HA/DR Operations: A Critical Insight Into Sri Lanka’s Disaster Response Capacity with Reference to the 2017 Flash Floods and Landslides.

Floods in Sri Lanka 2017

Sri Lanka became a victim of devastating natural disasters during recent past making a dramatic impact on mankind and living hood on Sri Lankan soil. Recent chain of natural disasters occurred in the month of May 2017 resulted from heavy southwest monsoon was worsened by arriving of Cyclone Mora, causing number of floods and landslides throughout Sri Lanka. The flood affected almost fifteen districts displacing around six hundred thousand people. Nearly two hundred and fifty people were killed and hundred and thirty people were missing due to the flood. The series of hazards hit its peak with landslide at Meethotamulla garbage dump in 14th of April 2017, taking its toll on 26 lives and left over 1,500 homeless and displaced people. Sri Lanka was alerted as a disaster porn country with Tsunami hit in 2014 loosing thousands of mankind and taking a massive impact on the country’s profile and Sri Lanka barely could stand up from junks of deadliest waves, turning country’s disaster management approaches in to a new way. Since there, several steps were taken to frame a sustainable mechanism to response disasters but, effectiveness of such efforts are still arguable.

Again, heading back in to the recent series of floods and landslides, it wasn’t the first time that Sri Lanka hit with such a tragic weather misfortune. It was like a pattern which is taking place continuously in every year and has become a routine matter in present context. The flood occurred in the mid of 2016 also ended up with similar results affecting over four hundred thousand people. However, with extensive experience Sri Lanka having in dealing with emergencies, responses were swift.

During the flood, Government forces including Police played a huge role in disaster relief and humanitarian aiding incorporated with the Ministry of Disaster Management and number of other governmental and non-governmental agencies. disaster relief and humanitarian aids were able to patch the prevailing short-run necessities but, could not sustain on long-run execution. Nearly 70,000 people were severely affected, 465,000 people were moderately affected, 595,000 people were indirectly affected and 20,792 houses were impacted due to flood. Mixed food need was raised at 3,600 Metric Tons for three months and drinking water requirement was at 1,456,600 Liters for a week (DMC, 2017). Sanitary and other essential needs also were raised proportionally and victims were accommodated at number of safety shelters. Simultaneously, collapse of garbage dump nearly buried 150 houses. Again, thousands of government troops were deployed on rescuing affected. Government was rush to provide devastated areas with essential needs. Meantime, number of international bodies and non-governmental organizations were hand-in-hand with relief operation in different levels. 16 countries had rushed relief supplies and medicines and had funded with US $ 5500000 to aid affected (Aljazeera, 2017).

Talking to the point, the initial responses taken by local authorities were at an immature level. all the time, relief operations were poured with enormous resources in various aspects and even the manpower but, poor management caused dragging of relief operations unnecessarily making the situation much worst. Medium and localized small-scale disasters cumulatively resulted in sizable loss of lives and economic assets but, still the responsible authorities are failed in taking necessary precautions and proactive mechanism to control and respond such disasters. The Ministry of Disaster Management is the key body to control and respond disasters through their number of regional disaster management centers. Theoretically, Armed forces, Police and other governmental, non-governmental and international disaster relief agencies should be managed through a systematic process in dealing with managing disasters, and DMC and Ministry of Disaster Management should be the leading body which rules and manages all other agencies meeting expected outcomes yet, it’s doubtable.

The Disaster Management Center (DMC) was established in Sri Lanka under the Disaster Management Act No 13 of 2005 (Gazette, 2005), for the purpose of assuring national-level safety, through a systematic management of natural, technological, and man-made disasters. As per the projected Disaster Management Plan for 2013-2017 by DMC, their aim is to Reduced disaster impact on communities, infrastructure, lifeline facilities, shelter, agricultural property, economic and development activities in Sri Lanka and their objective is to Establishment of mechanisms/systems for Disaster Risk Management in Sri Lanka as a multi-sectoral, inter-ministerial, and inter-agency activity, by identifying and assessing the capacities of existing agencies for improving their capacities and mandates as necessary to implement the identified tasks, using methodologies and concepts already developed and field tested. Yet, the DMC has consistently failed to inform vulnerable communities about the potential dangers postured by such disasters early. Lack of prior planning and communication has been the main cause for the failure to avoid overwhelming effects of natural disasters and creating a huge doubt on the disaster relief response capacity of Sri Lanka (Satharasinghe, 2017).

According to my preview, disaster response capacity is consisting with two main sectors with four governing factors in each and it has shown on the diagram below

Figure 1: Factors of disaster response capacity

The human factor is the human resource or the manpower investing in disaster relief operations. It can be explained from top level management to a poor labor and also it describes the potential working force available in utilizing disaster reliefs. Also, technical factor explains the availability of machineries, instruments, vehicles, technology and technical mechanisms or any other technical term which can be used on aiding disaster relief. The financial factor signifies the economic relationship in terms of monetary and fiscal powers and policy factor denotes the policy framework of the country which establishes the infrastructure for building objectives and mechanism and operational guidelines of disaster relief and disaster management outlining mandates of entire disaster response extends of the country. “Disaster Relief Capacity” is the initial short-run responses on rescuing, aiding and securing affected areas and “Revamping Capacity” is long-run response on rebuilding socio-economic infrastructure of the affected areas as well as of the country. Out of all of these, the most important fact is that how much we are capable of preventing such disasters or minimizing potential damage of it in well in advance. The “Early Disaster Responses” can be described with to approaches.

