The devastating earthquakes in Ecuador and Japan have once again highlighted the challenges of preparing to cope with a major disaster without knowing when or where it will strike. Even advanced economies such as Japan struggle to deploy the right resources as quickly as possible.
Clearly the problem for poorer states is compounded by an inability to afford meaningful preparation for a natural catastrophe.
The 7.8 magnitude quake, which struck Ecuador on Saturday, only a day after a 7.3 magnitude quake hit southern Japan on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, has been described as the worst tragedy to hit the country in 67 years. In 1949, an earthquake in Ecuador’s provincial capital Ambato brought massive destruction. The official death toll was over 5,000 but is widely believed to have been higher. The full extent of the devastation from this latest earthquake has yet to be assessed but it is so far known to have killed around 300 people.
The death toll in Japan is far lower, less than 60 dead or missing, but the destruction wrought by the massive shaking of the earth has been astonishing. In both countries substantial mudslides have added to the chaos. In Japan, a bridge that spanned a deep valley was smashed like plywood by a huge avalanche of rock and mud that surged down a mountainside.
The disruption of communications and services compound the challenges rescuers face. To these are added the horror of further aftershocks, which imperil those seeking to find survivors, bringing down already-weakened structures.
Then of course there is the need to shelter and feed often hundreds of thousands of people whose homes and businesses have been damaged or destroyed, while hospitals are often overwhelmed with the injured. The most serious cases have to be flown out for specialist treatment at a time when there is a major call on helicopters and other aircraft to bring in rescuers. And inevitably there is the serious risk of epidemics from polluted water sources. The logistical challenges of each and every earthquake disaster from Kashmir to Nepal to China, Japan and South America are colossal.
The international community is not slow in sending all sorts of aid to the scenes of natural disasters. Last month saw the first anniversary of the Sendai Framework from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, known as the UNISDR. But this organization, set up in 1999, focuses on the ways in which the effect of the likes of earthquakes and tsunamis can be mitigated. There is still no standing international body ready to respond in a coordinated manner to catastrophes. Thus time and again, governments have sent vast amounts of the exactly same sort of aid, which besides being superfluous, also clogs up already-strained and damaged distribution channels.
What countries in extremis need are digging equipment, helicopters, mobile hospitals and medical staff, efficient aerial surveillance capabilities, emergency communications systems and properly-trained rescuers, all organized by a single international body working in an established and practiced way with the country’s government. Such resources would be on stand-by at a regional level, with a permanent staff and emergency stores able to draw in all the other dedicated human and equipment resources within hours of a disaster. It is high time such a structure was put in place.
