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| Reuters
AlertNet, 21 Jan 05 Early warning needs communities on board By Tim Large KOBE, Japan (AlertNet) – As nations squabble over plans for a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean region, disaster experts say any solution won’t be worth the circuit boards it’s soldered on unless it incorporates community-based strategies for risk reduction. People-centred early warning systems” has become a catchphrase at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, where delegates are hammering out ways to cut deaths from natural catastrophes over the next decade. But some attendees worry the “people” part may be lost in all the politicking and techno-babble. “We can’t just cover our conscience by installing an expensive early warning system and think that the problem is solved,” said Walter Amman, director of the Department of Natural Hazards in Davos, Switzerland. When a massive earthquake sent killer waves roaring towards Asian coastlines in December, some scientists knew the onslaught was coming. But they had no way of communicating the news to people on the ground. Now hazard specialists and grassroots groups want the architects of future early warning systems to learn from local people around the world who are up to their elbows in risk reduction. BOTTOM UP “You have to look at it from the bottom up as well as the top down,” said Erich Plate, a specialist on systems used to alert villagers to flooding in the Lower Mekong Basin incorporating parts of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. It’s not hard to find examples of where “bottom up” works. In India’s Bihar state, where floods affected 21 million people in 2004, villagers divide into teams to cope with disaster. One monitors water levels, another flags vulnerable people’s homes. A third team carries the injured to higher ground while a fourth clears the village of snakes and dirty water when it’s time to go home. “The great thing is it strengthens the community,” said Sylvie White of British relief charity Tearfund. “Now everybody is looking out for each other. All over Bangladesh, communities have come up with ways to protect the vulnerable from the flooding and cyclones that make the country one of the world’s most disaster-prone nations. LOUDSPEAKERS AND BELLS Villagers use colour-coded flags to prepare for evacuation -- yellow means get ready and red means get out now. Instructions are broadcast over loudspeakers mounted on mosques for prayers. In the shrines, bells are rung in special ways to indicate danger. Shashanka Saadi, a member of the International Emergencies Team at relief agency ActionAid International, said 100,000 Bangladeshi volunteers go from village to village, door to door, teaching people how to the interpret the early warning signals that are rooted in community life. “Another important thing is that they understand the weather itself -– through indigenous knowledge of how things will be,” he said. These approaches work. A massive cyclone killed 130,000 people in Bangladesh in 1991. Six years later, after home-grown early warning systems had been put in place, a cyclone of similar size killed only a few hundred. “What is needed is systems that are tailored for local use and have to be generated on site,” said Johann Godammer of the Global Fire Monitoring Centre in Germany, citing the success of a user-friendly, computer-aided rating system to warn of fire dangers in Namibia. AFFORDABLE STRATEGIES Based on a simple analysis of rainfall levels, the system lets local communities be on guard against wildfire hazards without requiring especially fancy technology or expensive telecommunications. Local artists help spread the word with colourful posters. Strategies like these are vital in countries that can’t afford the kind of technology that protects Japan or the United States from tsunami and other hazards. Ninety-eight percent of people killed or affected by natural disasters are in developing countries. It’s also crucial in places where weakened governance makes it hard to reduce risks. In Haiti, where some 2,500 died last hurricane season, plans are afoot for early warning systems in the south that will rely -– out of necessity if not desire -– on people-centred approaches. With annual per capita income at about $375 and a history of instability, Haiti can’t afford much else. “It’s important to create a local community for civil protection,” said Abel Nazaire of Haiti’s civil defence agency. “Generally, it’s the local community that faces disaster.” As in many countries, local radio will play a key role in Haiti’s early warning system, assuming international donors provide the money needed to get it off the ground. “The radio, for me, is the way to go,” said Henri Josserand, chief of the global information and early warning service at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and an expert on the desert locust plague that devastated northern Africa last year. “The one thing we can do is make sure the rural communities can use rural radios as methods of spreading knowledge.” links Related articles on Tsunami and the environment |
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