, especially the residents of Port-au-Prince, have had to endure an extremely difficult year living in makeshift shelters in dangerous camps. The challenges of finding real shelter solutions have been numerous and are mostly linked to the fact that shelter is not just about structures. Shelter encompasses important legal, economic and social aspects that must be fully taken into consideration in close collaboration with the local community.

The rather tricky and often grey area of land tenure has been particularly testing in Haiti where an informal system of property rights is mostly based on verbal contract. Even when tenure issues are resolved, the availability of adequate parcels of land is rare. Sourcing sites to rebuild that are acceptable to the community – especially finding sites with access to economic opportunities, schools and healthcare – is also a major challenge, which means many people opt to stay in or around the rubble-strewn streets of the capital city.

Rubble removal itself is a colossal and all-too-visible physical obstacle – one which humanitarians are ill-equipped to deal with effectively. Essentially, we’re trying to rebuild on a mess – to repair a tyre on a moving vehicle.

Everyone needs to step up a gear. The next Haitian government must appoint a single minister responsible for rehousing and designate a single agency to lead the process. It should decide what to do about the legal uncertainty over land tenure. And, if land is needed for temporary homes and available in or near neighbourhoods being reconstructed, it must be willing to step in and buy it at a fair market price, perhaps with assistance from donors. 

Wealthy landowners must play a more collaborative role to resolve the stalemate and not wait for windfalls as their compatriots suffer. 

The humanitarian community itself must do more to collectively influence the pace and effectiveness of the response. We have not done enough to tackle and resolve the most significant obstacles such as land and shelter.

Together, we must commit to ‘build back better’ and enforce standards in reconstruction.

Despite all the significant challenges, we cannot lose sight of the huge amount that has been achieved. The generous billions donated by ordinary people and communities the world over have been, and continue to be, critical in providing life-saving care and support, restoring livelihoods and delivering numerous other humanitarian services to the people of Haiti.

We understand only too well what needs to be done – the need to overcome seriously complicating factors such as political turmoil, cholera, floods and hurricanes. The recovery process will take years, perhaps even a generation, but it is our best chance to turn Haiti’s fortunes around.

One year on, we mourn in solidarity with the people of Haiti. It is only by working closely with the Haitian people and genuinely engaging them as real partners in their own recovery that we can be sure to pave the road to a better future.


/PC

Rebuilding Haiti - obstacles and options

As many as one million people are still without a proper roof over their heads almost one year after a deadly quake struck Haiti. Journalists and VIPs will be arriving en masse over the next weeks to make their assessments and publish their opinions. They will see hundreds of thousands still under tarpaulins and makeshift shelters and wonder why all the money that has been raised - literally billions - has not been able to achieve more. It is a valid question, easy to ask but complex to answer.


Challenges to finding real shelter solutions have been many and are mostly linked to:

• the fact that shelter is not just about structures, it encompasses important legal, economic and social aspects that must also be taken into consideration
• the urgent priority and demands to continue delivering life-sustaining emergency services, including shelter, before proper reconstruction can start
• land tenure and informal system of property rights (it is said that some 80% of Haiti's property is based on verbal contracts)
• even when tenure issues are resolved the availability of adequate parcels of land is rare
• sourcing sites to rebuild that are considered appropriate by the community especially in terms of access to local economy, schools and healthcare (the vast majority understandably do not want to move and prefer to stay in or around their destroyed homes - and forcible displacement to 'new' shelters is clearly not an option for humanitarian organizations)
• the metropolitan sized task of rapidly removing rubble created from the destruction of an estimated 200'000 homes and buildings has been simply beyond the means of national and international agencies
• the dilemma faced by aid agencies who despite being flexible are understandably reluctant to rebuild vulnerability i.e. returning people to known vulnerable areas (flood plains, seismic zones etc.) in structures that are are not resistant to hurricanes / earthquakes etc.

