In recent years, it's become popular for those who've been blindsided by a major tragedy of some kind to say that it was not foreseeable. But when it comes to natural disasters, at least, the pattern of the past several decades suggests that such calamities are not as rare as they might have been -- or as many people seem to think.
Since 1988, the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) has been maintaining an Emergency Events Database, called EM-DAT, which reveals an interesting pattern: over the course of several decades, the frequency of such events has been steadily increasing.
(Source: EM-DAT, The International Disaster Database)
In a Financial Times commentary, "Disasters Are Not Rare, So Prepare", Phillip Ellis, chief executive officer of Willis Structured Risk Solutions, lends further support to the notion that when it comes to dealing with the unexpected, many people seem to have the wrong idea.
The horrific earthquake in Haiti has been described as a “once in 200 years event”, while last year Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, cautioned against financial reforms designed for a “100-year storm”. Oddly juxtaposed in recent media reports, both these comments show how we have come to label disasters as “black swans” – exotic calamities that cannot be predicted and that, by implication, we should probably not plan for or incorporate into how we build our physical and financial infrastructure. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I do not want to be insensitive, given the continuing loss of life in Haiti and the heroic efforts of non-governmental organisations and the local population to save lives; but it is critical to recognise that catastrophes are not rare. We need to prepare for and manage these crises much more professionally than we do today.
A natural event that kills more than 50,000 people has occurred, on average, once every four years since 1970. Haiti aside, the five biggest killers in this period have been the Bangladesh storm and flood of 1970 (300,000 deaths), the Chinese earthquake of 1976 (255,000), the 2004 tsunami (220,000), cyclone Nargis in Burma in 2008 (138,000) and cyclone Gorky in Bangladesh in 1991 (138,000). While events such as these are called “natural”, the catastrophe in terms of human suffering is man-made or, at least, man-influenced. Stronger infrastructure, better preparation and a faster response would have made such large-scale events much less costly in human terms. Haiti is the latest tragic example.
Over the centuries many big cities – not just London and Chicago – have been ravaged by fire. We have learnt to equip and train firefighters appropriately and to locate them so that they can be on the scene within minutes. Lines of command are clear and responses well-drilled. Given the frequency of natural catastrophes, we need rapid response teams on a global scale analogous to local fire departments. In every region of the globe, we should have a rapid response organisation, under clear leadership, primed to organise the logistics, search and rescue teams, medical support, drinking water, basic nourishment and shelter within hours of a natural catastrophe. Each regional group would be responsible, with the affected government’s permission, for mobilising and managing the initial emergency response – for at least the first week after a disaster. It would direct the allocation of NGO resources in this period, ensuring that the most important are landed, unloaded and delivered where needed.
In Haiti, it is no surprise that the US military is playing and will play a big role. Apart from being geographically close, America has the experience, manpower, equipment and command structure to lead. But it cannot be expected to fulfil the role I have described above throughout the world. The United Nations, on the other hand, given a greatly strengthened capability may be able to deliver the skill and scale that is required. Inevitably, the Group of 20 leading economies must provide the lion’s share of the resources to get this done. Whatever the mechanism, now is the time to put in place a rapid response to natural catastrophes and to use this initiative to exert influence on developing countries to improve their own protective and preparatory measures.
One “black swan” event is much like another in terms of human suffering – natural and man-made disasters are kin. And here is where the “odd juxtaposition” mentioned above comes in. It may appear controversial or insensitive to observe this at this time, but the human suffering from the Great Recession is no less severe than the pain from natural catastrophes. Mental illness, stress-related disorders, family breakdowns, crime and suicide can rise markedly as a result of financial crises. And in the last 10 years we have had several: the Asian crisis of 1998-99, the Long-Term Capital Management episode, the dotcom bust, Enron and the global financial crisis have rocked domestic and world markets in recent memory. Each was extremely unlikely, a “100-year storm”, but they seem to keep on coming.
Very bad, very big surprises happen often. They are all man-made to some extent. We need to be prepared – and we need stronger global management of them on this small planet.
Note that the statistics are about disasters that are reported. More disasters are happening to "us" merely because the scope of "us" is constantly growing in an increasingly interconnected world.
The individual events may be once-in-a-100-years disasters, but this frequency refers disasters in a single location. If earthquakes happen once in a century in tens of hot spots all over the world, major disasters are bound to happen every few years. Nowadays people relate to the fates of a lot more people than before.
Individual preparedness in each potential disaster zone is not necessarily sensible, but on a global scale, we could do a lot more.
Posted by: RR | January 25, 2010 at 01:59 AM