Struggling to bring relief to the survivors

Jan 5th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

As the death toll from the Indian Ocean tsunamis climbs to 150,000, the biggest relief operation in history is starting to reach some of the most isolated areas affected. But aid efforts still lack co-ordination and many thousands more may die from disease, dehydration and hunger
Reuters

Delivering water in Aceh

THE death toll from the giant undersea earthquake that struck near the Indonesian island of Sumatra early on December 26th, sending tsunamis—giant waves up to 10m high—crashing ashore in countries all around the Indian Ocean, continues to rise remorselessly almost two weeks after the disaster. On Wednesday January 5th, the number of people confirmed killed stood at around 150,000. Tens of thousands more—including large numbers of foreign tourists—are still missing, many of them presumed to have been swept out to sea. The United Nations children's fund, UNICEF, estimates that around 50,000 children are among the dead and tens of thousands more have been orphaned. But no one is sure of exact numbers. The UN says the final death toll may never be known.

The area most devastated by the deluge is the Indonesian province of Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra and nearest the quake's epicentre (see map below). The death toll in Indonesia is now put at close to 100,000. Other countries are also upping the number of dead on a daily basis: more than 30,000 are known to have perished in Sri Lanka, over 10,000 in India and 5,000 in Thailand.

Even places where the death toll was relatively low are in dire need of help. The tsunamis killed only 82 people in the Maldives, for example. Yet they washed over the entire archipelago—where the highest ground is little more than a metre above sea level—destroying most buildings and contaminating water supplies. Of the country's 199 inhabited islands, 14 were so badly damaged that their entire populations had to be evacuated.

Thousands, perhaps millions who somehow survived the wall of water that came crashing down on them now face death from disease, dehydration and starvation. The UN’s World Health Organisation says the tsunamis have left up to 5m people without the basics for survival. In Aceh alone, half a million people are thought to be in desperate need of food and water. Illnesses such as diarrhoea are already spreading through the population there. Cases of malaria have also been reported.

What the UN has called the biggest global relief effort in history is now, after a painfully slow start, beginning to make a difference. Hundreds of aid-bearing ships and planes are now in the region. Helicopters from an American aircraft carrier began dropping boxes of food and bottled water around Banda Aceh, the flattened capital of Aceh, on Sunday. By Monday, aircraft carrying aid supplies were landing near the city on a regular basis—though the airport was later closed for a few hours while salvage crews removed a cargo plane from the runway after it hit a water buffalo. In Sri Lanka, in a rare show of unity, the government is working with Tamil Tiger rebels to deliver supplies. A command-and-control centre has been set up at a military air base in Thailand to co-ordinate civil and military aid flights.

Stung by criticism about the “stinginess” of their initial response, governments and international bodies have begun to stump up significant amounts of cash aid for the affected countries. By Wednesday, almost $3 billion had been pledged by the governments of some 40 countries, with Germany alone offering $680m and Japan $500m. On street corners and at train stations around the world, volunteers have been thrusting buckets at passers-by to collect donations. Pop stars are organising concerts and releasing records to raise money for the survivors.

Television stars are putting on special shows. Some celebrities are donating huge amounts in their own right: Michael Schumacher, a Formula One racing driver, has pledged $10m.
World leaders—including the Japanese and Chinese premiers and Colin Powell, America's secretary of state—are to meet in Jakarta on Thursday to talk about ways to make the Asian relief operation more effective. Debt relief will also be on the agenda. Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister), has proposed a moratorium on debt repayments by the countries hit by the disaster.

Meanwhile, relief efforts are a race against time. In Indonesia, as elsewhere in the disaster zone, survivors have expressed their frustration at the authorities' slowness in getting supplies and medical assistance to them. On Monday, there were reports of rioting by angry survivors in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, a few hundred miles north of the quake's epicentre. Aid agencies have criticised a general lack of local-government co-ordination and the restriction of access to some affected areas.

Bad organisation is only part of the problem: the weather is continuing to hamper relief efforts in some areas, too. In Aceh and parts of Sri Lanka, for instance, shipments have been disrupted by tropical rains and further flooding that have engulfed roads and bridges. As a result, some regional airports are brimming with food and medical supplies that cannot be driven to those who need them.

It cost $5 billion to clear up after Hurricane Mitch, which killed 10,000 in Central America in 1998. The UN says this disaster will cost much more—perhaps $14 billion-plus, reckons Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer. Many families will have lost their bread-winners; many more will have lost their homes. The boats and nets of fishermen will have been wrecked, the crops and livestock of farmers devastated. Roads and railways have been washed away; fields and water supplies have become poisoned with salt water. The UN reckons that it could take ten years for the worst-hit areas to rebuild their lost infrastructure.

In need of warning

In the wake of the waves on December 26th, the region's leaders have called for a system to monitor the Indian Ocean for undersea quakes and alert the countries around its rim—like the one that already exists in the Pacific. A senior UN official said that such a system could be put in place by the end of 2005. India has pledged to set up its own tsunami-warning system, whereas Singapore is proposing that all nations in the region contribute towards a common system. The issue will be discussed at the meeting in Jakarta.

The Pacific’s tsunami-warning system began to be set up after a giant wave struck Hawaii in 1946, killing more than 150 people. In recent years, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has installed a network of seven pressure detectors along the Pacific’s bed. These transmit data to buoys on the surface, which in turn relay the information to the NOAA by satellite. On the other side of the ocean, Japan has a chain of 14 tsunami detectors off its coasts.

Tsunamis are fairly common in the Pacific, whereas in the Indian Ocean they occur perhaps once in a century, which is why there have been no serious efforts to create a warning system, until now. More could be done to make use of the world’s existing monitoring systems: for instance, American scientists detected the tremors from the December 26th quake within minutes, but say they had no means of alerting those Asian countries that were about to be hit by the resulting waves.

However, even with the best detection imaginable, it is impossible to give much advance notice, since tsunamis can cross the entire Pacific within 24 hours. Better still would be some way of accurately predicting the time, place and intensity of earthquakes well before they happen. Alas, despite years of intensive research, the best that seismologists can offer is the rough probability that a quake will strike a given region at some time in the next few decades.

One rather low-tech way of reducing the casualty toll from tsunamis is to teach coastal dwellers to recognise the signs that one is imminent—such as strong and prolonged ground shaking—and to flee immediately to higher ground. Shortly after a tsunami hit Papua New Guinea in 1998, killing more than 2,000 people, an international team was sent to Vanuatu, a group of Pacific islands, to teach locals to spot the warning signs. When a tsunami struck the islands soon after, it killed only five people.

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