Operation Panic

The Union home ministry8217;s Operation Panic last Thursday was the last thing the country needed as it grappled with the enormity of recov...

The Union home ministry8217;s Operation Panic last Thursday was the last thing the country needed as it grappled with the enormity of recovering from the tsunami disaster. The official argument of the home minister, that it is better to be safe than sorry, may appear a reasonable one. But a closer consideration indicates this is not the case. The government8217;s apprehensions were based on fuzzy information and it had no business passing it on to an already panic-stricken population until the 8220;evidence from foreign sources8221; it had cited was rechecked. As it turned out, although some agencies did claim that a powerful earthquake could occur on Thursday noon near Australia, there was no major seismic activity reported.

This is where specialists come in. Sensitive information of this kind needs to be first vetted by scientists who have studied the phenomenon of after-shocks. You cannot broadcast alerts based on raw and undigested data and expect people to decide for themselves whether the situation threatens their survival or not. That is transferring too big a responsibility on to a population that is, in any case, in no frame of mind to take considered decisions. It is true that the US Geological Survey USGS 8212; which picks up seismic activity on an international scale 8212; had noted that there was a quake of a magnitude of 5.3 on Thursday around 11.30 am, but it was up to scientists to gauge whether this would result in a repeat, or near repeat, of Sunday8217;s ocean behaviour. In fact, at that point, the USGS had reported no less than 70 aftershocks after Sunday. Can any government worth its name issue alert notices after each one of them? Look at how Sri Lanka 8212; which, God knows, has even more reason to be jumpy 8212; played it. At first, the authorities there thought they would also order the evacuation of the coastal population, but a more informed reading of the data caused them to change their minds very quickly. So while in places like Cuddalore and Nagapattinam, people started fleeing in absolute terror thanks to a false tsunami alert, the scenario was far more calm across the Palk Straits.

The home ministry, as indeed the ministry of science and technology, need to get their act together on this one. We need better coordination among government agencies as also the closer involvement of experts on the issue of information deployment. And, if our ministers have a little extra time, we would recommend that they read two children8217;s fables. The first is 8216;Chicken Little8217;, about a silly chick who spread pandemonium because it thought that the acorn that fell on its head was the sky. The other is the more familiar one about the boy who cried wolf too often and paid for it with his life. We believe both tales have insights that our authorities can gain from.