Tsunami Blog

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How One can Help in this Crisis, by Rediff.com

Tsunami Relief, by NASSCOM (India)

While we were sleeping
Barun Mitra, December 31, 2004

[This article was published in The Indian Express, New Delhi, December 31, 2004. Read full article http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=61806]

The tsunami tragedy has revealed one thing, says Barun Mitra : information is the key in a crisis.

Even as we struggle to come to terms with the trail of death and destruction left by the sea surges that hit our unwary shores just a day after Christmas, we need to realise that all crises opens up new opportunities. The deaths of so many of our fellow countrymen need not be in vain if we act on what we learn.The tsunami that hit the Indian coastline, along with seven other countries in the region, has been one of biggest natural calamity in recent decades. However, the human cost could have been significantly reduced.Arguably, the single most important factor that shaded this colossal human tragedy was lack of information. Lack of appropriate information and grossly inadequate communication networks exposed our extremely vulnerable flanks to the ravaging of both earth and sea.Information is power when information is credible, timely, locally relevant, and widely accessible to the population. That information can literally be a matter of life and death is revealed by the report of an alert Indian working in Singapore who telephoned his native village in Pondicherry and warned about a possible tidal surge in the early hours of December26th. Such a simple act saved many lives. So also, a few years ago when a super cyclone hit the eastern state of Orissa, an alert port official in Paradweep kept tracking the storm on the Internet and helped guide a few ships to safety.The first TV pictures of the unfolding tragedy came via Doordarshan only around 10.40 am. There have been very few reports of MMS, home video or web camera capturing the images of the devastation. Bare arsenal, indeed, for a nation that seeks to leapfrog into the information age.

There was a major earthquake off Antarctica about a week ago. Some scientists think that it had contributed to the build of seismic stress in the Sumatra region. Were our meteorologists aware of the possible threat? It is now clear that the Met office had barely noted the threat posed by the quake off Sumatra, and D-day being a Sunday, that information was not effectively utilised by any of the coastal authorities either.

At every stage, there was a shrinking window of opportunity to warn people. But nothing happened. A country that hopes to run the call centres of the world could not call its own people. In a country that aspires to be a world power, it took 12 hours for news of the disaster that overcame the Air Force base in Car Nicobar island to trickle through. Is this is the level of our defence preparedness, when New Delhi is supposedly a mere 20 minutes away from a Pakistani missile, and Karachi is in the same situation in the opposite direction?

The tsunami hit Sri Lanka just a little before 8 am; around 8 am, the tide had reached Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu. In another 40 minutes, the waves lashed Chennai, going up the coast to Vishakapatnam by 9 am. Just prior to the deluge, the sea retreated quite a long way back as if to draw its breath before the final punch. But there was no one to take note or warn people of this, an act that would have given people at least ten minutes to flee the beaches. And those who did see did not understand this phenomenon, including the coast guard, the navy and the port authorities.