Dear RADIX’ers,

Here is a chain of reflections on typhoon Haiyan.  I have put it together, with permission, from emails that have come to me personally, ones that were posted on other list servers, and my own thoughts from my various Facebook comments (feel free to ‘friend’ me if you are young in heart and go in for things like Facebook; a large proportion of my ‘friends’ work on disasters, environmental issues, climate change adaptation, public health and human security and livelihoods.)

The chain begins with two comments from friends in Philippines that came after my own longer comment, which you find as number 3. After my statement is the original question that came from a colleague, one of the partners of the Global Network of Civil Society for Disaster Reduction (GNDR) who lives in Nigeria, and finally, the original message from GNDR’s director to GNDR members about the situation in post-Haiyan Philippines.

I hope in the context of the break down of the climate talks in Warsaw (COP 19) and the cyclone that ravaged Sardinia a few days ago, we have to ask whether there is ANY shred of credibility left that can be associated with the international institutions and governments who are dominant in formulation of HFA2. Japan will host the UNISDR’s Global Platform 2015 in Sendai, where HFA2 will be launched. Japan also just announced in Warsaw that it is withdrawing his promised green house gas reduction target!

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No. 1: Mel Luna, University of the Philippines

Dear Ben,

First, thank you for your concern and sympathy with what happened to the Philippine islands affected by Haiyan. It is comforting reading your message.

This is the first time that the Philippines experienced typhoon of this magnitude. The people have been used to typhoons but they never anticipated or visualized the meaning of a level 5 typhoon, relying on their previous experiences of up to knee level flood only. Many, indeed went to declared evacuation centers such as churches and schools. But these evacuations centers were also destroyed by the strong wind and sea surge. Tacloban is a flatland and its upper section is almost surrounded by the sea. The people simply have no where to go when the unexpected 3-6 meter sea surge engulfed their residences and evacuation centers. It is true, the whole city must have been evacuated before Haiyan came, but it was not the scenario envisioned as this was beyond their expectations. It is a lesson for us.

However, the slow response at the early stages can be best understood by the fact that the front line workers themselves were affected. Even the media people who were covering the typhoon were affected. Due to the breakdown of the communication line, the news that came out a day after the Haiyan made the landfall   was only 3 people died. It was only after two or three days that the whole nation became aware of the magnitude of the disaster impact, and not just 3 people dying out of it. When the real situation became more clear to us in non-affected areas, the volunteerism and bayanihan (helping each other) efforts surfaced sponstaneously. The response became swifter in the following days.Even as my tears flow right now as I write this, I am still very proud of my countrymen, women and children who faced all these, who endured the kind of disaster using their inherent capacities. They cried, of course, who will not ? They asked for food, of course who will not beg for food when nothing was eaten for more that 48 hours? The life support system was fully destroyed, and many asked that they be moved out of the place. The families have experienced deaths but they continue to have hope and thanked the people, organizations and the international community who helped. After all these, we believe that we will be able to rise up. 

Our resources, programs, and action researches in the University are being re-channeled towards response and recovery  of communities. The same thing is done in many  organizations and agencies.The disaster that we face today will make us more strong and we will stand up as a nation, more united and committed to serving the most vulnerable.

Thanks again and best regards too.

Mel Luna
University of the Philippines

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No. 2  Mayfourth Luneta, Center for Disaster Preparedness Foundation, Philippines

Truly it is sad to see what has happened to our fellow Filipinos.  Yes we have a new law that addresses the issue of disaster risk reduction  in the Philippines. Yes we have lots of good practices throughout the Philippines.... however I think it is not enough.  Some local governments are already implementing RA 10121, our new law, but not all are implementing this. That is why the CSos and NGOs are continuously advocating to the local governments and stakeholders to do strict implementation of this law. As for the good practices, most of the good practices are about preparedness. While preparedness is definitely very important and should be a priority of our communities, I think economic mitigation and structural mitigation at the community level, should also be given ample emphasis to really address vulnerability reduction---( I think those are what we need  and lack here in the Philippines).  poverty issues should be addressed.

to cope with the very strong hazards and issues of vulnerability we should take quadruple steps in risk reduction. 

we will not loose hope. we choose to continue to do what is good and continue to influence other  to do the same. 

May God bless our efforts.

Mayfourth D. Luneta
Deputy Executive Director
Training and Capacity Development Program
Center for Disaster Preparedness Foundation, Inc.

