Other issues in the mainstream view of the history

Section 4.1.1 showed how, after certain disasters in Chile, some institutions and regulations were created precisely to deal with disaster impacts. This reflects that, in a certain way, the model of disaster and risk management has been conceived to be reactive: oriented to solve disaster impacts, focusing almost exclusively on life saving, emergency response, rehabilitation and relief.11 _{This orientation, however,} has had immediate and positive impacts on the development of the Chilean history of disasters, such as the reduction of human losses.

As the 2016 CREDEN report asserts, the development and effects of the ONEMI in the 1970s can be seen as evidence that the creation of institutional mechanisms plays an important role in disaster risk reduction (Thiruppugazh, 2014). According to EM-DAT (2017), for instance, the top five deadliest disasters in Chile’s history are 10 _{In 2016, the central government published a report that displays a timeline of disasters in the history}

of Chile (CREDEN, 2016, p.36-37). Similar to Table 4.2., such a timetable corroborates the observation made here (see Appendix 6).

found before the 1970s (highlighted in grey in Table 4.3), the same decade that the ONEMI was created, and thus indicate the materialisation and institutionalisation of the major Chilean state’s effort in DRM and DRR.

Table 4.3. Top 10 disasters in Chile between 1900 and 2015 sorted by human losses

Event Location Magnitude Date Human losses

Earthquake Chillán 7.8 Mw 1939 ~5,500–30,000

Earthquake Valparaiso 8.2 Mw 1906 ~20,000

Earthquake and Tsunami Valdivia 9.5 Mw 1960 ~2,000–6,000

Earthquake and Tsunami Vallenar 8.5 Mw 1922 ~1,000–2,000

Floods Atacama and Los Lagos N/A 1965 ~600 Earthquake and Tsunami Maule 8.8 Mw 2010 562

Earthquake La Ligua 7.4 Mw 1965 ~400–500

Earthquake Talca 7.6 Mw 1928 ~220–290

Mudflows Antofagasta N/A 1991 ~110–141

Mudflows Atacama N/A 2015 ~87–178

Compiled by the author (2017), based on CREDEN (2016), EM-DAT (2017) and Rojas et al. (2014) Mw = Moment magnitude scale

Compiled by the author (2017), based on CREDEN (2016), EM-DAT (2017) and Rojas et al. (2014) Mw = Moment magnitude scale

Compiled by the author (2017), based on CREDEN (2016), EM-DAT (2017) and Rojas et al. (2014) Mw = Moment magnitude scale

Compiled by the author (2017), based on CREDEN (2016), EM-DAT (2017) and Rojas et al. (2014) Mw = Moment magnitude scale

Compiled by the author (2017), based on CREDEN (2016), EM-DAT (2017) and Rojas et al. (2014) Mw = Moment magnitude scale

As Table 4.3 shows, the ONEMI certainly had an important effect on reducing the human cost of disasters. But this does not necessarily mean that disasters have stopped affecting Chile’s path to development in other important and costly ways. For instance, as Table 4.4 shows, the number of affected people stemming from natural extreme events has increased since the creation of the ONEMI to the point where seven of the ten most ‘important’ disasters occurred after 1965 (highlighted in grey).

Table 4.4. Top disasters in Chile (1900-2015) sorted by affected people and costs

No. of affected people Disaster/Year Year/Disaster Economic costs in US$ M

2,671,556 Earthquake 2010 2010 Earthquake 30,000,000 2,348,973 Earthquake 1971 1985 Earthquake 1,500,000 2,003,000 Earthquake 1960 2015 Mudflows 1,500,000 1,482,275 Earthquake 1985 2013 Heatwave 1,000,000 513,387 Earthquake 2014 1939 Earthquake 920,000 375,000 Flood 1965 1960 Earthquake 550,000 242,345 Storm 1984 1953 Earthquake 500,000 221,842 Flood 2002 1999 Fires 280,000 139,667 Flood 2000 1971 Earthquake 236,400 120,000 Mudflows 2015 1963 Earthquake 235,000

