ANATOMY OF DISASTER
“If a large tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to witness it, how do you know it makes a big sound?”
When an earthquake with an intensity of six on the Richter Scale occurred in Bohol years back it only netted a paragraph in the inside pages of newspapers. Unlike the intensity four tremor on that same year in Cebu when workers at the 12-storey Metrobank building, then under construction, got injured. That one landed in the front pages.
Typhoons. Earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions. These are natural calamities, but there are also man-made disasters such as plane crashes, fires, and explosions. They qualify as disasters when loss of human lives and destruction to properties are significant.
Most disasters occur in densely populated areas, like epidemics and plagues. In instances when these afflict animals, there is only a show of concern on their adverse impact on humans, as in the case of the Hoof & Mouth Disease, Mad Cow Disease or the Chicken Flu.
As human population continues to grow we start encroaching on other areas. People not only need space, they also consume and utilize resources for livelihood, for commerce. Hence, forests are cleared, mountains are leveled, wetlands are reclaimed.
Now, apart from the natural hazards of flooding, landslides and droughts, we are also dealing with oil spills, water contamination, and fuel emissions. Even traditional health hazards such as unsafe drinking water and mosquito-borne diseases are getting complicated with chromium and mercury in our water, and strains of dengue that afflict adults as well as dengue.
Worldwide, modern-day threats include social violence such as highjacking and terrorism; hazardous materials such as toxic wastes and the Bhopal industrial tragedy in India; and atomic and nuclear threats.
“You can’t stop progress,” is a cliché. It’s also an unacceptable excuse – even foolhardy and dangerous -- not to take measures to avert or mitigate the hazards.
When we measure progress by the number of people crowding in houses and buildings, planes, boats, buses, we know we are courting trouble. Disaster is only a matter of time. A child playing with a match, a short circuit, failed brakes, an incompetent crew … You can’t stop progress? Ah, but you should see how Nature can slam on the brakes. The consequences are much more lethal than whiplash.
Our disasters are evolving.
They pack more wallop now. It’s not only because there are more victims with the rising population and the congestion of human settlement areas. It’s not only because of environmental damage that is upsetting global weather patterns. For the economic setbacks, enormous destruction and human suffering which disasters leave in their wake, much of the blame lies in poor disaster management. As individuals, as a community or as a country -- we either ignore or downplay our vulnerability to these hazards and we don’t take proactive steps to soften the impact.
Look at us. We have people living in esteros and squatter colonies. The Sword of Damocles hangs over their heads what with risks of fire, epidemics, contaminated drinking water, crime, a wayward vehicle crashing into their flimsy walls, and demolition. About half of the urban population live like this. But our leaders never stirred until we were neck-deep in crisis and were screaming for their heads.
Reactive, not proactive. Remember when our presidents asked for emergency powers at the height of the electric power shortage and the rice shortage? Kaayo gyud pakungon sa mga ulo.
The Asian Development Bank takes into account that most of the world’s natural disasters occur in the Asia-Pacific region. Its handbook on disaster management defines disaster as “an event, natural or man-made, sudden or progressive, which impacts with such severity that the affected community has to respond by taking exceptional measures.” It is a development issue because “losses from natural disasters reduce the pace of sustained economic development and often lead to a heavy drain on available resources, diverting them from pursuing developmental aims.”
We’re dancing with two partners -- progress and disaster – two steps forward, two steps backward. Whatever momentum is gained from growth is diverted to relief operations. Damage control after the damage is done. We are never prepared. Not for lack of warnings, not even when disasters are predictable.
Take monsoons and typhoons. Common sense dictates that deforested mountains cause flashfloods and landslides. That weak structures are unsafe, ditto for riverbanks and shores when water levels swell. But almost always when the typhoon hits us we are knocked out, first round pa lang. Mirisi.
February 26, 1999