Opinion Shelter from the storm

A decade after the devastating tsunami on December 26, 2004, that killed more than 2 lakh people across 14 countries and levelled entire towns and villages, is the world, and India, where 12,000 people died, better prepared to deal with a crisis of that magnitude? In a heartening departure from the usual story of benign government neglect that characterises long-term responses to such events, indications are that some lessons have indeed been learnt. Ten years on, and not without some finger-pointing and political jockeying, the multilateral, Unesco-supported Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System has established a network of seismometers, tidal gauges and tsunami buoys to detect undersea tremors. The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC), meanwhile, also monitors seismic activity and tsunamis to provide advisories, giving officials two-and-a-half hours to organise and respond. The ITEWC is a sophisticated system, and it is a measure of its success that it is a designated regional tsunami service provider, responsible for issuing bulletins to Indian Ocean rim countries.

Of course, gaps remain. As highlighted by Odisha’s improved response to cyclones — the state managed the impact of Cyclone Phailin in October last year — early warning alerts and technological fixes can only go so far. For effective disaster management and mitigation, it is imperative to build resilient infrastructure and educate people. Despite calls to “build back better” — disaster recovery parlance for creating infrastructure that would reduce vulnerability to future risks — reports suggest that authorities have failed to implement the coastal regulation zone notification in tsunami-affected areas. The initial energy expended on training communities on proper response, building evacuation routes and shelters, and planning for relocation seems to have dissipated. This inertia is visible when dealing with other disasters, too, from cloudbursts and floods to landslides. The flouting of environmental regulations is commonplace, both in at-risk coastal communities and in places like Uttarakhand, where the Centre recently admitted that hydropower projects had “significantly degraded” the local ecology, exacerbating the impact of an extreme weather event.

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If India is to effectively deal with natural calamity, the government must recognise that disaster management requires constant updation and capacity-building. This means recognising that locals are first responders and investing in strengthening the risk reduction capacities of local, city and regional authorities.