Death by water

The year passes by with a sting in its tail as India 8212; and indeed the whole of south and southeast Asia 8212; mourn for the thousands who died in Sunday8217;s tsunami tragedy. With every passing hour, the death toll seems to be shooting upward, with every passing hour comes fresh realisation of the enormous devastation and loss that stare each affected nation in the face. It would require enormous reserves of leadership, courage, commitment and resources to meet this challenge posed by nature8217;s wrath , not just in the immediate present but in the days ahead. This is a project, not just to console, but to rehabilitate; not just to heal, but to rebuild.

India, of course, has been one of the countries worst affected given its population density and the vulnerability of its coastal communities. For almost 24 hours, the Andamans and Nicobar islands disappeared from the map. Even 40 hours later, relief had yet to reach thousands marooned in isolated land masses, with no means of communicating with the rest of the world. As for Tamil Nadu8217;s agony, it has become the nation8217;s. For once, the Centre responded with alacrity, with the home minister making his way to the affected regions within a few hours of the news coming in. But the Crisis Management Group set up under the Cabinet secretary must be prepared for the long haul. This is no passing development 8212; recovery will be long and arduous, demanding foresight and long-term planning. It is in times like this that the nation must stand united. India has had its brushes with death and destruction on a mass scale and this is the moment to apply the insights of those earlier experiences for the benefit of those who face devastation today. One of the big lessons of the Gujarat earthquake was the need to see this intervention in three distinct phases: rescue, relief, rehabilitation. To that we need to add a fourth component: recovery, complete recovery.

The tsunami tragedy flags once again the need to shore up our meteorological preparedness. The Indian Meteorological Department IMD was quick to defend itself for not have predicted the tsunami by citing its rarity. Certainly, to the average Indian, the tsunami is something that hits only Japan. But the IMD cannot afford to be so uninformed given that India has a coastline of approximately 7,000 km. The latest disaster also reminds us of the complex inter-connectedness of weather systems of the region. Japan, being especially vulnerable to tsunamis, has honed its early warning system to a fine art. Every bit of information, even news from its embassies in South America about storms building up in the Pacific Ocean, is considered invaluable. India would do well to emulate this.