Compiled by the author (2017), based on EM-DAT (2017) and SERNAGEOMIN (2017) Compiled by the author (2017), based on EM-DAT (2017) and SERNAGEOMIN (2017) Compiled by the author (2017), based on EM-DAT (2017) and SERNAGEOMIN (2017) Compiled by the author (2017), based on EM-DAT (2017) and SERNAGEOMIN (2017)

Tables 4.3 and 4.4 seem to suggest that Chile has performed well in reducing human losses in disasters —as is also true for the case of Chaitén— but not necessarily as well in reducing their social and economic impacts. The most important disasters in Chile, in terms of economic costs, occurred after the creation of the ONEMI in 1974.

This shift from the human to the social and economic costs of disasters could be related to the natural population growth or economic development, as suggested by UNESCO et al. (2012). However, this change questions the holisticness of a model of managing risks and reducing disasters. By holisticness, I refer to the comprehensiveness of the model, its treatment in reducing risks holistically, looking at the underlying causes as well as the unsafe conditions that give rise to vulnerability. Perhaps the case of 2010 Maule earthquake, which was low in terms of deaths but high in economic losses, can help us to visualise this issue.

According to the government and other records (EM-DAT, 2017; Gobierno de Chile, 2014), in 2010 there were 2.6 million affected and displaced people, and 373,784 housing units destroyed or partially destroyed as a consequence of the earthquake. This caused enormous social and economic impact in the months and

years after 2010: men and women in affected areas and communities organised themselves in different ways to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the government’s strategies and plans for reconstruction and recovery (Pulgar Pinaud, 2014a, 2014b). Furthermore, reactive and top-down approaches to recovery and reconstruction utilised by the government apparently created conditions that exacerbated the underlying causes of vulnerability, reproducing it and perpetuating risks in the long term (Imilan et al., 2015). In a way, post-disaster Chaitén fully represents a neat example of how a recovery and reconstruction plan does not consider local participation, aspirations and demands, and people’s ‘positive’ efforts, and so opens up the possibility of the emergence of sources of vulnerability and risk.

When the recent history of Chilean disasters is investigated through governmental documents and media archives, there are very few allusions to, and often disjointed information about, the conditions preceding disasters —that is, the socio-economic, political and cultural processes that place people at risk and make them more vulnerable to disasters in the first place, such as living in disaster-prone areas, their level of education, access to health and other urban services, poverty and the like. The attention and efforts, then, have tended to focus on the effects of disasters in lieu of to their root causes.

This dangerous missing and ignored element of Chilean disaster history is, for me, a cyclical aspect. Reducing response, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction to technical solutions and the provision of basic needs means neglecting how post- disaster strategies can contribute significantly to reduce future vulnerability and exposure to disasters. Whilst investment in disaster risk management may help to reduce deaths during extreme events, the social and economic costs associated with disasters can also, over time, erode societal structures, affecting people’s ability to resist, cope with and recover from future disasters (UNISDR, 2011).

This brief review of the history of Chilean disasters therefore aims to point out that the dominant narrative is characterised by a strong emphasis on post-disaster

impacts and losses, while the vulnerable pre-conditions of people, along with the socio-economic and political circumstances that facilitate their production, are often neglected. I think that these dominant views, over time, may have created —from a hermeneutical point of view— a reactive or post-event oriented model of DRM in Chile. Furthermore, I consider that a managerial model that mainly focuses on emergency response and relief, without a long-term view seeking to avoid reproducing the existing vulnerabilities and risks —or producing new ones— is somehow missing the opportunity to effectively reduce disaster risks.

The upcoming sections address another aspect of the history of Chilean disasters: the development of DRM and DRR models and their related institutional forms. However, such analysis need to be conducted bearing in mind that we are constructing a multi-scalar perspective to look at the progression of vulnerability in the case of Chaitén. This requires us to go back to the history of the state territorial organisation through which the DRM institutional forms —such as the ONEMI— can be better interpreted from a scalar viewpoint.