Emergency Management- the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

Emergency Management- the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

Introduction

The Indian Ocean Tsunami was caused by deep sea earthquake near Northerner Sumatra on date 26 Dec 2004. It resulted to death toll of almost 350,000 and is by far the worst natural disaster of such nature in the human history. Indian Ocean tsunami had two unique characters that make it valuable for study and analysis in the area of disaster management issues in the new millennium (Rodriguez et al, 2006). Firstly, it is considered as world first actual global disaster. Secondly, the response process toward the disaster has been one of the global ways that is rare to note where millions aided. In other donor nations such as the USA, UK, Italy and Germany private donations exceeded the size of government aid assistant (Billon & Waizenegger, 2007).

On the case of geographical spread of the hazard, it was noted to have made large logistic challenges for the international institutions as well as aid agencies. In addition, this rekindled the global interests in setting up global disaster management and monitoring systems and other initiatives to achieve increased public awareness on calamities of such nature at regional and international level (Rodriguez et al, 2006).

Overview

On 26 Dec at around 8 am local times, an earthquake that measured 9.0 on Richter scale stimulated at almost 30 Km off the west coast of Sumatra. This was part of extreme end of the “Ring of Fire” (an area with frequent volcano eruption surrounding the Pacific Region which account for almost 80 percent of the world largest earthquakes). This earthquake was fifth largest disaster to happen and largest after an earthquake that occurred in Prince William Sound in Alaska in the year 1964. The tsunami split a propos 8 minutes after the ecstasy, where energy pulses were sent east toward the Sumatra coast and west crossways the open seas in Bay of Bengal with speed of 800 Km per hour. The eastside moving waves moved faster hence pulling the water away from the shores (Billon & Waizenegger, 2007). The Westside long distance tsunami was created first. In deed, the height of the tsunami wave enlarged reaching 24.4 meters at 28^th minute when the wave approached the shallow waters of Aceh Province of Sumatra. On the other hand, the long distance tsunami waves enlarged the arc while it approached the west where it affected the coastal areas of Myanmar, Malaysia, India, Somali, Thailand, Kenya, Tanzania and Sri Lanka (Rodriguez et al, 2006).

The Aceh province is land mass closer to the east of the epicenter of the earthquake, had to stand the packed force. Sri Lanka region was next worst affected area since there existed no landmass in it and the epicenter that could have cushioned the coastlines in the north region, south and the east. The fault-line of the earthquake was oriented in the north-south. Hence, the greater strength of the tsunami was in the east-west direction (Billon & Waizenegger, 2007). This reaches the explanation to why Bangladesh which is located in the northern end of the Bengal Bay had much causality despite the fact that it is a low lying country. It is demolished by cyclones. As well, Somali was hit harder when compared with Bangladesh despite the fact that it is far from the epicenter.

In addition, the physical oceanography of Indian Ocean may have played a big role in determination of the severity level of the tsunami waves. By December, the North East Monsoon of Indian Ocean had jet propagated along the equator from Sumatra slightly to Somali and to Sri Lanka. This may be another reason to why the impacts of these waves were more severe in Sri Lanka and effect in Somali (as well as in Tanzania and Kenya) was unbalanced to the long distance from the epicenter (Synolakis & Kong, 2006).

This tragedy was first and foremost to have impacted human beings. The disaster was referred to as one of the largest natural disaster. The macroeconomic impact on India, Indonesia and Thailand was expected to be less severe in terms of death toll. Despite the tragedy, the effect to the region GDP growth rate in the year 2005 was expected to be modest. Conversely, with the virtue of economy size, the medium and immediate terms impact to the economy growth was proportionate greater in Maldives and Sri Lanka more than in Thailand, India and Indonesia. The region financial market was able to remain “strangely serene” (Billon & Waizenegger, 2007).

Indonesia is located in the “Ring of Fire” and it has the largest number of active volcanoes in the entire world. Almost 10 percent of world most recorded seismic activities have occurred within Indonesian Archipelago. There are many Volcanoes in the state where according to history more than 76 have been active. Majority of the volcanoes are located in areas such as Java, Sumantra and Lesser Sunda Islands. Japan and Indonesia account for almost third of well known eruptions in the world but Indonesia has faced highest fatalities, mudflows, domes, tsunamis, damage to the arable land and pyroclastic flows (Rodriguez et al, 2006).

The climate and contour of Indonesia Archipelago has the heist chances of causing other deadly natural calamities such as Flood, drought and cyclone. According to statistics by World Health Organization, for a period of 1907 to 2004, there were almost 312 events of deadly natural calamities in Indonesia which means that there is average of 3 disasters in every year. The Indonesia Emergency Relief Coordination Agency has maintained that between 1997 and 2004, there were almost 796 cases related with natural disasters (Billon & Waizenegger, 2007). The events have almost resulted to death tool of 37 thousands where other 460 thousand are refugees and 68 thousand houses were destroyed. The average death tool for the tsunami amount to 960 in comparison to 140 related with earthquakes and 37 in relation to cyclones (Telford & Cosgrave, 2007).