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No. 3:  Ben’s Sociological, Political Ecological and Cosmological Overview
(This preceded Nos. 1 & 2)

Dear Peter and all GNDR colleagues and also Filipino friends,

You raise some very good question, Peter.  I will return to your very biggest question about the fate of the planet at the end.  Let me begin with typhoon Haiyan, the people who have suffered for whom our hearts break and the people who are striking to help bring comfort, necessities of life and understanding such as many of our GNDR colleagues in The Philippines.

Over many years disaster risk reduction (DRR) has developed in The Philippines so that the standard of professionalism is high and DRR workers are respected by the public and government officials.  In fact, some innovations that we take for granted such as community based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) was invented in The Philippines.  There are good laws that insist on community participation with local government in planning generally and in DRR in particular.  Funding and responsibility for DRR has been decentralised.

There is a lot to praise and to learn from.  Yet The Philippines is a large country spread over some 7,000 islands.  There is bound to be unevenness in the way local government implements these good practices.  In particular, I have to ask the following.

At the beginning of each typhoon season does local government convene meetings to prepare that involve all stakeholders?  Do the ensure that relief supplies including food, spare parts for water systems, etc. are pre-positioned on each island and close enough to coastal zones of highest risk that these supplies are accessible even with disruption of transportation?  Did the affected localities in the nine regions affected by typhoon Haiyan undertake these preparations and precautions?

Did the affected local governments spend 70% of the money allocated to them every year for disasters on preparedness and risk reduction?  Legislation a few years ago made this a requirement.  Five percent of the annual budget of each local government unit is supposed to be allocated to a disaster fund.  Of this, the lion’s share – seventy percent – is should go for preparedness BEFORE a disaster.

Having read accounts in the media that some people ‘refused’ to evacuate when they got the warning from the authorities, I have to ask whether these people had anywhere to go and the means of getting there.  One has to remember that 300,000 people did not evacuate when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.  These were the people with no vehicles or access to other transport.  

Despite the wind force and the size of the storm surge, not all structures collapsed.  However, it seems some public buildings including schools did.  Since the UNISDR’s world wide campaign on safe schools has been going on continuously for sever years with a lot of official support by the government of The Philippines, I have to ask why any school was not retrofitted, strengthened or newly built with design, materials and construction that will survive earthquake, strong wind and storm surge.  The same could be asked of health facilities and, indeed, safe cities.  The UNISDR’s campaign, ‘My City is Safe’ is also well established with Philippine government participation. What has been the concrete outcome?

My asking these questions does not diminish my compassion or those who died, were injured, lost loved ones and friends, and whose lives were turned upside down.  My wanting to know about implementation of Philippine law and procedures that local government units should follow does not reduce my admiration for government and non-government first responders and volunteers who are working as hard as they can to safe lives and help normalise life for the 11 million affected people.

Finally, you wonder about the evolution of the Earth and us humans on it, Peter.  Don’t we all wonder!  Life in what seems a largely empty, inorganic universe is a miracle.  The Earth congealed over millions of years from star dust, as did the other planets in our solar system.  The history of the solar system is of planets crashing into each other, our own moon being ripped from the body of the earth and thrown into orbit by one of these collisions.  And slowly the earth cooled, an atmosphere developed and was held in place.  

Water vapour fell as rain and filled the seas.  Eventually oxygen, nitrogen and traces of other gases achieved their current balance.  One celled and more complex life formed.  And, as you say, eventually here we are!  What a miracle!  Yet, as you point out, all this life producing, life enhancing and complexifying too place in the midst of geologic upheavals – volcanoes, earthquake, asteroid strikes, huge undersea landslides – and climate change – hot and cold period, ice ages, sea levels rising and falling as the continents floated around on their great rafts of Earth’s crust and crunched into each other, raising up mountains.

Be we should not confuse those early climate cycles and changes with what humans themselves have done over the past 200 years by burning coal and then oil, by clearing forest and coastal wetlands everywhere they went, driven by profit and greed; while earlier farmers and herders modified the landscape out of need.

Astronomers tell us that the frequency of asteroid collisions with Earth is greater than we thought. Can we prepare for such a catastrophe?  Can we prepare for stronger and stronger cyclonic storms (typhoons, cyclones or hurricanes, different names depending where you live)?  Yes we can!  In 2007 I wrote a chapter in a book about the hazards of near earth objects colliding with your home planet.  I was asked to write about such an event from the point of view of development studies.[1]  Odd as it seems, I was able to show that preparations involving stock pilling of food for the long ‘winters’ when humans could not farm because of dust in the post collision atmosphere could actually be beneficial in the short and medium term as a boost for farm incomes and reserve in terms of drought and ‘normal’ disasters.  

