Dear Philip and participants,

Lfe is cheap in the eyes of the people who are
assigned the task of disaster management. In India
which provides the scientic brain for USA, three hours
elapsed and no warning could be iddued which would
have helped thousands of lives. To cover it up a false
warning was givenwhich obstructed relief work and it
was a cruel joke. The Development Commissioner of
Andamans was holidaying in Delhi days after the
catastrophe Are they noty accountable to the
taxpayers. UNISDR gives SAKASAWA awards to such
bureacrats.
The indigenous knowledge of people living with
disasters should worked on for providing warnings,
educatin and long term measures.
Prof Durgadas Mukhopadhyay






from camp Kanyakumari, Tamilnadu,India
--- philip buckle <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Ben's  comments and those that have preceded him in
> this debate are interesting and there can be little
> doubt that an improved early warning system would
> have reduced the loss of lives and the great number
> of injuries. Whether it would have reduced property
> and asset losses, damage to livelihoods and damage
> to cultural assets and social networks is much less
> clear.
>
> I take Ben's point and agree with it that the poor,
> the marginalised and the vulnerable have fewer
> options than the wealthy and their need to stay to
> protect assets that are vital to survival may
> overwhelm their impetus for self-protection.
>
> There is evidence from Australia and elsewhere of
> people, usually homeowners, choosing to put
> themselves in the paths of wildfires to protect
> their homes. If they are prepared this can be a
> successful strategy. Though sometimes it is not. But
> it illustrates that responding to warnings, alerts
> and orders to evacuate is much more than expecting
> and achieving an automatic and immediate evacuation.
>
>
> Warnings and evacuation have to be seen in the
> context of individual and social behaviour. Many
> warning and evacuation systems have foundered on
> these issues. Where warnings are infrequent people
> rely upon local knowledge and information from
> familiar and trusted sources, often not governments
> and scientists. Where warnings are acknowledged
> people often require the evidence of their own eyes.
>
> Much disaster management planning is based on
> unrealistic assessments of how people actually do
> behave in disasters. Obedience to authority,
> rational (as defined by disaster managers)
> behaviour, acceptance and understanding of
> information - there is much evidence that at the
> critical moment people may not, often do not, behave
> as they are planned and expected to.
>
> This is not an argument against warning systems but
> an argument that they need to be based in the
> experience, culture and imperatives of the people
> and communities at risk. It is an argument too that
> warning systems are much more than the technology of
> conveying information about the progress of the
> hazard agent.
>
> For myself one of the most moving and memorable
> images of  this disaster has been of the mother
> running towards the wave to get to her children.
>
> Philip
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Ben Wisner
>   To: [log in to unmask]
>   Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 11:25 PM
>   Subject: Re: What went wrong with Early Warning?
>
>
>   I am grateful to Ilan, David, and James for the
> resources they have provided and their insights.  To
> be sure, there are a lot of questions one has to ask
> about early warning.  From what I've been able to
> piece together, various authorities did, in fact,
> receive partial data and various forms of warning.
> These countries are not integrated into the tsunami
> warning system that has been developed since 1965
> for the Pacific basin.  However, there are press
> reports (news papers in Sweden and UK) that the Thai
> authorities received some data suggesting the
> possibility of a tsunami but for some reason did not
> issue a warning.  These anecdotal accounts will have
> to be confirmed, of course.  My point is that even
> if the high end technology and communications for
> tsunami warning were made available in all the
> potentially affected ocean basins, there will still
> be the question of how the data gets interpreted and
> communicated, and, of course, how it is received and
> understood and acted upon (or not) at the local
> level.
>   The discourse on warning so far in various forums
> has focused on technology and geophysical
> technicalities -- satellites and ocean tide
> measuring buoys, earthquake depths, text messaging
> of warning to localities where many people have cell
> phones, etc.  Such discussion is important, but we
> also need to consider this whole process from the
> bottom up as well.  Political and economic
