Islands Business - We Say: DISASTER MANAGEMENT NOT ACCORDED TOP PRIORITY

‘Political leadership in the Pacific Islands has consistently failed to accord disaster preparedness and management the importance it deserves, betraying such apathy towards the well-being of their citizens which can only be termed as callous’

Despite their extreme vulnerability to natural disasters and the fact of their being geographically far removed from centres that are equipped to offer help, political leadership in the Pacific Islands has consistently failed to accord disaster preparedness and management the importance it deserves, betraying such apathy towards the well-being of their citizens, which can only be termed as callous.

Costly exercise... the Solomons’ tsunami has cost the government and its people with bills in excess of S$57 million to deal with the aftermath and an estimated S$300 million—or nearly 30 percent of the country’s budget—for reconstruction.

At a recent summit of Regional Disaster Managers in the Marshall Islands, officials involved in disaster prevention, management and mitigation throughout the Pacific Islands were nearly unanimous in their opinion that for many of their governments, setting aside funds for putting in place strategies and measures to prevent disasters and to deal with them when they are eventually hit were accorded low priority.

With such poor prioritisation of the disaster management system from the very powers that are responsible for governing countries, it is not surprising that officials charged with running the system are frustrated, unmotivated and ultimately completely helpless when disaster strikes.

Wanton loss of life, limb and property could easily be prevented with some investment in funds for forming a strategy and a minimal infrastructure and the requisite human capacity for implementing it, especially within outlying, vulnerable islands where critical help may take days to reach because of logistic challenges due of their remoteness.

Since the Boxing Day Tsunami, international agencies have stepped up geophysical surveillance and toned up the communication systems across the region. The April Tsunami that struck the Solomon Islands is a case in point. Alerts from as far away as Japan had been issued to the Solomon Islands authorities by the Japan Meteorological Agency soon after the offshore temblor of magnitude eight on the Richter scale was detected.

Though the response to the tsunami when it hit was fairly quick both from the Solomon Islands government and international agencies, as well as neighbouring countries, any meaningful action took days to organise simply because of the lack of preparedness on the part of the government and its agencies, as well as the lack of trained hands close to the scene of the disaster.

To begin with, the Solomons Government has repeatedly failed to see wisdom in allocating funds for disaster prevention programmes, even saying scarce funds would be better employed for other purposes. That attitude has cost it and its people dearly with bills in excess of S$57 million to deal with the aftermath and an estimated S$300 million—or nearly 30 percent of the country’s budget—for reconstruction. Even months after the disaster, hundreds of affected families continue to live in temporary shelters while the government tries to scrape together funds for permanent structures.

In the absence of a National Action Plan to deal with disasters, individual groups and NGOs in the outlying islands reacted to the disaster in their own practicable ways which were not necessarily best practice in the circumstances. This came in the way of a uniform and coordinated response for dealing with the aftermath of the disaster resulting in delays and preventable loss of property.

Boats with critical supplies did not leave Honiara for some of the outer affected islands until three days after the disaster struck. Some remote islands had to wait several days more before receiving life saving supplies. But according to Solomon Islands officials who spoke at the Majuro summit, the April Tsunami was a ‘blessing in disguise’ because it has not just made the government prioritise work on a National Action Plan but has also encouraged affected populations to pressurise it into taking meaningful action.

It is unfortunate that it takes a disaster of such proportions before the government can appreciate the importance of putting in place measures to prevent it. It also speaks poorly of successive governments in the Solomon Islands—and indeed elsewhere—that they are yet to come up with a practicable National Action Plan to prevent and deal with disasters given the fact that tsunamis of varying intensities have struck the islands at intervals of just over four years in the last seven decades. Three of these caused loss of life (with the April event costing over 50 lives) and six took a heavy toll on property.

With the notable exception of Vanuatu, other islands nations are yet to come up with a National Action Plan. The Majuro summit has recommended this as the cornerstone of a disaster management strategy for the region and urged a regional organisation like SOPAC to lead the way in helping the islands put together a strategy.

But none of this will be possible without financial investment on the part of individual governments. It is not enough to just have a National Action Plan. What is critical is to build the infrastructure to make it workable and even more important to generate the requisite capacity to deal with situations throughout the scattered islands, very importantly in the more remote and isolated areas where help can take days to arrive.

With scientific advances that can predict and warn of disasters even before or as they strike, governments have no excuse whatsoever not to have an action plan to prevent them and put in place measures for mitigation. They have so far failed their people miserably by relegating their livelihoods, their meager wealth and their very lives to a considerable risk. Continuing on this road to neglect will not only prove many times more expensive but even sound the death knell for many unfortunate communities—all for the want of a few hundred thousand dollars.