It all depends on the kind of government one has – whether cooperation and sharing are promoted as an ethnos and cultural value or greed and individualism.  So I think that planning or the ‘worst case’ is not a bad idea and can be a win-win for a lot or reasons, not a waste of time and money.

[1] Ben Wisner, “The Societal Implications of a Comet/Asteroid Impact on Earth: a Perspective from International Development Studies.”  In: Bobrowsky, Peter T. and Rickman, Hans (eds.),  Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society An Interdisciplinary Approach, pp. 437-447.  Berlin: Springer Verlag.

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No. 4: Questions from GNDR Partner in Nigeria, Peter Akanimoh

I really don't know what to say about these figures [see No. 5 below] and the astonishing fury of mother earth! Will man ever be able to rid the earth of natural hazards that have catastrophic impact on humans, the environment and indeed socio-economic systems of the world? 

In the last couple of weeks I have spent quite some time looking up and reading scientific materials on the formation and evolution of the earth! It appears that our earth was born in catastrophe and has never ceased to experience geological and environmental catastrophes as part of its natural response to surviving in a wider ( perhaps also catastrophic) universe! The scientists say billions of years of catastrophe have brought us where we are today. Once, our earth was just too hot for any form of life. Was that climate change? Whatever! Finally, we are here: Man and Earth. Man lives in a naturally and "unnaturally" changing earth. We live in a dangerous earth; a complex and intricate earth; a beautiful earth. Will the earth continue to evolve? 

Since year 2,000, we have all seen a number of global disasters caused by earthquakes, storms, floods and tsunamis. In each case, our best defenses have been broken down and we have stood in shock, scrambling to pick up the broken pieces of humanity long after nature's anger! Our best DRR and climate change strategies could not prevent Haiti's earthquake nor stop the Asian Tsunami. Now, who can speak to the winds? Who can speak to the earth? Who can say earth be still? Stop shaking! Who? 

There is clearly a need to understand the geological and environmental complexities of earth if we must effectively adapt to the "risks" that come with the earth's natural behavior! Now, we must move ahead of earth and predict her behavior more accurately. We must develop adaptation plans for these natural risks and we must muster the political will to enforce these plans. 

what could we have done to shield 11.8 million people from the fury of this storm? How could we have reduced the incredible speed of this wind? Could we have also reduced the mortality figures there? How can man truly manage earth's natural hazards? 

Well, I have no answers right now, but i have a feeling we need new answers! Answers different from what we are always providing. We need to think radically scientifically and politically. Otherwise, I fear we may now be at the mercy of an angry Earth! And honestly, this earth may have more surprises ahead for us...I hope that humans will not one day become extinct from the complex natural catastrophes of earth's amazing life. 

For now, my heart goes to all those who have lost loved ones to this disaster and to all those struggling to survive at this time. Our solidarity also goes to all helping those affected back to recovery!

Blessings 

Peter Akanimoh

Executive Director
Global Relief & Development Mission
National Coordinator, Exposed Campaign, Nigeria
Chairman, Transformation Conference Central Planning Committee

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No. 5: Situation Report to GNDR members by GNDR director, Marcus Oxley (15 November 2015)
Dear Global Network members, 

The worst storm on record has devastated the people of the Philippines.  The latest UNOCHA assessment this morning reports: 

o   Approximately 4,500 people killed
o   11.8 million people affected across 9 regions
o   920,000 people displaced, with approximately 37% currently living in 995 emergency centres (rest with host families)
o   Approximately 250,000 houses damaged or destroyed.

I'm sure for all of us these figures are hard to comprehend, as is the incredible wind speed of the storm -  estimated to be approaching 200 miles per hour - that's faster than a formula 1 racing car. Scientists are suggesting climate change is in part responsible for the severity of the storm - an indicator of the consequences we may have to face in future years if we do not address this critical issue as currently being negotiated at the COP 18 in Warsaw, Poland. 

Not surprisingly several GNDR members have been active in the response, including the Centre for Disaster Preparedness Foundation who are the National Coordination Organisation for the Global Network in this country. Below I attach a letter from the CDPF requesting support for their work with local partners to this crisis - a request that has been made to regional as well as Global Network.  I think this letter may particularly be of interest to international NGOs who want to support the disaster recovery work but have no established national or local partners in the affected region.  

Please do pass on this letter to the relevant people in your own organisations. Our thoughts, condolences and support are with the people of the Philippines and the GNDR members who are now responding as best they can

Marcus


Dr. Ben Wisner
Aon-Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, University College London, UK
& Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania
& Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, USA

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."