in Sri Lanka
Objectives of this chapter:
■ Appreciate the diffi culty of emergency response to an incident that took over 30,000 lives in a single day.
■ Become aware of the role of the military in disaster response.
■ Explore the challenges of setting up a national EOC, the Centre for National Operations.
■ Identify the strategies adopted by the National Government for rescue, recovery, and restoration.
■ Clarify the ways in which private sector and non-governmental organizations assisted in the response to the tsunami.
■ Identify the new tools developed as a result of private sector involvement in the response.
˛ Summary
˛ Discussion Questions
˛ References
132 Chapter 8 • Case Study: The Tsunami Response in Sri Lanka
Introduction
In this case study of the Sri Lankan response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, we will explore how private sector and nongovernmental organizations played a signifi cant role in emergency management. We will also see an example of a nation where tactical response operations are conducted largely by the military. There was no formal national emergency management agency at that time. The most effective emergency response was provided by neighbors and family members, churches, temples, and humanitarian organizations. Local branches of the national government conducted on-scene response. The damage was almost all sustained along the coast-lines, leaving the higher elevations as safe havens for survivors, many of them
orphaned children. Unlike most disasters, the Indian Ocean Tsunami affected several countries—India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, and Somalia on the coast of Africa. Tactical response operations differed in each country.
They have different disaster response resources and cultures. For emergency managers, the immediate issues were recovery and restoration. Several unique challenges came later, assisting families and children to cope with their lost loved ones, post-traumatic stress, and fi nding permanent shelter. There were and still are the on-going issues of preparedness for future disasters.
This case study is based on perceptions from my role as a member of the IBM Crisis Response Team under the leadership of Brent Woodworth. We were deployed two days after the tsunami on December 28, 2004, as an advance team of four members, arriving fi rst in Chennai, India, and later going on to Colombo, Sri Lanka. There we divided our team with two of us remaining in Colombo and two going on the Indonesia. My perspective is based on our response in Colombo, Sri Lanka in January 2005.
Tactical Operations
In Sri Lanka, the fi rst responders to the tsunami were civilians. Neighbors, friends, churches, temples, and local police departments responded to assist anyone who had survived the enormous tsunami waves. Once survivors were collected on higher ground, recovery operations were conducted along the beaches, roadways, and rail-road tracks close to the shores. Many fi shing villages were located very close to the water line so as to make launching and drawing up fi shing boats convenient. Many of the primitive homes were constructed too close to the water, with fragile building
materials. Schools, churches, and temples were built on higher ground since the eastern coast of Sri Lanka along the Indian Ocean is narrow, rising sharply to bluffs above the shores and then on to the mountains in the center of this island nation.
For the most part, the capital city, Colombo, the center of the national government, was unaffected except along inlet waterways. Colombo is on the western side of the island, facing India, and away from the Indian Ocean. Tactical response operations were conducted locally and included sheltering, burying the deceased, salvaging building materials and fi shing equipment, and preserving religious sites. The immediate response operations dealt with search and rescue, sheltering and feeding survivors, and accounting for those lost.
In Sri Lanka, fi shing provides the main source of food and income. With fi shing villages washed away, food was in short supply. By government estimates, there were over 500,000 citizens in camps (shelters). Setting up the logistical support for many in camps was an incredible task. To complicate matters, the country was engaged in a struggle between the government and the Tamils in the northern and eastern provinces.
Though both had been impacted by the tsunami, both continued to protect their
“turf ” during the response and recovery periods. The military, responsible to the government, had a twofold job dealing both with tsunami devastation and remaining on guard for possible Tamil attacks. The citizens in the north and east had the same concerns. Though sympathetic to the Tamils, they had to deal with the tsunami while being on guard for government retaliation. The only signs we saw of this in Colombo were the numerous military checkpoints on city streets, tight security at the president’s offi ces, and sketchy reporting of tsunami-related death fi gures from the Tamils. There was a perception that reporting the actual number of casualties would portray weak-nesses in the Tamil forces.
The military assisted in providing tactical support to the distribution of disaster relief supplies and to the collection of data on survivors in the camps. With communi-cations systems damaged along the coasts, the military provided convoys that delivered critical supplies on their trips from Colombo to remote provinces. On their return trips, they brought data on numbers of survivors, their condition, medical, and food needs. They were also in a position to provide protection from opposition forces in civil confl ict.
Sri Lanka does not have three levels of government, like in the United States where we have local, state, and Federal governments. The local governments, including the police, are branches of the national government.
134 Chapter 8 • Case Study: The Tsunami Response in Sri Lanka
In addition to Sri Lanka’s government response efforts, many of the tactical opera-tions were performed by humanitarian organizaopera-tions, foreign government assistance, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). I visited an NGO who provided assistance to orphaned children. Sarvodaya had regional facilities with Internet connectivity in many, if not all, of the provinces. They offered the use of their facilities to help the government gather data from the camps. This could speed the receipt of critical information leading to the rapid distribution of relief equipment and supplies, especially food. The offer was denied by the government, teaching me that NGO assistance can sometimes be held suspect by government offi cials.