One may not be able to prevent natural disasters, but the fall-outs can be minimised and controlled if there is a simple standard operating procedure. This brings us to the old adage: “If you want peace, prepare for war”
If you want peace, prepare for war”, is an adage which is as old as diplomacy. The same could be extrapolated to natural disasters which strike anytime, anywhere, unexpected and uninvited. The floods which ravaged Jammu & Kashmir is the latest proof that natural disasters strike at will and pleasure and take the victims by shock. There is no way out from natural disasters like floods, earthquakes or tsunamis.
Nature’s fury can never be tamed or prevented but the effects can be mitigated and minimised provided civil society as well as the civil administration is familiar with the standard operating procedures. But for the soldiers of the Indian Army and the airmen of the IAF, the population in Kashmir would have been wiped out in the floods. Mr Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir was caught unprepared when the skies opened up.
Earthquakes which occurred at latur in Maharashtra (1993) , Gujarat (2001), Kashmir (2005), and the tsunami of 2004 which occurred as a fall-out of an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, caused large-scale death and destruction. The 2004 tsunami struck parts of Indonesia, India and Sri lanka like a thunderbolt. Nearly 3,00,000 people lost their lives in the tidal waves. Both India and Indonesia did not have a tsunami early-warning system in 2004. But by 2007, scientists of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services at Hyderabad developed an excellent tsunami early — warning system, with India and became the Regional Tsunami Early Warning Centre for the countries in the rime of the Indian Ocean.
The control room at INCOIS campus in Hyderabad can pick up any abnormality happening in the bottom of the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. The tsunami buoys installed in the sea are connected to the control room through satellite. The control room can pick up signals emanating from earthquakes of any magnitude occurring in the bottom of the ocean. The INCOIS scientists can forecast within minutes whether the earthquake is tsunamigenic or not and issues alert to all the countries coming under its purview so that National Disaster Management Authorities can begin the rescue and relief operations without any delay.
Ardito Kodijat, head, Indian Ocean Tsunami Information Centre, Jakarta, told this writer some interesting facts. However strong the future tsunamis are, not a single life would be lost in Indonesia. “We have undertaken a massive awareness programme among the coastal community in Indonesia. All people who are staying along the coastal regions are now being trained on what to do in the event of a tsunami attack,” Mr Kodijat said.
As a part of this programme, all households have been told to keep a packed suitcase (consisting of spare dresses, emergency medicines, important family documents like ration card, property ownership, bank pass books and two bottles of mineral water) ready all the time. The moment a tsunami alert is issued, all that the family has to do is to take the suitcase and come out of the house. The trucks/buses meant for evacuation would be at their doorsteps in minutes to ferry them to pre-determined safe places.
“We experience more than 6,000 earthquakes per year,” Suhardjono, former director, Earthquake and Tsunami Centre, Jakarta, said. This prompted Indonesian Authorities to launch awareness programmes round the year so that people would not panic in the eventuality of earthquakes. They have been told that even if a particular earthquake is tsunamigenic, it may take minutes for the waves to strike the coast. “Since they are trained through mock drills, people do not get frightened by tsunami alerts. They know what are the steps to be followed in such situations,” Mr Kodijat had stated.
India is home to all kinds of disasters, and the only hope and silver lining is the country’s Armed Forces. They show the same devotion and dedication during rescue and relief operations at the time of natural disasters as they show when they guard the borders of the nation. But the same cannot be said about our civil servants and bureaucrats. They are not accustomed to work beyond the routine 10 to 5 time-line, and that too in a sedate pace.
Our scientists are capable of forecaAsting about cyclones, cloudbursts and downpours hours in advance. But the Disaster Management Agencies of the State regime and the Union Government are yet to be trained to make effective use of these warnings and forecasts. “We had warned about the 2013 Uttarakhand cloudburst two days in advance. But the agencies entrusted with Disaster Management and dissemination of information failed to take note of the forecast. It was business as usual for them,” Satheesh Shenoi, director, INCOIS said.
What we saw in Jammu & Kashmir is pathetic. It is inhumane to disturb the over-worked Armed Forces by summoning them for rescue and relief operations which are the responsibilities of the civil administration. There should be a standard operating procedure for all, including the common man, in the event of a natural disaster. To ascertain the preparedness of our civil society to meet disasters, this writer spoke to people in different walks of life in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. leaders of fishermen welfare associations, from Kanyakumari to Chennai, expressed their ignorance when asked about their preparedness to face tsunami or tidal waves. “What standard operating proceduresIJ We do not know anything of that kind. We have not heard the term itself,” said Vincent Jain, Chief Executive, Association of Deep Sea Going Artisanal Fishermen, and Justin Antony, president, Tamil Nadu Fishermen Development Trust (both from Kanyakumari).
Vinayakam, a Chennai fisherman who had a miraculous escape in the 2004 tsunami, said nobody had told him or the community what they should do in the event of another tsunami attack. This is not the case with tsunami threats alone. Kerala has been witnessing agitations and demonstrations for de-commissioning the 126-year-old Mullaperiyar dam. The States of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are engaged in along drawn out legal war over the issue. A group of politicians have been staging demonstrations demanding the lowering of water level in the dam which they argue is on the verge of bursting. According to protagonists, more than three million people living in the districts of Idukki, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Alappuzha will be washed away in the event of the bursting of the dam.
Kumali Shaji, a writer and one of the leading activists demanding the de-commissioning of the dam, was asked whether people staying near the dam have been educated about the steps to be taken in the event of bursting of the dam. The reply was a curt ‘no’, with a warning that one should not ask such questions. “The people here are scared. Do you want to aggravate their fearsIJ” he asked. One may not be able to prevent disasters, but the fall-outs can be minimised and controlled if there is a simple standard operating procedure. This brings us back to the first sentence of this article: “If you want peace, prepare for war”.