Lessons from Haiti
THE devastation of Port au Prince, the capital of the Central American state of Haiti, has made it glaringly evident what havoc a powerful earthquake can wreak on a country that is poor and not well-prepared to face a natural calamity of colossal magnitude. Though this island nation is no stranger to calamities, especially sea-borne ones such as hurricanes, the quake that struck it last Tuesday afternoon was the first of its kind in the last 200 years.
The entire city is now beyond recognition. It is a tangled mess of twisted wreckage of buildings everywhere, with people -- dead, dying and wounded -- trapped inside them. The merciless Nature seems to have descended on this poor island nation with all its destructive fury.
It is not only the shanties owned by the poor that became the first casualty of the quake shock, but the proudest structures of the Haitian capital also met with an identical fate. For instance, the presidential palace itself bears testimony to that great force of devastation. Another sad upshot of the Haitian temblor is that the head of the UN mission in Haiti is a victim of the catastrophe along with a number of his personnel.
According to a rough estimate by the American Health Organisation, some 100,000 people may have perished under the rubbles of Haiti quake. The number, however, is still guesswork and the real picture of the death and devastation will be available only after the rescue operation is complete.
The situation at the moment is in a state of utter desperation. Even on the fourth day after the cataclysm had occurred, the victims still alive, but remaining inside the clogged up ruins have found no help from the rescue operators. Oddly though, rescue teams with enough food, water, clothes and medical help have been pouring into Port-au-Prince.
The US, for example, has mobilised one of history's biggest rescue operation in Haiti and some nine to ten thousand of its troops are on their way to Haiti supported by an aircraft carrier with helicopters for carrying out rescue operations alongside a declaration of US$100 million in aid.
And it is not only US, the UN, too, has made an urgent appeal to the world for $526 million in aid of the quake victims. In fact, the entire world, including the major economic powers, has expressed solidarity with the hapless people of Haiti.
Now, has this demonstration of unforeseen compassion and goodwill towards the Haitians automatically translated into real help on the ground? Quite to the contrary.
The ground reality is that the people of Haiti are now growingly getting frustrated and angry as nothing concrete has so far materialised to salvage the victims of the quake.
All this show of benevolence from the global community notwithstanding, the situation in Haiti is extremely desperate as has been made obvious from the words of John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief: "This is a huge and a horrifying catastrophe, the full consequences of which we do not know."
This is the stark truth in the face of a devastation of this scale. That is so because an earthquake always comes out of the blue and allows no time for taking preparations against it.
To all appearances, the earthquake has completely immobilised Haiti. While we hope that the affected people of that country would soon get the full benefit of the international drive launched to help the suffering people of this island state, we would in the same breath like to turn our attention home and see what our own situation would be in the face of a calamity of this scale.
Like Haiti, we are also one of the least developed countries on earth. Our people's resilience against recurring floods and cyclones from the Bay of Bengal and the accompanying tidal surges are well-known. Even at the government level, our preparedness to face such disasters has been acclaimed internationally. But what is important to note here is that all our experiences and preparedness against natural disasters are limited to fighting floods and cyclones.
What if an earthquake of magnitude comparable to the one that devastated Haiti strikes us? And given the last few years' record, we have been occasionally experiencing repeated tremors of varying magnitudes.
But the tremors that have been rattling Bangladesh in recent years are also all not very small ones. One of the quakes that struck the coastal city of Chittagong in the last week of November, 2007 took its toll as it brought down a five-storey building, killing some 23 of its occupants. Earlier, in the same month of that year, a temblor of still higher intensity at 6 on the Richter scale hit Chittagong and Rangamati in the Hill districts, creating a crack in the hills. Even as recently as December last year, a tremor of 5.7 magnitude rattled Dhaka and other parts of the country.
In fact, the whole country, from its southern parts to the northern and northeastern districts to the centre, is situated in a high risk, quake-prone zone. The high frequency of the tremor strikes in recent years is a telltale sign of an impending cataclysm anytime in the future.
Experts are of the view that a quake strike comparable to the Haitian scale will damage 50 percent of the city's buildings in one go, if only due to the unplanned nature of its urbanisation and the poor structure of the buildings. Worse still, most of the structures do not meet the requirements of the national building code. Also consider the high density of population and the shanties teeming with people.
To top it all, think of the condition of our preparedness! The least said about it the better.
So, Haiti should be an urgent wake up call for us. We can hardly afford to be caught napping while a catastrophe of Haitian magnitude might sneak upon us, spelling doom for the population.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments