Financial Times
Sept. 30, 2007

Lessons from the vanished tsunami
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/070930/FinancialTimes/ft333.html
By Chanuka Wattegama

If the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was a disaster marked by inaction, what
happened on September 12, 2007 was marked by plenty of action, but a
dearth of right action. It was certainly not an exemplary implementation
of pre-determined and meticulously planned disaster avoidance
activities. Did it make the vulnerable communities feel more secure? Or
did it merely add to the confusion and chaos? Wasn’t what happened on
that crucial evening another good lesson -- how not to react to a
disaster? Does this mean we still have lot to learn?

RISK MITIGATION
Risk mitigation through disaster warning is a serious business. It is
not as simple as a politician or a government official calling the
national TV station and ordering evacuations or worse, the closure of
roads. It is an end-to-end process with the hazard monitors at one end
and communities at the other. In between are many intermediaries with
defined roles. They are expected to play their assigned roles, not
exceed their roles and not to play the role of others. If this balance
is broken somewhere, as we have seen, it can lead to adverse consequences.

The prediction of a tsunami is an inexact art that must be practiced in
conditions of highly imperfect information and time pressure. In the
Pacific Basin, which has had the most experience with tsunamis, 75 per
cent of all warnings are false. But this does not cause major harm
because the false warnings are contained within the official system and
do not get through to the general population for the most part.

The decision to issue public warning should be taken by the
professionals after careful analysis. This does not mean that they
should always be perfect. Neither does it mean that the decision should
be deliberated till all the information is available, which is
impractical. On the other hand, there is also no need to compromise
accuracy for speed, as shown by the National Disaster Warning centre
(NDWC) Thailand.

The Thai authorities could not have underestimated the situation in the
light of the fact that their country being the fourth hardest hit nation
in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. But still they saw no reason to issue
a public warning. All that the NDWC did was to broadcast a message
telling people there was no cause for alarm, three hours later. NDWC
Chairman Smith Dharmasarojana said later the delay was based on a
thorough analysis of the situation. The centre followed warning
procedures correctly and alerted the government and provincial
officials. He also said that though it was the job of the NDWC to
monitor earthquakes around the clock, telling people to evacuate
arbitrarily would only panic people with no productive results.
Therefore NDWC saw no reason to press the panic buttons unnecessarily.

In spite of the NDWC’s superior response, the Thai press still saw
plenty of room for improvement.

PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTRE
‘The worldwide news networks began reporting the killer quake within
minutes after it happened. At about the same time, the Pacific Tsunami
Warning Centre (PTWC) issued a statement that a tsunami was possible and
could endanger virtually any littoral countries on the Indian Ocean. The
website of the Centre specifically mentioned Thailand, and so did the
news reports, which quickly reached the Thai media and all the country.
What happened after that was sadly predictable. Thousands of people in
the six Andaman coastal provinces left their homes, offices and hotels
and headed for higher ground. Many spent the entire night on the hills
and in the mountains, fearing a tsunami despite -- or because of -- the
lack of official information. Rumours spread, groundless but seemingly
authentic, that waves were headed towards Phuket, and would hit at 10pm,
nearly four hours after the earthquake.

If this were the media reaction to the sensible and correct response of
Thailand, what can be said of the overreaction elsewhere?

Several countries issued public disaster alerts/warnings and (in some
cases) evacuation orders. These included not just Asian countries but
few African ones as well. Mozambican, Tanzanian and South African
authorities warned people living on the Indian Ocean coastal stretch of
the possibility of a tsunami but did not initiate any evacuations. Kenya
went one step further by starting evacuation. Somalia, the only African
country to experience significant losses in 2004 (300 deaths) issued no
alert. In Thiruvanthapuram, South India, the district administration
kept police and officials on vigil to carry out mass evacuations, the
need for which did not arise. At tourist spots, the visitors received
information with equanimity. By that time, television news channels had
started airing news of the tsunami alert but there was no panic.

In Southern Bangladesh, on the other hand, it was reported that more
than half a million people in the coastal areas fled their homes in
panic. They took shelter in schools, other buildings, cyclone shelters
and relatives' houses. This was after an official warning broadcast via
television and radio. Police with loud-speakers were said to be
“expediting” the process. People were asked to stay the night at the
shelters till the government lifted the warning on the early hours of
the following day morning. Officials in Chittagong were apparently
satisfied about the efficacy of the evacuation operations.The situation
in Sri Lanka was not too different. Perhaps it was even less orderly.
Tsunami warnings and evacuation orders came in quick succession. Phone
networks were immediately congested. Later local media reported
incidents of looting of evacuated houses. The alerts worked – perhaps
too well – but the question was whether it was necessary to undergo all
this hassle for a hazard which had extremely low probability of
converting to a massive disaster, and especially when it was not so
difficult to determine the impact.

ALERT AND WARNING
The differentiation between the words ‘alert’ and ‘warning’ is
important. There is nothing wrong in requesting the communities to keep
vigil, even when the risk is minor. That harms no one. The danger is
pushing it further and making it a ‘warning’ – an event that requires an
action response. Warnings can cause panic and should be avoided till the
last possible moment. Possibly the word “watch” which is used in North
America, should replace the word “alert” to reduce the likelihood of
confusion.

GUARDIAN ANGELS
In some countries it was reported that politicians are at the helm of
disaster warnings. This was akin to the donkey who attempted to play the
role of the dog to win his master’s favour. Considering the previous
experience, their concern is understandable, but this usurpation of
roles can cause serious undesired outcomes. Politicians are not trained
to judge a prospective disaster. For them, it is more a game of
guessing. This could mean evacuations following every earthquake on one
extreme or at the other, no warnings when the threat is real. So better
not to assign the politicians the role of guardian angels. Qualified and
trained professionals must take decisions, of course, in consultation
with the political authorities.

According to reports, the level of ICT use in the warning process was
not optimal. Multiple media such as fixed and mobile phones, SMS, fax
and the Internet can be used more productively. Redundancy improves
reliability. Using Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) enabled media can help
streamline the process and expedite messages. Where message--length
limitations exist, as in SMS, the short message can be used to direct
the recipient to the place where the complete message can be obtained.

Community preparedness also helps the national-level decision makers. If
they know that the community is prepared and capable of responding
quickly and in an orderly manner to an evacuation order, they can delay
the ‘strong measures’ until absolutely necessary. It is when that
confidence is lacking that there is a tendency to issue warnings and
evacuation orders too early. If the general public are subject to too
many false warnings, the general public will not respond even to true
warnings. If this unsavoury outcome is to be avoided it is essential
that the call of the Sri Lanka Minister of Disaster Management for an
immediate review of the September 12th response be taken seriously, not
only in Sri Lanka, but in the entire region. This article is a first
response to the Minister’s call.

(The writer works at LIRNEasia and can be contacted at wattegama@...).