Disaster preparedness on village level needed say EMCI

A delegation from the Members of the EMCI taskforce convened a meeting on Tuesday evening with residents and business people of Ngatangiia at the Sports House at Nukupure Park to discuss the need to prepare a community response to tsunami or cyclone emergencies.
The consultation was conducted by EMCI coordinator, William Tuivaga and his colleague, Patrick Arioka.
Tuivaga warned that there is no place for complacency in disaster preparedness and gave the example from 1960 where an earthquake in Chile triggered a tsunami which hit the islands of Japan 22 hours after the event with the loss of many lives along the coastal areas.
Tsunami can travel at terrifying speeds of up to 900 km per hour but happen only every now and then and can happen any time day or night and thus there is an urgent need for village plans to be put into place to cope in the event of any such emergency.
The recent events in Samoa and Tonga where lives were lost in the wake of the tsunami and the following quakes in Vanuatu have focused the minds of the authorities and the public as to the need to be prepared.
What happened to our neighbours is not as likely to happen here as we are not as close to the Kermadec Trench (the fault line near Samoa and Tonga where the plates of the Earth literally push up against each other) but it depends on the strength of the earthquake.
The danger point is if the earthquake is above 8 on the Richter scale which they say is a major earthquake (my understanding has always been that any earthquake at 7.5 or more is major) and Samoa had only 15 minutes warning with the tsunami travelling at 650 km ph.
On the other hand, cyclones are quite a regular occurrence in tropical areas on either side of the Equator between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn with the official ‘cyclone’ season from November to March.
EMCI recommend setting up village response teams and drafting up a systems approach to be sent to the Police and EMCI for approval and once approved would have the force of law.
While approving the vaerua of what EMCI is trying to achieve and the many excellent points they have raised, there are concerns on timelines, competence of the local team compared to the role of the Prime Minister, Police Commissioner, Police Force, Red Cross, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Works.
For instance, EMCI want the events to be triggered by a declaration of a state of emergency by the Prime Minister but what happens if he is not in the country or not informed for whatever reason? Surely the response team should swing into action BEFORE there is any such emergency and play a preventative role.
According to the Disaster Risk Management Act, it is the Police Commissioner n his role as National Controller who should be in charge and this makes sense as he has the services of his Police Officers at his disposal and they are used to the concept of discipline and having a chain of command in their everyday duties which translates well into emergency situations.
Village responses are excellent but in the event of an actual emergency my own preference would be to have one of two police officer in the respective villages taking a leading part of the village response team rather than being led by untrained people without proven competence in emergencies.

Herald Issue 463 10 June
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