The video below, just released, attempts to provide some additional background to the shelter challenges and options.

Haiti, is yet another context which demonstrates, if need be, the limitations of aid. The generous billions donated by ordinary people and communities around the world have been, and will continue to be critical in providing life-saving care and support, restoring livelihoods and delivering numerous other humanitarian services to the people of Haiti. The shelter component however is a challenge of such enormous magnitude that it necessitates long-term and well-financed developmental solutions driven by serious political will, both nationally and internationally. 

The destruction wrought upon Haiti, and especially its capital Port-au-Prince, has left unprecedented challenges for the humanitarian, development and political communities. An entire capital city and all the basic services and infrastructure that its citizens expect and deserve, needs to be completely rebuilt from scratch - and to a standard that will resist future threats. This cannot happen overnight.

One year on, we cannot lose sight of the huge amount that has been achieved but we also know only too well all that remains to be done. In addition to the shelter challenges listed above, the seriously complicating factors of political turmoil, cholera outbreaks, floods and hurricanes have all conspired to stall Haiti's much-needed progress, but nevertheless progressed it has. The serious business of humanitarian aid will continue, and continue for the long haul. Patience and perseverance will be needed as ever. Indeed, the people of Haiti know this more than any of us - already from the first weeks the phrase I most recall was: C'est l'heure de la patience!

/PC

Seeing into the future - Kathmandu's nightmare

Last week I had the opportunity and privilege to spend time in beautiful, crazy Kathmandu. We were there as part of a gathering of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies from all over Asia Pacific. Colleagues from as far afield as North Korea, Mongolia, Maldives, Philippines, China, Laos, Cambodia, Japan, Australia, Thailand and East Timor, to name a few, were working together to try and improve our emergency response and preparedness.

Fail to prepare - prepare to fail, is what Roy Keane used to mantra all the time. And of course he's right. But in Kathmandu's case the future will inform us on the usefulness of foresight. We know for instance that Kathmandu tops the list of the world's most at risk cities in danger of being stricken by an earthquake.

Seismologists are certain. Indeed they agree that it is overdue and that the longer time passes without it happening the worse it is going to be. Right now there is general agreement that the would-be quake will register 8 or more on the Richter scale i.e. about ten times harder than Haiti's horrible quake. And this will happen in a city of 2.5 million people living in cramped, poorly constructed homes, with little or no awareness of the imminent dangers.

Aid agencies believe that the one-strip runway will be destroyed and rendered useless, possibly for weeks. Even if it isn't its capacity to cope with the aid that will be required is worse than Haiti's (which could take four planes an hour - and only if it had the resources at hand to unload the cargo fast enough - you may remember that particular controversy) - but Haiti had ports and Kathmandu is landlocked, mountainous, inhospitable terrain - especially for a massively urgent aid operation. Logistics experts who know the region say Kathmandu could be cut-off for more than one month.

Casualties in Kathmandu are expected to be huge, some say that they will 'incapacitate' 70% of potential workforce (working to rescue, evacuate, support the injured etc.). There are plans to evacuate survivors to flat areas which are safer from aftershocks and more accessible for air-drops and so forth. The only problem here of course is that most of these areas are high in the mountains far from any services such as water and sanitation.

These are the type of reality-based conundrums that local government, civil society organizations and other actors such as ourselves are trying to get our heads around in Kathmandu (and in Delhi, Istanbul, Tehran, Ecuador, Manila and other hot spots). Preparing now to mitigate loss of life and injury is important but massively complex. Preparing for the response likewise. It doesn't bear thinking about but think about it we must.

/PC

Haiti: Enormous challenges remain, three months on

Recent heavy rains and their mud-soaked aftermath have once again turned the spotlight back onto Haiti.

Along with the immediate shock at the continuing human suffering, the images we’re seeing are also provoking another reaction; why, when so many of us around the world have given so much, are those affected by the earthquake still living in such appalling conditions?