> marginalization may be polarizing the large number
> of human beings who live -- in increasing numbers --
> in coastal zones.  The impoverished villagers who
> continue to move to tourist centers and export
> enclaves in coastal areas may feel they have good
> reasons for not trusting authorities and, if they
> are illegal immigrants such as the Burmese workers
> in coastal Thailand, good reasons for avoiding
> authorities.  At the extreme, political marginality
> takes the form of violent conflict and insurgency as
> on the island of Aceh or simmering civil conflict as
> in coastal Somalia.  Under such circumstances,
> necessary trust between warning-giver and recipient
> may not exist.
>
>   Economic marginality may mean that an increasing
> proportion of people who work for minimal wages in
> the tourist sectors or export manufacturing
> industries may not be able to afford batteries for
> their radios or pre-paid cards for their cell phone
> -- even if they own such an appliance.  They may
> have few options if they learn of a evacuation
> order.  They may prefer not to believe it in order
> to stay and protect their meagre possessions.  A
> fisherman whose livelihood is dependent on his boat
> may behave the same way.
>
>   So, in addition to discussion of the hard ware and
> data sides of early warning, we have to concern
> ourselves with conflict management and peace-making
> and with raising incomes among the masses who
> inhabit many of these dangerous coastal regions.
> Micro-insurance for tools, sewing machines, and
> fishing boats, etc. might go a long way to provide
> peace of mind to people who might not otherwise
> chose to evacuate.
>
>   These and other aspects of the tsunami are
> presently under discussion in an International
> Student Forum on the WCDR I've been administering
> since 2 December.  It will continue through February
> as a way of giving students and others a voice in
> the Kobe conference.  I invite you all to visit the
> forum and to participate (as it is certainly not
> only for students): http://132.162.64.84/forum/ or
> by clicking on a link from the RADIX website
> (online.northumbria.ac.uk/geography_research/radix
> ).
>
>   BEN
>
>   Dr. Ben Wisner ([log in to unmask] )
>
>   David Crichton wrote:
>
>     Ilan's email raises some excellent points. He
> asks if a warning system would be warranted for the
> Atlantic Ocean?  The answer is definitely "yes".
> Professor Bill McGuire of the Benfield Hazard
> Research Centre has been arguing for this for some
> years, in the light of the imminent, in geological
> terms, collapse of the La Palma volcano in the
> Canaries.  He points out that a future eruption
> could result in tsunamis more than 300 feet high,
> travelling at over 500 mph and still at least 60
> feet high by the time they hit the east coast of the
> USA.Ilan is right to point out the hazards from the
> Storegga slide in the North Sea - the last time it
> slipped, the trunami which hit the East coast of the
> UK left sea shells 50 m above sea level and five
> miles inland.  The next slide is again geologically
> imminent (especially perhaps as the Norwegians are
> currently "poking it with big sticks" as part of
> their oil exploration programme.)As far as warning
> systems are concerned, will the relevant governments
> or public pay any attention to warnings issued?  A
> good example was the classic case of the city of
> Grafton in Australia.  In March 2001, the citizens
> were ordered to evacuate due to the flood hazard,
> but instead most stayed put or went down to the
> river to watch the water rising. In the UK press
> today there is a report of how the Pacific Tsunami
> Warning Centre in Hawaii tried desperately to warn
> governments in SE Asia, but because it was Christmas
> the people they needed just were not in their
> offices. Regards, David From Professor David
> Crichton, 1 Quarryknowe Crescent, Inchture, PH14 9RH
> Scotland
>     Tel. +44 (0)1828 686493
>     If you have received this in error, please let
> me know.
>     I use the latest firewall and virus checking
> software, but you should not rely on this, or on any
> advice contained in this email or its attachments.
>       ----- Original Message -----
>       From:Ilan Kelman
>       To: [log in to unmask]
>       Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 9:47 AM
>       Subject: Re: What went wrong with Early
> Warning?
>        We should not only analyse what went wrong
> with early warning, but also what
>       went wrong with many donor governments around
> the world being shockingly
>       slow to react.  Meanwhile, we should be asking
> questions about other tsunami
>       warning systems:
>       1. Those in the Pacific Ocean are confident
> that their system works.
>
=== message truncated ===




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