While browsing my Netvibes tab, I came across a post from Development Gateway’s Disaster community about the contested definition of a “natural” disaster. On the one hand, consider the UN’s definition: “the consequences of events triggered by natural hazards that overwhelm local response capacity and seriously affect the social and economic development of a region.” On the other hand, humanitarian activists question whether natural disasters are indeed “natural” in the sense that they occur without provocation – an “act of God,” as it were. In a world of human-induced global warming and climate change, the number of natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc.) worldwide is rising accordingly.
This same debate comes into play with disasters that occur as a result of human intervention (or lack thereof). As with the recent “mini tsunami”/dam collapse in Indonesia, many local bloggers are demanding the government be held accountable for its negligence and poor maintenance of the Situ Gintung dike. Though the dike was built almost 80 years ago by the Dutch colonial government, people still lived in the surrounding dangerous area. When it burst (after people reported leaks for some time), it destroyed hundreds of nearby homes and took approximately one hundred lives. After the jump: one of the videos embedded in the very informative Global Voices article; shows one village after this tragedy.
A more recent Global Voices article links to a blog post written by Tikno, an Indonesian man who reflects on the dam collapse in his blog, Love Ely (Ely is apparently his daughter’s name). Perhaps most significant, his third point urges “people who live in areas prone to disaster…to prepare emergency response system independently, which can be used when something happens while waiting for help from the authorities.” In other words, he recognizes that a ICT system needs to be established in order to best respond to such emergencies (whether or not they were caused “naturally”). He concludes, “All that we can do is using technology for early warning, prepare ourselves and give rapid-help to minimize the victim.” Regardless of the causes of such disasters, ICT networks enable the rapid coordination of local and non-state actors who work to “minimize the victim” count. If these tools can be cultivated in the most at-risk regions of the world, the effectiveness of disaster response would increase exponentially, with the ultimate goal of predicting disasters before they even strike.
My next blog post will feature an overview of these very kinds of tools from the organization InSTEDD (Innovative Support To Emergencies Diseases and Disasters). This two-year-old organization has already achieved prominence in the field of ICT for Disaster Response, currently focusing on Southeast Asia with its Mekong Collaboration Program. More on this soon.
