Archive for the ‘Disaster Management’

A botched Tsunami Early Warning test – Lessons for the future

The following is an except from a letter I wrote about the recent Tsunami Early Warning Test last week.  I hope the readers of Groundviews find it interesting. I have to preface this by saying I am a Westerner, one of the few, living in Batticaloa, where I have been since shortly after the 2004 tsunami. The excerpt: The second exciting and panic-inducing event was the botched Tsunami Early Warning Test last Thursday, the 10th.  The papers had announced that the new warning towers would be tested on the 19th, so you can see the first problem.  Second, no one I talked to knew where these towers were.  Turns out that there are three in the District: one in Kallady, about a mile or so from my house, one in Kalmuai (technically in Ampara District but on the border), about 35km (20 miles) to the south, and at Passakudah, about the same distance north. (For reference on the date, please…

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First images: The flooding in Menik Camp and the increasingly dire situation for IDPs

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These are the first images of the flooding in Menik Camp, where over 260,000 IDPs are interned. Groundviews was first to break the news on Friday that flooding on account of torrential rain was severely affecting thousands of IDPs, particularly in Zones 3 and 4 of Menik Camp. While heavy rain has stopped, intermittent showers are continuing, exacerbating the hellish camp conditions as flagged by updates from Vidura today. Severe hardships and challenges on the ground range from toilets that are overflowing to shelters that are under water and a lack of dry firewood for cooking. Vidura, who is witness to the conditions on the ground, goes on to categorically note that the zones cannot survive the monsoon, even with upgrading and preparation. Other reports received by Groundviews suggest that things have improved on the ground compared to yesterday, with sandbanks stopping the inflow of water into some areas. Vidura also reports that the water treatment plant that got damaged is now operational and…

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Breaking News: IDPs in Zone 3 and 4 in Menik Camp affected by flooding

Reports received by Groundviews this evening indicate that torrential rains in Vavuniya throughout the day have severely affected IDPs interned in Menik Camp, particularly in Zone 3 and Zone 4. Other unconfirmed reports put the number of those affected by the rains at 15,000 at the time of writing. As early as May this year, serious concerns of possible flooding due to poor drainage in Zone 4 of Menik Camp were clearly voiced by humanitarian agencies. There concerns were flagged again in the UN OCHA update on 31 July 2009, available here. Vidura, who has written in to Groundviews previously, offers one perspective of the situation on the ground at the moment through Twitter. See www.twitter.com/apelankawe for updates. Salient tweets until now from Vidura are reproduced below and flag the farcical and extremely dire circumstances on the ground in Menik Camp: the side cladding in some toilets have been removed and made flooring in some sheds….so going to toilet in some…

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Sri Lanka: The best humanitarian crisis business destination

It will not be long before areas in the north and east will be declared Industrial Zones or BOI areas, opening up opportunities for development. But wait; business is already going on there at full swing! The world’s best Humanitarian niche markets are now available in Sri Lanka and people are rushing in to supply the demand. Of course business could be done both ethically and otherwise. So let us take up the current humanitarian business market. However before I start, one must note the emails and the stories which are also rampant in the society today generalizing and criticizing humanitarian operations. While most of these stories are flights of fancy, this article is not meant to add fuel to that fire, but to present a scathing view of some of the organizations. I must acknowledge that there are few humanitarian agencies that are doing excellent work in different sectors in Sri Lanka. These are probably the organizations that work…

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The East and West at the UN Human Rights Council: Never the twain shall meet?

