AFTER THE TSUNAMI – HARNESSING AUSTRALIAN EXPERTISE FOR RECOVERY
Canberra, 31 March 2005

Learning from the PNG tsunami
Professor Hugh Davies
National University Papua New Guinea

Powerpoint presentation (23,218KB)

I find it a little bit difficult to come into your environment from outside: I find it hard to know exactly what to talk to you about. So I apologise if what I present is rather a catalogue of what has concerned us in PNG and what we are thinking about now, rather than a single clear message to the Academies.

I should say first that I thank Dr Zillman and the other distinguished members of the Academies for inviting me to come down and talk about this topic.

I want to start with a video, just to recreate the events of six years ago for you. The video has some significance because it is taken from a larger video that saved some lives in Vanuatu four years ago. People saw the video and recognised the warning signs of the tsunami, and disappeared back up the hill and only five people were killed.

[video shown, DVD of 7 minutes]

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This is the sand spit at Aitape, at Sissano, where the villages were wiped away.

The lessons that were learned from Aitape – the topic of this talk – were firstly that a relatively moderate earthquake could cause a devastating tsunami. The second one was the fact that for a near-source tsunami you cannot give a warning. A warning system will not work because the tsunami may arrive 10 or 15 minutes after the earthquake. The conclusion we have reached is that therefore the answer is education.

Education
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So we have put an effort into education throughout the coastal regions of PNG – and the inland regions as well because people move around – that people must know the warning signs and know what to do, and that that knowledge can save lives, as was the case at Pentecost, in Vanuatu.

Prevention – prepared communities
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Moving on to things that we can do in the way of prevention to reduce the effect of future disasters of this kind, particularly relating to tsunamis: encouraging people to relocate their houses 400 metres or so back, and developing training and first aid and counselling, which was missing at the time.

Prevention
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The next is to have an escape route – people who were living on those sand spits had nowhere to go. They were washed into the lagoon or, if they were less fortunate, they were washed into the mangroves on the side of the lagoon, which was very hard landing. So people need to plan escape routes.

Prevention
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We had noticed the effect of some trees. Some salt-tolerant trees provide good protection. Calaphyllum is one that grows in PNG.

We talked in the aftermath of Banda Aceh about tsunami shelters such as the typhoon shelters in Myanmar and Bangladesh: two-storey buildings where the understorey is a clear space that the water can flow through and the upper storey is where people can be accommodated.

We have talked at length in PNG about 24-hour communications, which we don’t have, especially for remote communities. And those communications have to be secure, because if your radio is in the District Office, and the District Office ends up plastered around the lagoon, then you still don’t have communications.

We talked about developing GIS databases for all sections of the coast, showing population, infrastructure, medical facilities, likely care centre venues and so on. AusAID is active in strengthening our disaster management structure, and at the university we are developing training programs.

Reserves of emergency supplies
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We talked about the need to have reserves of emergency supplies around the country, as the Red Cross currently does. In the case of Aitape, we had those reserves because of the Bougainville crisis.

Pre-planning and coordination of NGOs
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We talked about the need to coordinate amongst the NGOs. We had NGOs come in when probably we might have been better off if they hadn’t come in, but that is not the major NGOs, just some of the fringe NGOs. But some of the ones that did come in chose to go their own way and so there is a need for people to work together, so that if Red Cross is providing something for this care centre, the central authority knows that Red Cross is doing that.

Enhance the tide gauge network
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We now have a strong argument for enhancing the Australian tide network. We would like to see that enhanced with the real-time monitoring of tide stations around the Pacific so that we can track any far-source tsunami.

When disaster strikes
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We have these standard wish lists, which I won’t dwell on because all of you interested in emergencies know this better than I, perhaps. I will just read them out: the need for rapid assessment, the need for urgent water supply, the need for medical support, which is obvious, the need for shelter, the need for food, emergency transport, emergency communications, experienced field staff, expert advice and information – that was not in our pre-planning, but you need scientists to go in and tell you what is happening, what has happened, what is safe and what is not safe – census of the care centres, identification and disposal of the dead, which has been discussed today at length, media liaison, visitor control. I won’t go into these, perhaps, but just flick through the slides.

In the case of Aitape, as you will see at the end, I have got a tribute to the Australian involvement. We had good medical support.

Rapid assessment
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Medical intervention
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Emergency shelter
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Need expert advice in the field quickly
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A local FM-AM radio station
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People are hungry for information. How do you reach a rural community with information? Ideally, with radio. There was no radio at the time. The National Broadcasting Corporation brought in a portable station and that was very effective. In the meantime, we were distributing thousands of pamphlets to people.

Census of displaced persons
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Census we talked about. It is vital.

Identification and disposal of the dead
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Funds available and funds control
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Access to funds: in PNG you want immediate access to funds but you need control right from the outset. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, this is a disaster. We’ll go and spend a lot of money.’ You have got to have records, as our AusAID friend spoke about.

In the years after the event
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In the years after the event, in PNG and in Aceh, there will be land issues. There is trauma that continues today at Aitape. There is the point that was just made by Professor Fox that the victims must be involved in the decision making process. You can’t just disempower them.

Continuing contact with victims
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That support is needed for the long haul, another point that has been made this morning – and the value of a scientific inquiry, the need for continuing contact with the communities.

Scientific enquiry (1)
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Scientific enquiry (2)
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These are just two slides on the scientific inquiry, showing the fissures in the sea floor and the likely record of past tsunamis. It gave us an idea that the most recent major tsunami on this coast was 300 to 400 years ago.

Finally, the Australian role. If I could speak on behalf of the PNG people: this was very much appreciated. There was an assessment by a defence attaché from the High Commission on day 2. The first C130s arrived on day 2, and the medical team arrived on day 3 and established the hospital the same day. And throughout this, and through the more recent times, there has been long-term support from Australia through the excellent services of AusAID, for which we are grateful.