The Tsunami disaster in South Asia had gathered the most NGO,
military and donation aids in the region. It is important to make well organized
division of labor in different areas as well as the rescue, relief missions
-- short run and long run. The religion or psycological comfort at this moment
is also important.
Following the experiences of Taiwan's miserable earthquake
on Sept. 21, 1999, four stages of implementing rescue and rehabitate the victims
in five years are important.
(1) Rescue and Emergency Services (military involved, how to
set up a central coordination office in the front line; to organize various
human and goods resources from international governments and NGOs; emergency
medical care and religion comfort (language sophisticatioin is important for
comfort purpose. For Aceh case, I think Buddhists, muslims and religion-neutral
medical experts are more acceptable to local people.)
(2) After Care -- both government and NGOs aply important roles.
(3) Reconstruction and Assistance -- how to provide a subsidy
scheme for victims and a reconstruction plan for damaged areas.
(4) Rebuild Communities through Urban Redevelopment.
Above mentioned four stages was well summaried by Lung-Sheng
Chang (former Minister who was in charge of the relief coordination). He wrote
a full paper at http://ngo.cier.edu.tw/,
click into UN NGO Policy Series No.1(2001) and then find Chapter 14 pp.265 -
281.
On the same website, one can retrieve another two papers about
earthquake rehabitation in UN NGO Policy Series No.2 and one more in No.3. They
are:
No. 2 chapter 13 "Urban Redevelpment as the Major Tool to Rebuild
the Earthquake Damaged Community in Taiwan" pp. 291 - 300.
No. 2 chapter 14 "Planning sustainable Tourism Development
for Post-Earthquake Reconstruction in Luka, Taiwan" pp. 301 - 318.
No. 3 chapter 14 "Great Love Village in El Salvador" pp.307
- 318.
Everybody knows Japan also had a big earthquake disaster in
recent years. It would be a smart decision for UN to hire Japan's and Taiwan's
government officers who are retired (so thae UN can save the cost of personnel
costs from the donation. Those retired government officers normally have retire
pensionaries), had enough experience on such relief and rehabitate experiences,
and with fluent English to coordinate the relief and rehabitate missions of
this South Asian Tsunami. According to UN organizational framework, each regional
office should have their strong official and NGO coordination systems for urgent
relief missions and long-term aids. This Tsunami provides a good opportunity
to start with.
ASrIA can organize a book on natural disaster urgent relief
handbooks or usful experience papers into a special book.
Taiwan_921_earthquake.pdf
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Asian Tsunami : Best Practice Response