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” (Rudyard Kipling, Barrack-room ballads, 1892) Through a fortuitous twist of fate at the end of May I had the opportunity to be a witness to an event of considerable global importance; the Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council on Sri Lanka. The outcome of this meeting has sparked substantial controversy, and has been extensively covered in both local and international press, which I have been following with great interest. Please permit me at the outset to elaborate upon my personal situation as this may help to explain my position on this subject. I am a dual citizen of both Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom, a child of Sri Lankan parentage; I was born and raised in England. My traditional Sri Lankan upbringing caused me a certain internal conflict, a situation which was later mirrored in the proceedings and outcome of the Special Session,…

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Calling a spade a spade: Michael Roberts’ ‘moral relativism’

Dear Sanjana, I am responding to Michael Roberts’ two articles Dilemmas at wars end: Hard realities (article-A)  and  Dilemmas at wars end: Clarifications and counter offensive (article-B) published on Groundviews, and since about half of article-B was devoted to the counter offensive aimed at Lionel Bopage and me, I do hope you will give this response equal prominence. The counter offensive B was to thwart a presumed offensive from Bopage and me, and in so far as I was involved the ‘offensive’ (pun intended) was a very brief comment which I posted on Groundviews. In the comment I asserted that Roberts, on balance, had strayed beyond scholarship and placed himself at the service of chauvinism and behaved like an apologist for one of the protagonists (the state) in a race war. He seems to feel that instead of calling a spade a spade I christened it a bloody shovel; so be it, bloody shovel it was. Serving mammon Now here…

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Painting the tomb white

“You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and every kind of impurity.” The disturbances in Sri Lanka are slowly drawing to an end. I call it disturbances as many times we have heard the authorities say that it is not a war. But if it is not war, then it must be treated under the law. But then again it is a problem of terrorism, and the word terrorism itself is now played in a fast and loose manner. This prevents any application of law, international or local upon it. At a time when to speak for or against these disturbances is to be done with great fear and trembling, we must stop to discover or consider the situation at hand. While being a unique situation in a unique country amongst unique people, the problems are nonetheless similar to that which has drawn much wider international attention. (Or…

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Tears

I have never felt the same about blue frothy waters and ebb and tide since learning how your mild self could turn and gush hiss and spit washing out her tomorrows, her child, her home and Blue shimmering water is now a memory of a blue baby shirt, the white sari that blows in the wind as she feeds the crows and dogs on the beach in their memory is the colour of white sea foam… The breeze that beguiles gulls and suspends them in mid air is now the a silence of sadness that cannot be stilled. Repost This Article

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The roving barge at Galle Fort

On the loose since 12th May 2007, I spotted this Iranian barge banging against the Galle Fort ramparts just opposite the Fort Dew guest-house, adjacent to the Buddhist Temple, over the weekend. Clearly, the thing keeps shifting with the tide since it’s moved on from where is was spotted last year. Cerno also has a picture of it here. In a recent meeting with the President of Sri Lanka, Iran’s minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Dr.Daawood Danesh Jafarji has assured Sri Lanka of its continued support in the development of the island’s economic social and cultural activities. One wonders if the destruction of Sri Lanka’s cultural heritage by Iranian property was also discussed at these meetings. Repost This Article

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Reasons I love Mihin Lanka Airlines…

By Under Dog Let me count the ways: I love the way you worked for the benefit of the nation by busting through 1.4 billion rupees of public funds in 9 months. I love the way you used 385 million rupees worth of fuel from the CPC without paying for it. I love the way you convinced the Treasury (public funds) to pay off the fuel debt on your behalf.   I love the way you drove Lankaputhra Development Bank (founded with public funds to make small loans to small businesses) into insolvency by ‘borrowing’ 500 million rupees from it. I love the way you plan to utilize synergies (steal profits away) by rationalizing routes (taking routes from) Sri Lankan airlines. I love the way you take off with bits and pieces missing from an engine: “heck, most of it is there, it’ll fly” and the “Mayday! Mayday!” that facilitates speedy entry for unscheduled stop-overs. Frankly, what’s not to love…

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Use Of SMS By Govt For Vital Information Dissemination

The growing use of SMS for information dissemination was discussed earlier on Groundviews, and I would like to mention a recent development. At least one government department has been pro active and is now making use of SMS for communication with media. The Media Centre for National Security obtained an application to send out SMS to journalists from a four-digit number. They started on Dec 5th, as far as I know. What I hope now is that the Met Department, Disaster Management Center and other central authorities follow suit and send out quick SMS messages to reporters during an impending or occurring natural disaster. The message could also guide reporters towards a detailed announcement on a website. It could be a short line such as “New announcement posted by Disaster Management Center on website www.xyz.lk” and a detailed message posted in all three languages on this site. This is fast, detailed and saves officials from being stuck on phone lines…

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I/NGOs: Mea Culpa… Your Culpa… or Our Culpa?

