In an interview on CNN on 2. January, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Colorado was asked the question on everyone’s mind: Why was no warning issued to the countries that were hit by a tsunami after NOAA detected the strong earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra on 26. December? He responded that first of all, there was no warning system in place, there was nobody in those countries to receive the message. Second, NOAA did not have a precise model of the tsunami and could not have known how many need to evacuate.
It does not take an expensive warning system to suspect that this magnitude 9 earthquake under the sea might be followed by a tsunami, and that thousands of people’s lives along the densely populated coast lines facing the epicenter could be in danger. A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in Lituya Bay off the Alaskan coast in 1958 generated a wave sweeping up to 516 meters altitude, washing trees off mountain slopes, fortunately in an unpopulated area. True, not every earthquake under the ocean generates a tsunami, but the precautionary principle tells us to prepare for the worst in case of uncertainty.
Even if the job description of the scientists who detected the earthquake did not include warning those whose lives were in danger, it was their moral responsibility to do so. They may not have had phone numbers of government agencies in charge in the affected countries. But if they had informed anyone who could pass on the warning, even at night, including friends and relatives, they may have been able to reach some people in the affected areas who could have forwarded the information to others. If someone called ten others, and those in turn each called ten more, and so on, a billion people could be reached in principle in only nine steps. Even if some fail to pass on the warning, others will.
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People without telephone can be warned by neighbors. Radio broadcasts and internet messages will also be picked up by some, who can inform others in person and by phone. Helicopters could have beamed warnings by megaphone along the endangered shorelines.
Why nothing of that sort was done is incomprehensible.
The US State Department could have contacted its foreign embassies in the region, and governments directly. Some governments did have information, but failed to act on it, fearing its adverse effect on tourism. It took the tsunami 3 hours and 52 minutes to reach Sri Lanka, less for Thailand, but plenty of time for a warning. There is enough blame to be shared.
It is not necessary to know precisely what areas are in danger and need to be evacuated. What mistake is more serious: going to higher ground when in retrospect it may turn out unnecessary, or to stay and drown?
For the people on the West Coast of Sumatra, time for a warning was short, only about 20 minutes for Banda Aceh, one of the most affected areas. Moreover, some phone lines were destroyed. But people should have been educated that strong earthquakes are often followed by destructive waves. Those who were not seriously injured by the quake itself could have reached safer ground.
Ignorance can kill, and education can save lives. A good example is oral rehydration. A table spoon of sugar and a tea spoon of salt mixed with a liter of boiled water given teaspoon by teaspoon to victims of acute diarrhea from cholera or typhus can save them from death by dehydration. Before that simple therapy was widely known, 30-40 percent of cholera patients used to die. In the 1991 cholera epidemic in Peru, where people knew that therapy, less than 1 percent of the infected people died.
It is welcome that many governments and individuals have made available over $1 billion for the rescue effort. But that still represents only 1/10 of 1 percent of the world’s annual military budget. Much more will be needed, and can be made available before more lives are lost to thirst, hunger, injuries and disease.
In this enormous tsunami disaster, over 155,000 people are already known to have died, tens of thousands are missing, and many more could die from diseases caused by contaminated drinking water. This immense suffering, which has been covered widely by the media, has for once vividly shown the magnitude of the structural violence that goes on unreported: an estimated 125,000 people per day, or 45 million per year, mostly children and the elderly, die needlessly from hunger and preventable diseases in our world of plenty. What consumers in the West spend for icecream, cosmetics and pet food would suffice to cover adequate nutrition and health care for all the people in the world who now lack it!
Let us redouble our efforts to end this horrible injustice.
Dietrich Fischer <fischer@epu.ac.at> is Academic Director of European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria, and Co-director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network.
© TFF and the author 2005
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