Why, when the world knew that the rainy season was coming, are people still forced to shelter under tarpaulins? Where are the new houses for the homeless? Where, in short, is the relief effort which might seem to have dissolved under the rains?

In truth, aid agencies in Haiti are working harder than ever to provide relief and protect people from the rains.

So far, shelter distributions led by the International Red Cross have reached close to 1.2 million people. Haiti represents one of the fastest distribution operations ever undertaken. This in spite of well-publicised problems including a port too damaged to operate, blocked roads and a clogged airport.

Some obstacles undoubtedly persist, but humanitarian agencies in Haiti continue to perform logistical miracles to get aid to those in need.

In the United States, one of the the richest countries in the world, with teams of the most well equipped experts on earth, it took two years to clear the rubble of the World Trade Centre.

Haiti, it hardly needs to be pointed out, is not the United States. Rubble clearance and reconstruction is an enormous task, and to achieve long-term, sustainable recovery we have to be realistic about the size of that task and how long it will take.

That is why emergency shelter has been the focus. We have to reach the most vulnerable people with the most effective forms of aid possible within the time available. In Haiti that means mass distribution of waterproof tarpaulins to get shelter to as many people as possible. Gradually, as rubble is removed and new land made available, families will receive metal roof sheeting and timber and steel frames to construct more durable shelters.

We need to help people as quickly as we can, but must not let pressure to increase the speed of our response lead to errors of judgement which could undermine recovery, and jeopardise people’s lives, in the long term.

All aid agencies are working round the clock to make sure people are protected in the short-term and ensure a safer future in the years ahead but it is a sad reality that, with the rains coming, the situation for people living in the camps will get worse before it gets better.


/PC

Haiti: When it rains it pours

It’s been an extraordinary few weeks in the world's latest disaster zones. A little more than a month after the devastion that befell Haiti the Americas suffered another major earthquake – one of the strongest ever recorded – in Chile that unleashed tsunamis and so far has claimed more than 720 lives. 

Then, in Western Europe, Storm Xyntia claimed some 60 lives in with waves as high as eight meters battering the coasts of Portugal, Spain and France. The west coast of France was hit by winds up to 150 km/h killing at least 48 people. Charente-maritime and Vendée experienced very serious flooding and damage and at least 25 people died in Vendée after a sea wall collapsed in causing massive flooding. Search and rescue operations were still under way at the time of writing with casualties numbers expected to rise. 

Meanwhile back in Haiti, early rains trigger deadly floods, further testing the endurance of a nation reeling from one of the worst disasters of modern times. Occasional contributor to HDEO, Alex Wynter, is on the ground and posted this report today.

Deadly floods saturate Haiti’s south west

It came a month before the official start of the season, but the intense rain that swept through the western end of the southern Haitian promontory over the weekend left parts of the city of Les Cayes under a metre and a half of water and reportedly claimed eight lives. 

Photo: Jean Renand Valiere/UNDP: Intense rain swept through the western end of the southern Haitian promontory over the weekend, leaving parts of the city of Les Cayes (pictured) under a metre and a half of water and reportedly claimed eight lives.

“Yesterday it rained all day long and only stopped early this morning,” said Jean-Yves Placide, regional head of the Haitian Red Cross branch in Les Cayes, 160 km west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. 

“The poor state of the sewers caused flooding in every quarter of the city,” he added “and in some places the waters rose to ceiling level in people’s houses.”

Damage

Red Cross branch staff are now working with local authorities to assess the full extent of the damage. Local news reports said people had to climb on to roofs to escape the water cascading through the streets of the town, which is one of Haiti’s most important ports for the coffee and sugar trade. Some houses are said to have collapsed, and patients at Les Cayes hospital had to be moved to safety on upper floors.

Placide says the branch was trying to confirm reports two people had died in Cavaillon, 19 km from Les Cayes. Cavaillon and Les Cayes were also affected by the 12 January quake, if less seriously than Port-au-Prince and other towns to the east.

