It will take some time before we get any idea of what the disaster on Sunday that engulfed eleven nations around the Indian Ocean in a few terrifying seconds has left behind. The death toll is now put at over 60,000 and there are still thousands of people unaccounted for. Little by little news is trickling in of tragedies that happened to seaside communities that were hit by the massive tsunami wave generated by the earthquake. The international community faces the urgent and awesome problem of millions of people whose homes and livelihoods have been swept away. The devastation has clearly been massive. In the Maldives, the cost of the damage is going to be greater than a year of the islands’ gross domestic product.
Almost a year before to the day, when an earthquake hit the Iranian city of Bam, the rest of the world found it relatively easy to send aid because the destruction was largely confined to a single area. The challenge this time is that help is needed across a large region which includes many states and countries. Many outside the region have announced the immediate dispatch of aid for the survivors and pledged funding to help local governments deal with the horrific consequences of the inundation. The Kingdom’s offer is $10 million. The challenge, however, is for these assistance flows to be coordinated and directed to where they are most needed. This job has to fall upon the disaster relief coordinators of the United Nations. UN officials are readily admitting that they are daunted by the challenges they face.
As with all such catastrophes, aid comes in two stages. The most pressing need at the moment is to sustain the ravaged communities, help with the treatment of the tens of thousands of injured, ensure the availability of food, water and shelter, especially with isolated island populations, and clear up the destruction while finding and removing the dead in order to prevent outbreaks of disease. A key element will be the bringing in of personnel such as doctors and nurses in mobile hospitals, along with drugs, to support local medical services. Once that is one, attention must turn quickly to helping these devastated communities rebuild their shattered lives. This will require financial assistance, channeled through local governments. This latter task will be the easier.
At the moment, there is clearly a struggle to prioritize the distribution of emergency relief. UN officials need to audit what help has already been dispatched, while building an accurate picture of areas that still urgently need assistance. The task is as awesome as the tragedy that spawned it. Though mistakes will be made, recrimination will be undeserved. No one had contemplated such a cataclysm. Lessons however must be learned. The argument for a permanent international disaster relief force has surely been strengthened by Sunday’s terrible events.
For the moment though, the world must help with the tools it has and its aid must be unstinting. It is far better that too much aid arrives everywhere than any of the affected communities receive too little.
