Amateurish rescue operations

But it is not only prevention that we seek. It has become distressingly clear over the last week that the rescue operations that have taken place in the aftermath of the disasters have been marked by delay, confusion, and lack of necessary equipment. Frankly, the pace of rescue efforts has been so slow and ineffective that they scarcely deserve the name. The blame for this must lie at the door of the government authorities. It is up to the government in power to institute procedures for rescue operations and make sure that they are adequately staffed, equipped, and funded. It is bad enough that so little has been done to ensure that such accidents don't happen. At the very least there should be efficient rescue operations in place.

The irony is that when it comes to cyclones and floods and other far bigger natural disasters, we have decent man-made and workable systems in place.

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One would have thought that man-made disasters such as launch capsizes and building collapses would create even greater an obligation on the part of the culpable government to fix, and that the relatively small scale of the incidents would make this easier to do than with the nation-wide emergencies the country must grapple with from time to time.

The two rescue ships are in disgraceful shape. It has been learned that the government plans to buy two more. This begs the question as to why the need for more rescue ships could not have been anticipated earlier. In addition, the current ships are hopelessly dilapidated. The divers, though they have laboured mightily, need training and equipment. It is clear that the authorities have taken a very ad hoc approach to preventing and dealing with disasters, and this must change before more lives are lost unnecessarily.

We cannot help but note with regret that we are still waiting to hear from the shipping minister. His silence at such a time speaks volumes for his unfitness for the job. He should be explaining how such a tragedy occurred and what is being done to prevent its repetition, and giving hope, sympathy, and courage to the families of the dead and missing. Has the honourable minister simply given up?