Preparing for Catastrophes: Insights Provided by the Tsunami of December 26, 2004
by
John J. Clague
Centre for Natural Hazard Research, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6

The tsunami triggered by the giant Sumatran earthquake of December 26, 2004, claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people in 14 countries in South Asia. It was, by far, the most devastating tsunami in recorded human history, killing six times as many people as the Krakatau tsunami in 1883. The catastrophe came as a complete surprise to almost everyone, and it highlighted the woeful lack of preparedness of states bordering the Indian Ocean for such a rare event. The lack of awareness and preparedness seem surprising, given that several tsunamis occurred in the eastern Indian Ocean in the 19th and 20th centuries. Further, prior to December 2004, geologists had previously warned that a great earthquakes would occur at the subduction zone west of Sumatra. Along the same lines, the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake, which caused more than US 200 billion dollars damage and killed more than 5500 people in Kobe, was unexpected and came as a shock to a country that is arguably the best prepared in the world to deal with an earthquake.

Why do natural disasters continue to take such a terrible toll, when scientists know that they are not `acts of God,' but rather natural phenomena that will surely recur in the future? The answer is complex and lies outside the domain of science, within the realms of human and social behaviour. The crux of the problem is that natural catastrophes are rare events. And the larger the event, the rarer it is. Someone living in a country with high exposure to earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, or cyclonic storms is unlikely to be injured or killed by such an event and, therefore, will likely ignore or discount the risk. This reaction is understandable, considering the number of more pressing hazards that an individual faces in daily life, for example disease and the danger of driving. Society and governments, however, should not take the position of the individual. They must consider natural hazards in timeframes of hundreds of years, not the span of a single person's life. Our cities and infrastructure will exist, in fact they will be larger and more complex, when a disaster event of the scale of the South Asia tsunami or the Great Hanshin earthquake next strikes. Governments have a responsibility to be ever vigilant and to prepare for possible natural catastrophes. Preparation involves (1) education, (2) investment of public money in infrastructure to make it more resistant to earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, and floods, and (3) building and continually testing emergency preparedness and response systems. Over the next decade or two, new technologies and advances in science may enable timely advance warnings of earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and other catastrophic natural events However, a complete reliance on technology, as seems to be happening in South Asia in the aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami, is a mistake. The best technology in the world will be of little value without effective communication systems, an educated populace, and a resilient society. Finally, it is no coincidence that most loss of life from natural disasters has occurred, and continues to happen, in the developing world. Disasters disproportionately affect the poor, and will continue to do so until poverty and social injustice are eliminated. The developed world should address these issues as a priority, rather than relying on well intentioned, but misguided ``techno fixes'' to natural disasters.

Date received: July 11, 2005

Copyright © 2005 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caqy-25.