Sri Lankan Disaster Management

Sri Lankan Disaster Management

“Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is a disaster.” –Elon Musk

Introduction

Sri Lanka has faced number of major natural and manmade disasters from the prehistoric era. One of the most famous stories was that of Queen ‘Viharamahadevi’. Who was sacrificed to the sea during a Tsunami that occur around 205 B.C.  Similarly, during the 500 years of    foreign rule the island nation has suffered many other manmade and naturel disasters. The details of some of these can be seen in the history books of Sri Lanka.

Albeit, the ‘boxing day tsunami’ that occurred on the 26^th December 2004 is the most recently known disaster in the history of Sri Lanka. This disaster severely affected the economic and social structure of the country, devastating the entire coastal belt of the island. It took only 15 minutes to kill more than 30,000 people and to injure more than 15,000. Another 800,000 were homeless without any of their possessions.  With the larger percentage of damage to the housing, tourist, fisheries and transport sector, it was estimated that the total damage exceeded US $ 900 million.  The overall economic loss was estimated as 4.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This was expected to reduce the economic progress of the country by 1.5% of total GDP in year 2005.  Since Sri Lankan humanitarian sector was not prepared for such a large calamity, there were a number of issues which delayed the immediate response action.

            To begin with; there was virtually no mechanism set up to face such large scale disaster, in the state or in any other organisation.  Such non-availability not only hampered the immediate response stage, but also caused many other problems. The airports were clogged with large amount of supplies without a direction for distribution; many unsolicited items were received to be distributed to the victims. Further, there was the corruption issue eminent from immediate response to reconstruction with regard to proper distribution of aid.  There were coordination problems that occurred within aid distribution and all other post disaster work due to the non-availability of a proper state mechanism for disaster management. Thus, one of the major concerns was the distribution coordination and the methodological issues with regard to planning of humanitarian relief activities within the country. The most significant reason for this ineffective coordination and other shortcomings and delayed was the non-availability of trained logisticians in the Sri Lankan humanitarian landscape. With the above mentioned issues it was imperative to encompass an effective and efficient logistical mechanism in the humanitarian field of Sri Lanka.

            Addition to this shocking experience of the tsunami, other natural disasters are also increasing in Sri Lanka due to various man made and climatic reasons. The damaged caused to human and capital has impeded the development of the country.  People affected from natural disaster are amounting to 3,282536 between 2000 to 2017. 

Sri Lankan Disaster Management

There were many portions of legislation implemented by different government agencies about disaster management prior to 1996 in Sri Lanka.  However, the critical issues in the phases of preparedness, emergency response and mitigation were not included in legislations at local level.   With the establishment of disaster management legislation in 2005, the Sri Lankan government initiated a system of disaster mitigation and a response management mechanism. The Government instigated the National Council for Disaster Management (NCDM).  The Disaster Management Act number 15 of 2005 provides the framework for disaster risk management in Sri Lanka and the legal basis for instituting a disaster management system in the country, including the establishment of the National Council for Disaster Management (NCDM). The NCDM is the highest policy making body in the country on disaster risk reduction. It is chaired by the President, with the Prime Minister, as vice-chair and includes the participation of the Leader of Opposition, 20 Ministers and Chief Ministers of Provinces. Further the Government of Sri Lanka also created an institutional mechanism to coordinate assistance by setting up three task forces under the President. These are the Task Force for Rescue and Relief (TAFRER), the Task Force for Law and Order and Logistics (TAFLOL), and the Task Force to Rebuild the Nation (TAFREN).     

Let’s look in to the distribution network in the country during a disaster, since the core theme of the book is about logistics. Distribution of humanitarian aid differs from each phase and stage of disaster in the country. At small scale disasters the aid distribution can be initiated by NGOs and private sector at provincial level. There is a state involvement through ‘Grama Niladaries’ (Village Headmen). DMC has initiated another system, where food and immediate necessities can be bought from the cooperative system as an immediate response to a sudden disaster, where the money will be replaced to the cooperative by the Ministry of Disaster Management (MDM) at a later stage.  In this process ‘Grama Niladaries’ act as the village representatives who conduct the initial needs assessment with the assistance of the district coordinators (Locally, DMC has appointed District Disaster Coordinators that include of military and government officials from the relevant District Secretariats). These coordinators have their own teams at each vulnerable village that comprises of youth from that village. They are being trained and given the basic knowledge of disaster evacuation and other emergency preparedness activities that include basic of store management and ration allocation duties. The ‘Grama Niladaries’ of each village is also a mandatory member of these teams (Refer to figure 1.2).

In addition to this in much larger disasters, National Disaster Relief Service Centre (NDRSC) caries out the distribution of aid that will be channelled through the central government (i.e. through MDM). NDRSC was established in 1996 under the Ministry of Social Services and Social Welfare and came under the Ministry of Disaster Relief Services. NDRSC carries out all the logistics and supply chain management duties as the Humanitarian Logistics (HL) arm of MDM. The services rendered by NDRSC includes:

•          Provide short-term and long-term relief measures for affected people.

•          Formulate and implement programmes to rescue people from both natural and man-made disasters.

•          Plan and implement projects to minimize disaster impacts. (Construction of cultivation wells, rainwater harvesting, etc.)

•          Coordinate and direct relevant parties to ensure the implementation of reconstruction and rehabilitation activities.

•          Implement rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes to restore livelihoods and economy of people who were affected by both natural and man-made disasters.

•          Collect process and disseminate information on disaster situations.

•          Conduct awareness programmes for public officers and people on how to face disaster situations and relief mechanism.

•          Coordinate relief operation during emergency.

There are also other distribution methods where various agencies of United Nations (UN), Sri Lanka Red Cross and other NGOs have their own relief distribution programmes at a time of a natural disaster (NDC, et al., 2014). It was also observed that private sector organisations and media also conduct relief distribution programmes at the times of disasters with or without the knowledge if the MDM. Given the fact, the relief distribution network is very complex in the country. During a previous research we conceptualized the relief distribution network in Sri Lanka in the present context.