The Challenges of Working in Disaster Zones – Times-Standard

Last week’s column raised several questions. How to stay safe when doing post-tsunami studies? Who pays? Was what I learned applied to our region? She has participated in six international studies and four studies on the northern coast. Each was unique but each had features in common.

It starts with an event. Sometimes you know right away that an earthquake and / or tsunami is a big thing, other times it takes days to get a reasonable picture. Factors such as location and context, or did they trigger a tsunami, cracks in the surface, or other important features, even when no damage is present.

The event initiates a dialogue between people in the system. Tsunami world is still a small field and most of us know each other.

Surveys of Papua New Guinea, Chile, Indonesia and other remote regions are quite expensive. Transportation and logistics require upfront expenses. No organization has the amount of money ready to donate to anyone who wants to visit a disaster site. Some researchers may already have a National Science Foundation or other grant that they can utilize for support.

People can have many reasons for wanting to visit the location of an earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption, or other disaster, and not all of them are good reasons. “Disaster tourism” has received a lot of attention on Wikipedia for describing people who are drawn to scenes of devastation just to stare and see. Some people have asked me if they joined my survey and supported them. I do my best to direct them toward organizations like GEER (Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance) or EERI (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute) who have long-standing programs that coordinate reconnaissance after the event. The disaster scene is not the place to see how someone under pressure is performing, and GEER and EERI have meticulous audits.

I was lucky. I was part of the EERI team on my first visit (Papua New Guinea 1998), and since then I have found a variety of funders including Pacific Gas and Electricity, grants and private donations. My last three trips were supported by a donor to the Desert Society Foundation who was very interested in the tsunami and found my approach to post-event studies worth the funding. After both the 2009 and 2010 tsunamis in Samoa, she called me and gave me the green light to start planning. Regardless of the funding, I have always worked under the auspices of EERI.

Funding is a necessary first step, but a fruitful journey requires coordination – with both officials and scholars in the affected region and with international colleagues. Effective reconnaissance requires connections with local scholars and researchers. They will likely have a better understanding of what happened and the best places to focus on. When possible, it is best to have a local researcher as part of the team or to work closely with one.

It is also helpful to coordinate with government officials as they may control access. We were initially denied permission to travel to Papua New Guinea in 1998. A group of missionaries arrived in the area, telling people that if they did not change their religion, there would be another tsunami. In response, the government closed all access. Fortunately for my group, a professor of geology at the University of Papua New Guinea had connections to the government and was able to guarantee us.

Coordination helps avoid duplication of effort. If each group visited the same places, then the overall understanding of the event would be lost. The least affected areas are just as important as the most affected areas to understand all the factors that have reduced and exacerbated the impacts. Since the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, Laura Kong of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration International Tsunami Information Center has made courageous efforts to coordinate groups and ensure they share information. There is always one or two teams that choose to work alone, but most of us realize that it is in all of our interests to work together.

Once you enter the field, safety is the top priority. Traveling always involves some risks; Disaster travel has more. This means having a well-trained team that knows their job and contacts within the group and with other groups and officials to stay aware of situations that may change quickly. The ability to recognize threats, improvise, and quickly change plans is an important part of staying safe.

The only time I felt seriously threatened during a survey was in Indonesia (2005). Eleven of us were crammed into a boat designed for seven people. A magnitude 9.1 earthquake four months ago completely changed the coastline and ocean charts are now useless. During the two-week voyage, we heard reports of several boats misdemeanor. Civil war was still going on in the Aceh region and the regions were under the control of regional militias with little oversight by the national government. At one point, a group of teenagers delayed us with their Kalashnikovs while they searched the boat.

On the tenth day, our boat was ordered out of Aceh’s waters due to civil war fears. One person on the team was furious and suggested that we dig it up on the coast. We had no vehicles or logistical support. When asked where we should stay, he said the militia. I could see the horror in our Indonesian team members, and everyone seemed uncomfortable. For the first and only time in a field survey, I pulled out the female card and said it was not safe for me and that I was staying on the boat. The rest of the team breathed a sigh of relief. We’ve spent the last two days on Simeulue Island where nearly everyone survived the tsunami due to their oral history (see “Not my fault,” 6/9/2020). The change in plans saved me the best stop on the trip. The residents of Simolo Island survived because they realized the ground was shaking as a warning and headed for higher ground – a message I still use in nearly every tsunami preparedness project we have.

Note: Survey blogs from Japan, Samoa and Chile were posted at https://kamome.humboldt.edu/resources.

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