          a. Early warnings

          b. Disaster preventive mechanisms

“Early Warnings” are mostly welcome to prepare and response to disasters. Bulletins and disaster warnings alert the community on reaching a disaster so, the relevant agencies and authorities can take necessary actions to prepare to receive its damage and also to minimize the effect of impact. The Department of Metrology is a key institute which provides early warnings on adverse weather conditions and possible disasters. Also, Tsunami warning system and cooperated global weather bulletin system also provides relevant inputs on such proximities giving a room for disaster preparedness and response planning. “Disaster Preventive Mechanism” incorporates all aspects such as mandated and institutional developments; Hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment; disaster mitigation and integration into development planning. Further, community-based disaster management; public awareness, education and training; plans and policies of related sectors also can include into disaster preventive mechanism.

When I apply the same graphic in to recent flood flash of Sri Lanka, the analytical output was as intimated below. The long-term plan of the government to mitigate the risk of disasters is in question, in the context of a scaling down of capital expenditure for the Ministry of Disaster Management. According to the Budget Estimates for 2017, capital expenditure allocated for the Ministry of Disaster Management was cut by approximately 29% in 2017 and it is expected to be further cut down by another 10% in 2018 (Moramudali, 2017). This shows the interest of government has extend towards addressing disaster management sector. Lesser financial support, pulls down the capacity of disaster response in various aspects. It is also evident that capital expenditure for disaster mitigation projects has also been reduced. In 2016, Rs. 770 million was allocated for the cause and it was cut down to Rs. 750 million in 2017. Interestingly, Budget 2017 had cut down allocations for the flood mitigation program as well. As per estimates, a budget of Rs. 100 million was allocated for a flood mitigation program in 2016 and it was reduced to Rs. 80 million in 2017. Along with, money allocated for landslide damage mitigation programm was reduced to Rs. 205 million in 2017 from Rs. 230 million in 2016. Capital expenditure allocated for the Department of Meteorology was reduced from Rs. 63 million in 2016 to Rs. 43 million in 2017 (MOF, 2016).

The reduction of capital expenditure allocated to the Ministry of Disaster Management is a considerable drop in government responsibility in disaster management. It has been effected irrespective of Sri Lanka does not having the technology to forecast disasters accurately, predominantly in this era of deep-seated climate changes. As a result of it, the Ministry of Disaster Management does not own adequate technology to forecast disasters accurately and the Disaster Management Ministry did not have the capacity to stock up on supplies to meet emergencies. This is why the recent chain of floods and landslides got worst in its lateral effects increasing the degree of the damage.

Apart from the fiscal and monetary terms, “Human” factor in both relief and revamping programs is playing an oscillating role. Generally, the Sri Lankan culture of dependency, creates a more pressure on the system which diverse the effort and the involvement in different ways. That culture Seeks for unaffordable goods and services in dealing with disaster relief and revamping, rising the thresholds of financial and other investments. It is now progressively being recognized that the provision of money or vouchers in emergencies can support people in ways that maintain humanoid dignity, provide access to food and shelter and help rebuild or shield livelihoods. Of course, this is context specific reliant on the extent of the disaster, but the aim of such programming allows a flexible response tool that supports the sovereignty and choice of these people, while making humanitarian aid more accountable to the affected people. The other fact is that, we need to close the gender and diversity gap in our response to those who have been affected. Women, girls the elderly and the disabled often are unable to claim their rights and fulfill their needs in a crisis. This has to start with an effective information management which includes dis aggregated data and other key relevant indicators in combination of human factor with technical factor. The human force involving in disasters and also the affected human carder can tune up in various directions to get the maximum and an effective output in extending HA/DR operations increasing the capacity of response to disasters.

Management is a policy factor. Means and ends of management is derived from national legislation. Poor management causes contracting the disaster response capacity. It was highly observed during recent flood and landslides, where a considerable portion of resources were wasted and misused. Since there are number of internal and external agencies are working with hand to hand, they work on different capacities on different objectives. Some are having political objectives and some are having social or business objectives. But, a precise management should merge all these together and distribute to the ends depending upon its necessity. Though the world has introduced such perfect disaster management systems like Incident Command System (ICS) 300, and also a considerable number of officials are trained on it here, yet nobody follows them or even practice them. During the recent flood, Implementation of such management system in Sri Lanka would increase the response capacity minimizing the waste of resources giving an effective result.

As a brief, the disaster response capacity of Sri Lanka is lying beneath the required level to address HA/DR requirement. There are many more changes to be made in various fields in order to restructure existing disaster response mechanism to meet current requirement. Now, its seriously need to think collectively about expanding our HA/DR response capacities. The government has shown that it is inept at preparing for the crisis. We need to collectively work on better training and being better equipped in areas of preparedness and response to disasters and crisis. We need to strengthen national legislation on emergency preparedness including contingency planning and early warning systems which also identifies the roles and responsibilities of various actors including the private sector. As international aid for humanitarian and development work declines for Sri Lanka due to its middle-income status classification, it is left on the shoulders of the national NGOs, Government and Private Sector to respond. Finally, it’s a collective effort and a collective responsibility of all concerning authorities, communities and individuals to enhance the HA/DR response capacity in each level to meet better results in future endeavors.