Disaster prevention is better than cure, says Christian Aid

New Delhi – International relief and rehabilitation agency, Christian Aid has called for disaster risk reduction to be part of all future emergency and development programmes so that the world does not witness a repetition of the series of death and destruction left behind in 2005 by tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and severe famines.
On December 8, the agency released a report, ‘Don’t be scard, be prepared,’ stressing that the involvement and training of local communities is crucial.

Christian Aid welcomed the multi–million, hi–tech tsunami warning system planned for the Indian Ocean, but stated that it will be a failure if it is not coupled with training at a local level throughout the region.

"We have seen what the tsunami did to coastal communities," said Anjali Kwatra, Christian Aid’s Asia specialist. "Unless these communities have disaster management plans and are given effective awareness training, the news of an imminent disaster will not filter down to the local level where it is most needed."

By building disaster–resistant homes, teaching children how to swim, conducting programmes in evacuation training, first aid and search and rescue, the agency is incorporating disaster reduction in all its work in the tsunami–affected communities in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

According to the agency, disaster reduction not only saves lives, it is also cost effective. The agency calculated that just £1 spent on disaster risk reduction could have saved a child from being buried alive in the Kashmir earthquake. For an extra £500 a school on the Indian subcontinent can be built to withstand earthquakes. In one case among many thousand, some 500 children are believed to have been crushed to death in Kashmir when their school collapsed.

"Community based, low–tech methods have been proved to work," explained Anjali Kwatra. "In Bangladesh, Christian Aid partner organizations built cyclone shelters after the 1991 cyclone killed some 140,000 people. Six years later there was an even more lethal cyclone but only 100 people died because they knew how to take refuge."

Christian Aid is also conducting an exhibition of art and images (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/tsunami/) to mark the one–year anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Entitled ’every time I see the sea…life after the tsunami,’ it goes beyond the who, where and when of the disaster to explore the experiences of the survivors in art, photography and personal testimonies.