Refugees

But like many towns and cities across Haiti, the 70’000 population of Les Cayes has been swollen by refugees from the quake zone, who are staying with friends and relatives or camping in people’s yards and on open spaces.

“There are many people living in the streets who could not sleep last night,” Placide says. “The situation will be really worrying if it continues to rain. The sun is out now, but the storm clouds come and go.”

The flooding in Les Cayes has given renewed urgency to the effort to protect hundreds of thousands of acutely vulnerable people in the more than 300 improvised settlements that sprang up after the earthquake.

The latest figures show that nearly 40 per cent of an estimated total of 1.3m people have now received various shelter materials such as tarpaulins, tents and toolkits.

Hurricane season

But with less than a month to go before the 1^st of April start to the rainy season, humanitarian shelter in Haiti is a battle against time.

Neither tents nor tarpaulins are expected to provide much more than minimal protection from the Haitian rainy season, which peaks in May when Port-au-Prince gets an average 230 mm of rain, and sometimes as much as 50 mm in two hours.

“In addition to our earthquake response, we’re taking action to scale up preparations for the hurricane season, which starts around the middle of the year,” says Iain Logan, head of Red Cross operations in Port-au-Prince.

Disaster preparedness

“The early floods in Les Cayes are a sharp reminder that the very significant disaster preparedness effort we started after the 2008 hurricanes will have to be expanded and adapted. We face an almost unique set of circumstances generated by a catastrophic quake, a rainy season, and a hurricane season, one after the other in rapid succession.”

Les Cayes was Sunday cut off by road and – due to lingering bad weather – by air. But a Red Cross team was hoping to get through by air today.

/PC Originally posted on www.ifrc.org

Haiti, one month on: Transforming tragedy into opportunity

The scale of the disaster left even veteran disaster responders stunned, people who had seen first hand the savagery of nature elsewhere, in the Americas, in sub-Saharan Africa and in countries like Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan and China. The magnitude-7 earthquake – the biggest to hit Haiti for 200 years – may have left as many as 200,000 people dead and up to a million homeless. But figures cannot express what happened. The capital, Port-au-Prince, and outlying areas lay in ruin.

No one escaped the tragedy. As always when disaster strikes this Caribbean nation, Haitian Red Cross volunteers were among the first to respond but this was like nothing they had known before. As they scrambled to assist their communities they themselves were grieving. They, too, had lost homes and loved ones, and friends and relatives were among the missing. The perseverance of 2,000 of them was nothing less than heroic.

Within a week of the 12 January quake, more than 400 Red Cross and Red Crescent workers from around the world were with them and many more were on the way. Before the end of the month 600 had been deployed with 30 National Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies in country, a strong regional presence – Caribbean, Central and South American – among them.

They set up emergency hospitals, got basic health care functioning, and by month’s end were treating 1,600 patients a day. Relief supplies had been delivered to more than 122,000 people, 14 million litres of water provided, and 70 relief flights had landed in Haiti or the neighbouring Dominican Republic to support what was fast becoming one of our largest and most complex operations in recent memory.

Roots of catastrophe

Amid the rubble of Port-au-Prince, Tadateru Konoé, President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, summed up the challenge. “We must confront a natural disaster that is not only one of the biggest of the past decade,” he said, “but is affecting one of the very poorest countries in the world.”

Poverty lies at the root of the catastrophe and countless lives were lost because little had been invested in measures to limit the impact of natural hazards. The level of damage and the resulting overwhelming needs are a direct result of poverty and under-development.

The disaster of Haiti is not the earthquake. What we are seeing here is what happens when an extreme natural event occurs in the lives of people who are already frighteningly vulnerable.

Our challenge now is to help Haiti recover from the earthquake and to overcome its past deprivation. The experience the Red Cross and Red Crescent has gained from five years of post-tsunami work will be invaluable, for we must ensure that Haiti’s devastated communities receive not only the help that they need now but the help they will need for a long, long while to come.

