The Disaster Management Cycle (Part 1)

Our televisions continue to be flooded with images of destruction and distress from Haiti and increasingly criticism of the international aide response is being heard. There are reports of critical planes being diverted to the Dominican Republic as other apparently less urgent planes are allowed to land in Port au Prince and of relief materials lying unused at the airport as logistics and priority foul-ups slow their urgent distribution.

The scale of the disaster in such a small area seems almost unprecedented with news reports this morning citing a figure of 150,000 bodies recovered so far in the capital alone. To put this in some perspective the terrible 1985 earthquake that impacted upon Mexico city is generally considered to have cost 9,500 lives; the Kobe, Japan quake in 1995, 5,500; Gujarat India 2001, 20,000; Pakistan 2005, 86,000; Sichuan Province, China 2008 88,000. Only the 2004 Sumatran earthquake and related tsunami has cost more lives (228,000) since an enormous quake in China in 1976.

The final total for the Haiti quake including areas outside the capital has yet to be estimated of course and its prominence in this terrible regard may yet worsen. What is clear however, is that the shallow nature of the quake, so near to a major population centre and in such a poor country are factors that have combined to devastating effect.

Today the international media has reported a senior Italian relief official as being highly critical of the response to date in particular with regard to the strategic approach and inter-agency coordination. Others are now questioning as to whether lessons have been properly learnt by the international agencies following the 2004 Tsunami and speculating whether the recovery and reconstruction phase will be any better managed.

What is being referred to here is the broader integrated response to disaster scenarios typically referred to as the disaster management cycle. In its most simple iteration this is considered to have four phases: i). Response, ii). Recovery, iii). Mitigation and iv). Preparedness.

This is often also referred to as the 4 “Rs” of disaster management (Response, Recovery, Readiness and Reduce).

In Haiti they are still very much in the response phase, though the time of active search for survivors has now officially ended, the medical response needs are still extensive and quite long term. Planning will however already be under way for the recovery phase, with funds being pledged and reconstruction programmes planned. Mitigation in the Haiti context will likely focus on matters such as: improved building codes, limitations on areas that can be developed for residential use to avoid higher risk terrain etc… Preparedness will focus on lessons to be learnt, e.g. How could the response have been managed better? How can the public be educated and thus better prepared to cope should such a catastrophe strike again? What plans and emergency protocols can be integrated into the local development and government sectors to minimize the impact of a future earthquake and so on…

Sadly reconstruction, mitigation and preparedness are not so “news worthy” and one can expect the CNN, BBC (etc…) camera lights to fall dark in Haiti soon enough. So we will not get such an insight in to that process except perhaps for a visit on the anniversary of the event. These stages are however vitally important if the loss of life is to be minimized in future events and hence do merit attention and coverage.

The GFDRR project just commencing now in Seychelles is directly addressing the mitigation and preparedness phases of the disaster management cycle and in future posts we will return to this topic and set the various project activities in this context.

Do check back periodically for updates.