Shanaka Amarasinghe Nearly three years have passed since the devastation of Boxing Day 2004. Those three years should have sufficed for grief to transform into resolve, for shock to become measured response and for altruism to become tangible benefit. It is impossible to quantify, despite the diverse and often varied reports available, how much has been done, and by whom. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile considering the societal impact that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), and the good and/or evil that has been precipitated by their presence. The aftermath of the tsunami saw a global outpouring of shock and dollars. The amount of tourists and expatriates affected in the South Asian region saw the world unite in its reaction to one of the worst natural disasters in mankind’s history. South Asia, and specifically Sri Lanka was flooded with aid from various donors. Well meaning individuals sacrificed their beer money and larger organisations mobilised their vast resources – both…

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  • 15 Sep, 2007
  • 1 Comment
  • Disaster Management

Lessons from Nagapattinum: Post-Tsunami and the Panchayat

In Vilunthamavadi, one fisherman said he saw a baby goat tied to the sand swept atop a 100-foot high water tank, 50 meters away in the blink of an eye. In P.R. Puram, another said the second wave, blurred ocean and sky in a sheet of indigo-noire, and the third wave’s aftermath left human and cattle corpses strewn in coconut trees, on the beach, on tea shop roofs, over potholes, in the ponds, swallowing villagers like a hungry elephant, its tide dragging them out to sea like the elephant’s trunk while it eats. The 2004 tsunami, causing much devastation to coastal districts of South India, almost 4 years later, still afflicts a string of Panchayats along Tamil Nadu’s southeastern coast. Local NGO’s are slowly collecting demographic data, but there are no current official statistics as of yet in these areas. In P.R Puram, there are 626 houses. In another Panchayat, Kameshwaram, there are 480 houses, and in this string of…

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SMS news alerts during emergencies – The experience of JNW and the tsunami warning of 13th September 2007

Chamath Ariyadasa The coverage by the media of yesterday’s earthquake near Indonesia might be of interest to some readers, and as the editor of JNW, Sri Lanka’s first SMS news agency, I thought of penning my personal opinion and raising some issues that could be discussed further. My biggest concern at the moment, as a journalist, is getting access to the initial tip off from authorities on an impending disaster and the subsequent official news messages in a timely manner so that they can be passed on to the public as fast as possible. There isn’t an email or SMS alert system in place, that I know of, that could easily meet this need. I know of the Met Dept website (http://www.meteo.slt.lk/Tswarn.html) which goes some way towards improving access to information, but I wouldn’t know when its updated. An SMS or email by the Met Dept or Disaster Management Centre would go a long way towards helping the media pass…

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Sri Lanka on tsunami alert after Indonesia quake (Updated)

12 Sep 2007 12:31:03 GMT Source: Reuters COLOMBO, Sept 12 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka issued a tsunami alert on Wednesday for its north, south and eastern districts following a major earthquake in Indonesia, the National Disaster Management Centre said. “We have issued a warning for the south, north and east after the quake,” Keerthi Ekanayake, an official at the centre told Reuters. Sri Lanka was battered by the 2004 tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean rim. – Reuters story ends – Update #1 (7.00pm): Read the alerts issued on JNW and also visit their site for updates. Update #2 (7.15pm): Reuters news alert SMS thru Dialog says “Small tsunami hit Indonesia’s Padang, Sri Lanka expects small tsunami by 7.30 – Disaster Management Centre” Update #3: (7.34pm): Reuters news alert SMS thru Dialog says “Disaster management center lifts tsunami warning, says no effect; US Geological Survey increase earthquake magnitude to 8.2″ Also see Reuters web update here. Repost This Article

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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