This is a rare opportunity to affect large-scale change where it is so desperately needed. It is also an opportunity to put power into the hands of the people affected by the disaster. This is already being done as we prioritize community outreach and beneficiary communications that empowers and equips people to be true partners in thier recovery. The recovery process will take years – perhaps even a generation – but it is our best chance to turn Haiti’s fortunes around. Together, we must transform tragedy into opportunity.


If you are interested you can view or download a special one month anniversary report here.


/PC

Haiti: Birth among the rubble

While on the ground in Haiti I spent a lot of time in and around the Red Cross field hospital located downtown next to Port au Prince's General Hospital. This 'hospital in a box' was unloaded, assembled, manned and equipped in a 48hr period and is now performing some 200 surgical operations a day. On site we also have an out patients clinic and a post-recovery bed facility for 70 patients. Surgeons, anaesthetists, health staff and administrators all come as part of the package.

Three such field hospitals (one with even more capacity) are now operating from dawn to dusk in Port au Prince and outskirts (as well as half a dozen mobile health units providing additional health care services for more than a thousand people a day). This is a video that I really like, I hope you do to. Its a good news story among the horror that Haiti has had to suffer. The video was shot by my friend and colleague from Norwegian Red Cross (who also has one of the greatest names on the planet) Olaf Saltbones.

Haiti: how much can one nation endure?

The news reached me as it happened, at around 23h00 Geneva time. Twitter and Skype burst into action and since then it has been non-stop (hence the delayed blog post altho I have managed to tweet a bit with the emphasis on sharing content). 


I began this job in August 2008 and the first major disaster I was involved in was the horrendous suffering caused by the Hurricane season in 2008 which repeatedly battered Haiti and sparked off several fatal landslides. Four major hurricanes - Gustave, Fay, Hanna and Ike - cruelly emptied their cargo ontop of the population, stripping away 98% of the top soil and the rampaging waters killed more than one thousand people. 


For this to happen in any country would set it back a generation but to happen in Haiti, the most impoverished and under developed country in the world - well this was simply cruel and disproportionate. Almost impossible to get back up on your feet again. But Haitians are resilient people and arise they did though understandably still haunted by hurricanes. And now, to fall victim to a devastating earthquake is the cruellest of blows to this struggling nation (interesting that we don't name earthquakes - surely they are worthy of such acknowledgement?).


From an operational point of view our local partners, the Haitian Red Cross, have been hit hard - buildings (where we also have our offices) damaged and personnel still missing. Nevertheless, their first instinct was to clear the rubble and set up an operational centre to tend to the wounded with emergency first aid and reinforce the search and rescue operation with their 2000 or so trained volunteers. Focus was also placed in parallel on getting operational, assessing the situation and coordinating the 'surge' capacity needed to boost water, shelter, food and medical activities. 

It has been an incredible 36 hours or so. From a media point of view there is a level of interest of tsunami proportions. We have done interviews around the clock with all major news and media networks including CNN, New York Times, Al Jazeera and BBC et al. We also managed to get  some great photos out which were used widely on as leads on all major news networks and this morning we received these images from our first proper aerial assessment. The photos were taken by American Red Cross delegate Matt Merrick on the ground and I found them to be extremely intimate and compassionate, retaining full respect for the dignity of the people and not preying on gore and horror like so many others. 

Our next big challenge will be to provide our national red cross and red crescent societies around the world with compelling content to support their national fund raising drives, as well of course to maintain and feed the media interest and help to tell the story of Haiti as honestly as possible. I am leaving in the next hours for Haiti via Santo Domingo and will do my best to post from their, certainly thru my Twitter account. At times like this you realize the privilige it is to have an opportunity to contribute to such an important humanitarian operation - I am especially looking forward to supporting, working alongside and learning from my colleagues with Haiti Red Cross. Stay Tuned.

