Asia: Disasters underline urgent need for more groundwork

This week’s disasters in Asia underscore the need for greater disaster preparedness, experts say; while countries are making progress, there are still gaps to be filled.

At least 1,100 people have been killed, with thousands more feared dead, in Indonesia after earthquakes struck off Western Sumatra and the city of Padang on 30 September.

On 29 September, the Pacific islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga were battered by a tsunami after an earthquake struck, leaving at least 136 dead.

And just days before, tropical storm Ketsana tore through the Philippines, killing at least 292 people and affecting another three million.

The Philippines is now bracing for Typhoon Parma.

Terje Skavdal, head of the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bangkok, said there was growing recognition that disaster preparedness is key.

“Thirty years ago, almost none of the Asian countries had a clear, defined disaster management authority in place. Today, nearly all countries in Asia have that. We do see that a number of nations have made a lot of investment in improving their preparedness,” Skavdal told IRIN.

“A lot of these countries now have more and more experience in also taking early action to mitigate some of the possible impacts of disasters,” he added.

Tsunami lessons

Bhichit Rattakul, executive director of the Bangkok-based Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), said the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 220,000 in Asia and Africa, was an important milestone in jogging regional governments into action.

“It’s very much different from what happened before 2004, in terms of budgets, human resources, capacity-building and national and local community participation,” Bhichit told IRIN.
However, Skavdal and other experts noted that there were still gaps in disaster preparedness.

“There are a lot of gaps. There are gaps related to early warnings - that early warnings are, for example, translated into a language people understand, and reach out to each and every creek and corner,” he said.

“Early warnings also need somehow to be balanced with resources for people to evacuate, for example, and in some places we see there are little resources for that,” he said.

Coordination gaps

Other gaps include weakness in coordination and communication systems between national and provincial levels in countries in times of disaster, and a need to “think more out of the box” as disasters become more unpredictable, he said.

“We need to maybe have a more multi-hazard approach to look closer into new and unexpected events, especially now with climate change, where we do see more frequent, more severe, but also more unprecedented disasters,” he said.

The ADPC works with governments in the region on a number of disaster preparedness and mitigation projects, and Bhitchit underlined the importance of educating local communities and raising their awareness to prepare for and respond to disasters.

“There is a need to mainstream disaster risk reduction into all components of development projects in each country,” said Bhichit.

“It’s not only education in schools … but also other sectors like road construction and agriculture, because this is related to food production and security,” he said.

A disaster hotspot

Officials say Asia Pacific is the world’s disaster hotspot - a person living in this region is four times more likely to be affected by natural disasters than someone in Africa, and 25 times more likely than someone in Europe or North America, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

“Our region experienced 42 percent of the world’s natural disasters between 1999 and 2008,” said Noeleen Heyzer, UN Under-Secretary General and ESCAP Executive Secretary.

“Studies have shown that for every dollar invested in risks associated with disaster, $4-$7 can be saved. Investing in disaster risk reduction and prevention measures is not only a moral imperative, it is financially smart,” she said in a statement on 1 October.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", the edge of a tectonic plate prone to seismic upheaval, while the Philippines is particularly typhoon-prone.

West Sumatra, especially the city of Padang, has been recognized as being on the frontline in terms of disasters, and has invested substantially in disaster preparedness.

“Basically, all the natural disasters you can think of can be found in these countries,” said Skavdal.

Key pact

Spurred on by the 2004 tsunami, the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have ratified a regional, legally binding disaster pact, which will come into force by December.

The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) promotes regional collaboration and cooperation in reducing disaster losses and strengthening joint emergency responses.

The agreements allows for disaster risk identification, monitoring and early warning, prevention and mitigation, preparedness and response, and technical cooperation and research.

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