A Collector's ground view of the Tsunami recovery - Radhakrishnan

"Such disasters (like Tsunami) are pointers to the fact that disaster risk reduction, community based disaster management and putting in place a robust early warning system are all equally important and cannot be done as stand-alone efforts. Having regular drills and making the community aware is also another important activity which needs to be done regularly." - Radhakrishnan, Government of Tamil Nadu, Chennai

On the day of the Tsunami, I was in Thanjavur serving as the District Collector and I was asked  by the State Government  to rush with mobilised vehicles, ambulances and food to Nagapattinam district to help in rescue and relief. This was the worst affected district with 6065 reported deaths. I was later asked by the State Government to continue in the Nagapattinam town area and Akkarapettai Panchayat as the team leader. Subsequently the Government transferred me to Nagapattinam as the Collector and I continued till May end 2006 and was involved in the needs assessment and field execution of the massive rehabilitation and recovery efforts.

Key lessons

1. Need to be prepared for both known and unknown disasters. Tsunami till that point was not known in that area, though they were familiar in handling cyclones and floods. 

2. Disaster risk reduction features were built in in a big way during recovery like having disaster resistant shelters, escape routes, alternative livelihood.

3. Putting in place robust early warning system and communications to ensure that it reaches the last mile.

Challenges 

1. The disaster stuck even as the district was recovering from  large scale flooding in October 2004 and in the recovery phase again there were large scale floods in October and November 2005. Planning for recovery in such a scenario with the population being entirely affected and the entire 187 km coastline affected was a huge task. It was managed by bringing in mini Collectorate system, by inducting self-contained teams of personnel from all the departments who brought in men, material and equipment. 

2.Large scale influx of NGOs was managed by setting up a NGO coordination centre which was manned by NGOs and worked from the Collectorate and worked in a complimentary fashion.

3. Need to give equal attention to all the 73 habitations across the coastline and also address livelihood loss in addition to loss of lives and shelters. Need to put up temporary shelters in place of relief camps to allow early recovery as work went on building up of permanent shelters was another challenge.