/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.

Tsunamis, Earthquakes, Typhoons: What's happening in Asia Pacific?

What's happening in Asia Pacific? The region is tragically living up to its reputation as one of the most disaster-prone regions of the world with four near-simultaneous disasters – devastation from Typhoon Ketsana and torrential rains in the Philippines and Viet Nam in South East Asia, and a strong earthquake followed by a tsunami on the Samoan islands, in the Pacific. 

In addition, at the time of writing, a 7.9 earthquake was recorded on Wednesday 30 September, off the West coast of Indonesia, about 50 kilometres from Padang, the capital of West Sumatra.  Buildings were damaged but there are no reports of deaths or injuries, so far. A tsunami watch was immediately issued for Indonesia, India, Thailand and Malaysia. 

We have had people on the ground working closely with the national Red Cross societies in the region. Our communicators were dispatched to or already positioned in the disaster zones and we are feeding the media machine as best we can. There is a special page on our website dedicated to the whole region which also includes useful Google maps. There is a twitter stream too and on the news side of our website we have issued reports and press releases (already 3 different articles today).

Our colleagues in the region are now flat out for about one week now. The time differences make it almost impossible to rest as the US media (for instance) wake up when Asia Pacific goes to bed but during these days nobody sleeps much. And Europe of course is sandwiched in the middle.

These disasters have taken the lives of hundreds of people across the region, sowed devastation, chaos and economic hardship, and are severely testing the mettle and disaster preparedness of both governments and humanitarian actors. For their part, Red Cross Societies in the region immediately mobilized thousands of volunteers and staff skilled in disaster management. Thanks to early warning systems, many communities at risk were evacuated ahead of the Typhoon and the tsunami; shelters were set up, pre-positioned relief stocks distributed as well as water and food. 

While the loss of life could have been much greater this should not belittle the devastation caused and the massive economic and social losses which will have to be regained.

Volunteers among the first to respond 

The fact that Red Cross avolunteers are based in the communities affected, close to the people, makes it possible to mobilize emergency help immediately, and to respond to four large emergencies at the same time. 

Some 135 Samoa Red Cross volunteers are currently distributing clean water, first aid supplies, tarpaulins and other relief to affected families. These specially-trained volunteers initially provided early warnings to people in coastal settlements to stay clear of beaches, they supported evacuation efforts in and around Apia, and are managing three camps for the displaced. They are also participating in needs assessments. According to officials, at least 79 people have died and it is estimated that 60 villages and 15,000 people have been affected by this disaster. Tremors continue to shake the country, and tsunami alarms are still sounding.

In Tonga, reports indicate that the Niuas Islands and several villages were flooded, preliminary figures put the death toll at seven, with three people missing. The Tonga Red Cross has mobilized its volunteers to provide emergency assistance and conduct further assessments.

In Viet Nam, the death toll stands at 38 to date, with 10 people reported missing and at least 81 injured. An estimated three million people have been affected. Flooding has been the worst in 45 years in some provinces (Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Kon Tum) and extensive damage is reported to rice paddies, sugar cane, vegetables and aquaculture. Access to flooded communes and mountainous districts is very difficult. Red Cross staff and volunteers continue to manage shelters and provide emergency relief to affected families.

In the Philippines, still reeling from the devastation brought by Typhoon Ketsana, the current death toll stands at 246 people, according to official figures, with 38 missing and five injured. Some two million people are estimated to have been affected, with nearly 570,000 displaced.

Thousands of Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) volunteers have been working round the clock since 26 September in search and rescue operations, delivering food and other relief items to survivors, psychosocial support to traumatized families and first aid to the sick and injured.


/PC

Indonesia Quake: on the spot account

Bob McKerrow, a great friend of HDEO, blogs from Indonesia on his experiences during yesterdays earthquakes.

