Mr Editor,
This is certainly no the time for finger pointing. Even if you wanted,
who would you point to... GOD... But, I guess the point I am going to
make will have its best impacts if told now. The Tsunami disaster in
main land India was mostly avoidable if we had a well oiled disaster
alerting and evacuation plan. The quake hit the Aceh province of
Indonesia at around 6:00AM India time. 3 hours later, the killer waves
hit the Indian Eastern Coast. 2 hours earlier, it had hit the Andaman
coasts. In the worst case, we did have 2 hours to alert and evacuate
the people from beaches. There is no mechanism in India that a common
man know and relies on for such alerts. There is no channel which
enlightened metrologist use to disperse such alerts even if he comes
to know of it well in advance. I know, a few of you can argue that a
creative scientist could have contacted the the AIR and got this
announced... or the police to vacate the beaches in Chennai and other
places... and so on...but disaster time is not the time when people
are their creative best. It is a time to follow a well defined plan.
If plan A fails, then Plan B... then Plan C...
Lets come to the economics of such a plan... The State government and
the center have announced 1 lakh for every person dead. That alone
amounts to 20 crores at the minimum. Plus at least an equal amount in
relief works... Not to mention all the businesses lost... Overall, the
total cost of the Tsunami may run into several thousand crores. Even
if only a portion of that amount was deployed well in advance in a
nation wide disaster recovery plan many of those lives could be saved.
Who knows, one of them could have been as good an entrepreneur as
Dhirubhai Ambani and would have recovered the cost of such a plan in
his life time alone. A concrete disaster alerting plan is like
insurance - you never realise its importance until you need one.
Few suggestions:
1. The disaster recovery plan for India can be networked on the same
lines as any nation wide government owned units - like the Police or
the Post Offices or even the Army. Since the police forces already
have a fine infrastructure to dispatch urgent news, they become the
preferred choice.
2. The job of any body involved in disaster recoveries is a
specialized one. Not only it requires a calm head but also some
technical expertise. There is no use of an elaborate infrastructure
without dedicated trained individuals. So much importance has to be
given to the training and the readiness of the people involved in such
a plan.
3. Long duration of in-operations will definitely lead to a reduced
level of preparedness. Hence regular drills have to be conducted to
keep the people involved on toes.
4. Local broadcasters like radio and cable TV operators must provide
an interface (and authority) to the police (disaster alert units) to
broadcast latest updates instantly. I have witnessed this system in
the USA when hurricane warnings are broadcast (overlaid on every
channels feed) urging people to stay indoors during torrential rain.
There will be very less chance of anybody missing this since it is
overlaid on every channel offerd by the cable operator. This also
gives a very localised customizable messages.
I hope to see some of these implemented before some more people lose
life unnecessarily
Thanks
Prashanth
Posted on : 28th Dec 2004
Posted to : TOI, NIE