Thursday, 25 December 2014 00:00
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No one was aware and no one was prepared when the first waves of the tsunami struck Sri Lanka’s east coast at 6:40 a.m. on 26 December 2004. The tsunami was not done. It was still roaring and thought it would be much later before it thundered across Sri Lanka’s western coast, even then, no warning message was sent out. As a result, more than 35,000 people lost their lives.
“There was no warning system at all,” recalls retired Maj. Gen. Gamini Hettiarachchi, the former Director General of the National Disaster Management Centre, which was set up with UNDP assistance post-tsunami, as an around-the-clock disaster focal point. “Everyone was taken by surprise.”
Even the Sri Lankan Army, in which Maj. Gen. Hettiarachchi was serving at the time, was caught off guard. Hettiarachchi was ordered to Pasikudah, a small coastal town in the east, only to find that one of his commanding officers had died that morning. “There was,” he says, “pandemonium right round.”
The unfortunate series of events highlighted the critical need of early warning systems. Sri Lanka’s focus switched from disaster response to disaster risk reduction (DRR). Preparedness and community resilience remain key, notes Maj. Gen. Hettiarachchi, and one of the major lessons gleaned from the 2004 tsunami, he says, is the need to simply create public awareness of natural hazards.
At that time, most Sri Lankans had no idea what a tsunami was. Many lost their lives as they went out along the shore to watch the sea receding, instead of moving to higher ground.
As part of its post-tsunami assistance, UNDP supported the establishment of the Coast Conservation Department, which developed the first-ever coastal risk profiles. And it provided training at national, district and community levels to streamline warning, rescue and evacuation systems in the event of a disaster. Now, says Maj. Gen. Hettiarachchi, the use of technology, connections to mass media, strengthened infrastructure, and involvement of the military, are all key elements of Sri Lanka early warning system.
Still, he adds, “we have a tendency to rely and focus solely on technology, but it shouldn’t only be about these systems and mechanisms. Everything depends on the people and their capacity.”
Overall, “one of the main challenges we have faced is informing the public about disasters at night, when most radio and TV stations are closed,” Maj. Gen. Hettiarachchi notes. He has been instrumental in addressing this gap by employing the services of coastal military camps, which are alert day and night. If the situation arises, he says, “Sri Lanka is now one of the very few countries in Asia that has the capability to evacuate the population in advance.”
At the same time, the initiation of a UNDP-supported database to systematically analyze disaster trends and their impacts has resulted in the implementation of more effective prevention and mitigation measures. In turn, lessons learned from the tsunami are being used in other disaster situations across the country. For example, UNDP assisted the government in securing shelter, food and drinking water for 1 million people affected by floods in 2011 alone, including in post-conflict settings.
UNDP has also led the way in creating an innovative toolkit for development partners and UN staff alike. It takes an integrated approach to disaster recovery, ensuring that issues such as conflict sensitivity, gender equality, human rights-based approaches and disaster risk mitigation are an integral part of all recovery projects.
Maj. Gen. Hettiarachchi describes the continued support by UNDP on crisis prevention and recovery in Sri Lanka as: “magnificent and fantastic … a tremendous amount of work.”
“Looking back, I am happy to have been able to steer a dynamic team to build community resilience and help vulnerable communities,” he adds. “We must, however, keep in mind that we are dealing with lives, and our responsibility is high. We must not forget that this is a continuous process and a lot more needs to be done toward building a safer Sri Lanka.” (Source: http://www.asia-pacific.undp.org/)