People in North Sumatra and Aceh and other regions in Indonesia were able to feel the shakes that were as a result of massive eruption. By March 2005, the death tool resulting from the tsunami had hit 167 thousand whereas 128 thousand were missing and displaced individuals were 648 thousand (Telford & Cosgrave, 2007). In connection to the number of people who died and missed after the catastrophe, the city of Banda Aceh had suffered most followed by the Aceh Jay and Aceh Barat districts. In relation to the population most impacted, the district of Aceh Barat was most affected followed by city of Banda Aceh, Aceh Jaya and Aceh Besar. The impact of this earthquake and tsunami was concentrated in the four districts (Suppasri, Koshimura & Imamura, 2011).

Among the Indonesia province, Aceh was the hardest impacted by the Indian Ocean Tsunami which was caused by the massive seaquake which were almost 100 miles off west of northern Sumatra where it is located (Telford & Cosgrave, 2007). Hence, by then there were no practical warnings with less preparedness to respond since Sumatrans had not accounted the fact that tsunami was a major catastrophe in comparison to the frequent tidal surges, tropical cyclones and earthquakes (Rodriguez et al, 2006). In the province only, 200,000 people died, 550,000 were left homeless and 22 percent of the country infrastructure was damaged which included government offices located within the coastal regions. Bridges and roads along the Aceh west coast were fully washed away while private live hoods such as trade, fisheries and farming were destroyed. In fact, the cities of Calang and Meulaboh were washed away and the provincial capital of Banda Aceh remained in ruins (Dominey-Howes & Papathoma, 2007).

Mitigating Factors

The NATO C2 Conceptual Model that was developed by SAS 020 described the C2 approach space in connection two three feature measurements:

Allocation of Decision Rights which describe the manner in which the decision rights are to be allocated all over the enterprise: unitary where the person at the top makes decision and peer to peer actor within the operation level who have to decide the scope of responsibilities and operational levels (Telford & Cosgrave, 2007).

Patterns of Interaction which describe the manner in which authorities have to interact in the enterprise, among enterprise as well as other external enterprise that reflect on organizational challenges such as hierarchical organizations (Rodriguez et al, 2006)

Information dissemination that define the manner in which information flows are disseminated in the enterprise

Immediate Relief

By then, there was no immediate structured C2 during the relief phase while communication infrastructure was being wiped out, government offices were destroyed and civil servants and personnel died. Conversely, with the self-organized responses by the local people and local NGOs was quite collaborative which indicated responsiveness and adaptability in many ways (Telford & Cosgrave, 2007).

Allocation of Decision Rights

With the loss of civil servants and destruction of communication lines, there existed no official authorities for making decisions. Instead, decision rights used to be allocated locally with coordination of neighborhood rescues and relief efforts on aspect of private initiatives and use of face to face communication (Rodriguez et al, 2006).

Patterns of Interaction

By then, interactions were local since transportation and communication infrastructures were destroyed. In fact, the pattern of interaction in this case may be considered as local self-synchronized on basis of voice communication.

Information Dissemination

In the area, information dissemination was somehow restricted within local levels and was quite slow due to destruction of information infrastructure.

Follow-on Relief

The phase of follow-on relief with C2 approach was heterogeneous where the maturity was ranging on de-conflicted and coordinated military response operation and on conflicted to the lesser degree-conflicted for the non-military humanitarian society. The low maturity was as a result of insufficient information dissemination, failure to have emerging interactions and no will to many organizations that took part in coordinating efforts (Telford & Cosgrave, 2007).

With the process to involve Indonesia military, the decision rights were able to remain more institutionalized and coordinated. Foreign military were allowed to provide and deliver assistance with specified areas of responsibilities (Rodriguez et al, 2006). With the established operational process within the military communities, the respective agreement worked easily. Since the INGOs were not considered as trustworthy by the Indonesia Military they were totally eliminated. Attempts by the UN on coordinating the overall activities for the organization via negotiations on allocation of decision right were challenged due to the competing objectives (Rodriguez et al, 2006).

On the other hand, interactions between international and national militaries were arranged ad hoc in a well cooperated mode. Civil and military officers were able to set crucial operations with coordination connection among the civilian humanitarian community and the nation offered military assets to the international military. Communication within the Indonesia and international militaries was well (Telford & Cosgrave, 2007).

Conclusion

Finally, with this argument it is evident that such trends of living in the location will continue since there have been numerous disaster in the area. This location is a potential region that may keep on experiencing the same catastrophe of seaquakes and tsunamis. In fact, as an individual living in the area it is advisable to move out of the place and go to safer and familiar places. Due to the large death tolls that have been experienced in the area, the population of the country is decreasing.

References:

Billon, P. L., & Waizenegger, A. (2007). Peace in the wake of disaster? Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(3), 411-427.

Dominey-Howes, D., & Papathoma, M. (2007). Validating a tsunami vulnerability assessment model (the PTVA Model) using field data from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Natural Hazards, 40(1), 113-136.

Rodriguez, H., Wachtendorf, T., Kendra, J., & Trainor, J. (2006). A snapshot of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: societal impacts and consequences. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 15(1), 163-177.

Suppasri, A., Koshimura, S., & Imamura, F. (2011). Developing tsunami fragility curves based on the satellite remote sensing and the numerical modeling of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 11(1), 173.

Synolakis, C. E., & Kong, L. (2006). Runup measurements of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Earthquake Spectra, 22(S3), 67-91.

Telford, J., & Cosgrave, J. (2007). The international humanitarian system and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis. Disasters, 31(1), 1-28.