Disaster preparedness
Haitians learned it the hard way. On January 12, 2010, an earthquake measuring 7 in the Richter scale struck the Caribbean nation, which, according to UN Human Development Index, is poorer than Nepal. It would be an understatement to say that the small island state of 10 million people was unprepared. In the event, at least 100,000 people were killed; over 500,000 buildings were completely flattened. Even emergency infrastructures were badly hit.
Every single hospital in the capital, Port-au-Prince, was damaged. Air, sea and land transport ground to a halt; and communication systems collapsed. Five years later, much of Haiti still feels like a war-zone, with hundreds of thousands still living in makeshift camps; power and drinking water lines are only partially stored; the flourishing underground economy casts a long shadow over the puny national coffers. Perhaps this was to be expected. Natural disasters have the biggest impact in resource-poor, developing countries. Yet countries like Nepal that are at comparable level of socio-economic development, one would hope, would learn from Haiti. Nepal, lying in one of the most seismologic ally active regions in the world, should have been spooked into action. But so far such urgency has been missing.
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There was no better illustration of our lack of disaster preparedness than the utter chaos witnessed in last few days at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), the land-locked country’s only air link to the outside world. Complete shutdown of this all-important air link for five consecutive days was troubling. If it takes five days to clear an airliner from the runway, in the event of a major earthquake, and the resulting damage to airport infrastructure, TIA could become completely dysfunctional. Since most of the capital’s bridges will be knocked out, air transport might be the only option to get vital food and medicine to affected people. TIA, in that case, will be the nodal point of any disaster response. Yet events that have unfolded there in the last few days do not inspire hope. Period of normalcy, disaster planners say, is the best time to build resiliency. That is easier said than done in a poor country in the middle of a wrenching political transition. As foreign disaster experts working in Haiti have found, it is not difficult to convince people on better preparedness. Much more challenging is the task of aligning the fractious national politics towards common goals.
It is not disaster plans that we lack. Following a detailed study, the Home Ministry in 2013 finalized the National Disaster Response Framework (2013) that offers detailed accounts of exactly what is to be done in emergencies. It lays out guidelines for the amount of fuel that will need to be stocked up, on setting up emergency communication, streamlining foreign aid, even rubble clearance.
To better prepare the country for natural disasters, TIA’s disaster response will be enhanced, it says, and regional airports developed as alternative response hubs. Nothing of the sort has happened. These disaster frameworks will be meaningless if there is no infrastructure to support them, which in turn is contingent on collective political will. Transition or no transition, this is not the time to sit on our haunches. Inaction could prove extremely costly.
