Monitoring and warning

Institutional capacity of weather forecasting and storm warning

The scientific and technical dimensions of a robust early warning system or process are centered in monitoring, forecasting and ‘nowcasting’ (WMO 2011). The British Meteorological Office define nowcasting as ‘a technique for very short-range forecasting that maps the current weather, then uses an estimate of its speed and direction of movement to forecast the weather a short period ahead’. The WMO distinguishes nowcasting as a current weather alert which extrapolates a future weather pattern for a maximum of six hours from now. Up-to-date radar, satellite and observational data are a prerequisite for getting current details of a small area with

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accurate focus. Alerts for high impact weather patterns such as a moving storm needs nowcasting as it can effectively contribute to saving lives and property (Anderson- Berry 2006). However, many of the developing and least developed counties do not have operational systems or are struggling for maintenance and sustainability of this apparatus which requires rich data sources (Coning and Roberts 2012). Myanmar was one of the countries lacking a nowcasting system 2008 because there was no adequate radar for forecasting function.

Myanmar has been on the list of 189 member countries and territories to which the WMO provides data exchange for hazard observation, monitoring, forecasting and warning capabilities (IFRC 2012). Under the supervision of the WMO, the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) New Delhi was the responsible agency for issuing tropical weather outlooks and tropical cyclone advisories to the regional countries bordering the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea including Myanmar (WMO 2008). At the time of Cyclone Nargis, the information coming from the RSMC was used by Myanmar’s national meteorological agency, the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH), which operates under the Ministry of Transport. However, the India Meteorology Department mandate does not include warning for storm surges. Sadly, 80 per cent of mortality in Cyclone Nargis was related to storm surge (Webster 2008).

Dr Tun Lwin, the head of DMH at the time of Cyclone Nargis wrote in his memoir that the only radar (WSR 74, Weather Surveillance Radar) that Myanmar relied on for weather forecasting was an old 1974 model (Lwin 2015) and it had not been operational since 1997 (IRIN 2014). Lwin tried to improve the situation in his capacity as Director General and he ordered spare parts from the original production company, GE, in the United States. He got a reply stating that the company had already stopped manufacturing this model, and the stock was no longer available as it was too outdated. He compared this inadequacy of equipment with better situations of neighboring countries by showing numbers of radars as an indicator of preparedness; five radars in Laos, nine in Bangladesh and 26 in Thailand, by 2008 (Lwin 2015).

In his article on ‘Why the cyclone (Nargis) in Myanmar was so deadly’, Casey (2008) quoted the WMO and commented that Myanmar, unlike Bangladesh and India, did not

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have a radar network to help predict the time, location and height of the storm surge. While not complaining about not having an advanced system in Myanmar in 2008 given the socio-economic and political situation, it is an even more tragic state of affairs for not having basic meteorological and hydrological infrastructure. In fact, the Director General and his team at DMH made attempts to update the weather forecast by utilizing very outdated tools and relied on their mathematical skills to track the storm and issued a warning for the approaching Cyclone Nargis (Lwin 2015). The WMO in their inquiry into the efficiency of DMH’s Cyclone Nargis warning states,

The position of the cyclone center was also manually determined by Dr Tun Lwin at NMC Yangon by using a magnifying glass and the satellite meteorology knowledge and experience. Then the x-y coordinates of the cyclone center measured by using a pencil and a ruler were calculated into the latitudes and longitudes by using Excel program on a small laptop PC. The same procedures were applied to the measurements of radius of storm, movement, speed of propagation, distance from the coast, radius of maximum winds and storm coverage. (WMO 2009, p.8)

After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Myanmar’s weather forecasting and monitoring system was upgraded with data exchanged with India and Thailand via the global telecommunication system (GTS). The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (Xinhua 2006) called it the biggest change in 20 years as the data exchange rate would be 600 times faster than before. But the system was internet-based and access to the internet in DMH is limited. The WMO also reported the record of system breakdown during Cyclone Nargis as follows:

The frequent power shortage disrupted the operational services of DMH and the blackout after the landfall of Nargis significantly affected its services. All communications were broken down in Yangon from 20:00 MST on 2 May to 17:00 MST on 3 May 2008. (WMO 2009, p.9)

Functioning of DMH was almost impossible while the office of DMH was without electricity and interagency communication began to halt soon after the storm started hitting Yangon around 9 o’clock at night (Lwin 2015).

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Myanmar became a signatory to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) in 2005 and as a member state it is expected to implement the following five priority actions (UNISDR 2005): ‘(1) Ensuring that DRR is a national and local priority, with a strong institutional basis (2) Identifying, assessing and monitoring disaster risks and enhancing early warning systems (3) Using knowledge and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels (4) Reducing underlying disaster risk factors, whether social, economic, environmental or land use, and (5) Strengthening disaster preparedness to promote effective response at all levels’ (pp.6˗12).

As a member of the HFA, the military government set up the Central Committee on National Disaster Prevention with notification No. 14/2005 dated 25 January 2005 (ADPC 2009). Despite the initial institution set up after signing the HFA, the roles and functions of central and regional governments at all levels, including village councils, were not clearly defined until 2009 (Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement 2010). Since 2005, progress for implementation had been slow and the national standing order on disaster management was issued only one year after Cyclone Nargis. Only after the standing order, was the problem of lacking clarity of roles and responsibilities between ministries and departments improved and institutionalized responsibility was assigned formally (Relief and Resettlement Department 2009). Nevertheless, incorporation of disaster risk reduction elements into national policy was very much constrained by a lack of budget. The state of financial challenges imposed on the DRR system was described by the national interim report to HFA (MSWRR 2010) in the following way:

There is an absence of a policy directive for allocation of funds for specifically for DRR. Financial resources are not adequate and not available yet…To ensure

the DRR budget allocation, State budget should have separately allocate/mention DRR component) and the consolidation efforts among ministries and capacity development/ institutional strengthening should be reinforced. (p.6)

Under all these constraints, it is not surprising that the EWS was weak in all dimensions at the time of Cyclone Nargis. The DMH, which was the focal agency for dissemination of the cyclone warning, tried to inform the township general administration offices about incoming cyclone and even advised local administration

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bodies to coordinate with local NGOs and the Red Cross if they were present in their area (Lwin 2015). A leaked US embassy cable dated 2 May 2008 (WikiLeaks 2008b) also showed that the US embassy’s knowledge of the cyclone had already been distributed to some townships where American tourists were likely to be visiting. Moreover, the military attaché tried to directly contact his Myanmar counterpart to give the warning. During the fieldwork for this research local respondents confirmed that the Township Peace and Development Council in Bogale township relayed the news to the village tract leaders, this was not the case for other townships. But the cyclone warning at that time did not include action plans that specified the next steps to be taken for safety. In fact, the DMH’s mandate did not include specifying what to do next for evacuation or preparation (Lwin 2015).

What becomes clearer is that disaster preparedness plans and contingency plans were not in place at all administrative levels (Relief and Resettlement Department 2010). The fact that no contingency plans or procedures existed or were tested shows that political will was essential for a functioning EWS; upgrading the technological aspects of hazard monitoring was insufficient.