This afternoon I was drving between offices in Jakarta when I saw hundreds of people running out of a high rise building onto the street. A few seconds later I got a text message saying a large earthquake had struck near Bandung. Shortly after I got confirmation from the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) that it had caused some damage in and around Bandung. 

At the meeting with Danish, French, Honk Kong and Spanish Red Cross we pieced information together from computer maps and messages we received from the field. A tsunami warning was issued but fortunately the wave generated was quite small and caused little damage.

Later I received a more detailed report from the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI)

Following 7.4 SR main shock after shock hit 3 times in Tasikmalaya and surrounding area, the tremor of main shock felt across Java island from Banten and even reach Bali. It was reported that 12 districts affected by the earthquake, namely: Bogor district, Cianjur, Sukabumi, Municipality of Sukabumi, west Bandung, Bandung, Garut, Banjar, Ciamis, Tasikmalaya, Municipality of Tasikmalaya and Purwakarta, also in central Java tremor also gave impact in Cilacap District

Most of the area that is severely damaged is the coastal area in southern part of Indonesia. Communication line still disturb in Tasikmalaya in Banjar reported electricity cut off due to effect of the earthquake, 5.000 idps in Sindang Barang Cianjur. In Bandung 13 Village in pangalengan subdistict reported severely affected affected, 30 idps in Cimaung Bandung. For time being reported that 22 people died (Ciamis 2 people: Cianjur 12 people: Bandung 6 people; Garut 3 People) and 29 people injured, also reported that 810 houses damaged and 16 public facility building collapsed. Immediate need for survivors are tarpaulins and tents. I arrived home six hours after the quake and Naila, my wife, was still somewhat shaken by the quake. "First I heard a loud noise then the vbuilding started swaying, the light swung violently and I heard people screaming and talking loudly, she said. She then told me how she joined a huge throng of people rusing down the stairway in this 30 floor building, and of people tripping, fainting, children and Mothers screaming. Old people struggled to get down the stairs and she said it was like a scene from a horror movie.

Then she showed me all the cracks in the appartment that were caused by the quake. A huge crack ran diagonally across the wall in the boys bedroom where they were sleeping peacefully. The kitchen hallway and lounge walls all bore cracks as well.Before i went to bed I got a detailed report from the Indonesian Red Cross and was delighted to read of their efforts in rescue, tending to the injured and providing food and shleter to the homeless. Wayne, our Disaster Coordinator has released large numbers of relief items from our warehouse in support of PMI efforts.Also see an updated account from the IFRC's news pages.

Impressions from an earthquake zone

Tommaso Della Longa is a colleague of mine working for the Italian Red Cross and is on the spot in the disaster zone of Abruzzo right now. These are his impressions after 24hrs.


My first impression – it is a very big tragedy. Very sad. Being a war journalist I am acquainted with death and tragedy, but what I see here is hard to believe: no war, but the city looks as if it has been ruined by heavy bombing. I have seen it in Gaza, in Kuwait, in Sarajevo. Now I see the same in my country. No words.

My second impression: during last night L’Aquila was like a city of ghosts. Nobody here, except those who were still working in the ruins - rescue operators, volunteers, police.


My third impression: I cannot but admire the spirit and dignity of the local people. They do not cry, they do not complain, but everyone is trying to help, to reach relatives, to reach friends, to help, to support.

There is so much dignity in what they are doing and how they are taking this horrible tragedy. The people are wonderful. I think it is very important in this situation.

We have 350 volunteers here working with the Italian Red Cross. There are many more people who would want to come and help, but we are trying to organize them in such a way that we could ensure they work in shifts. Our help will be needed here for a long time. Hard to predict now, but we will need volunteers for a long time, we must be able to replace them, rather than have them all here for the first days only.

These 350 are coping with the needs so far, 150 are ready to join at any moment. We’ll need them here, in two weeks, in three weeks and longer.

Hard to predict now, we still do not know the entire losses and damage. Please read more updates from the L'Aquila earthquake disaster on our website.