UD researchers gather data in tsunamis’ wake

A damaged home on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka between the cities of Ambalangoda and Galle

3:44 p.m., March 3, 2005--Researchers from the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center (DRC) have returned from South Asia after a social science reconnaissance mission mounted in the wake of the devastating tsunamis that struck in December.

The UD researchers were part of a team sponsored by the California-based Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and funded by the National Science Foundation.

The team reached South Asia within a month of the tsunamis, which were generated by a large earthquake in Sumatra, and visited some of the regions of India and Sri Lanka that were most ravaged by the disaster.

During a two-week expedition, their goals were to collect perishable data, identify communities and organizations that were particularly hard-hit by the tsunamis and observe the extent to which various structures were damaged or destroyed, according to Havidan Rodriguez, DRC director.

Rodriguez was joined on the fact-finding mission by Tricia Wachtendorf, UD assistant professor of sociology who is affiliated with the DRC; James Kendra, of the University of North Texas and a former postdoctoral fellow at DRC; and Joseph Trainor, a UD graduate student and DRC project coordinator.

Fact-finding mission members (from left): Prof. James Kendra of the University of North Texas, a former postdoctoral fellow at DRC; Tracia Wachtendorf, UD assistant professor of sociology who is affiliated with DRC; Joseph Trainor, DRC projects coordinator; and Havidan Rodriguez, DRC director.

Rodriguez said the expedition yielded important data on disaster preparedness, response and recovery. The team also focused on issues such as community resilience, inter-organizational coordination, governmental response and the distribution of disaster relief aid following the tsunamis, he said.

Rodriguez said the team’s preliminary findings show that communities in the affected areas in Sri Lanka and India lacked the necessary warning systems and other resources--including public and organizational training and response--in order to generate effective preparedness and response. That, in turn, hampered the recovery process in many of those regions.

“More effective community capacity would have limited the disastrous impacts in lives and property,” the team wrote. “Indeed, beyond the death toll, the tsunami wrecked much of the community infrastructure available to assist those directly impacted. It is noteworthy that similar threats, challenges and outcomes exist for communities across the globe, including coastal regions in the U.S.”

The team found that community characteristics affected resilience in the face of the natural disaster, with the more successful villages, towns and cities those in which there was a high degree of involvement in immediate rehabilitation efforts. “The development of strategies aimed at fostering or encouraging community resilience to catastrophic disaster events are extremely important in furthering our ability to protect people,” they wrote.

Relocation issues also emerged as central to disaster recovery efforts, the team found, with industry and residents seeking safer ground on which to rebuild. “Many of the residents in the communities we visited appeared to be living in a state of persistent uncertainty regarding when they would be able to resume their work, build new houses, procure locations for those houses, resume ‘normal’ community rhythms and even determine whether or not it was safe to return to the shore,” the team wrote. “They reported impacted sleeping patterns, increased stress levels and interruption of daily activities.”

Some were found living in the remains of houses that appeared on the verge of collapse, they said.

A group of USAID workers at a major relief camp in Sri Lanka just outside Galle

As an additional measure of uncertainty, the team found, there is a high level of skepticism regarding the extent to which the government will fulfill promises made regarding disaster relief aid.

The construction of temporary shelters varied quite significantly from one community to another and between India and Sri Lanka, the team found, with residents living in a diverse set of structures ranging from donated tents and makeshift tarp tents to thatched houses and buildings with fiberglass or aluminum roofing. Of concern were the safety of the structures and the appropriateness of the materials, given the hot climate.

Also varying were relief and recovery services, with one community receiving a great deal of assistance while others nearby went without, the team noted. In some cases, nongovernmental relief organizations duplicated the efforts of the government or provided assistance not suited to the locale.

In Sri Lanka, the team found, the ongoing conflict between the government and the Tamil Tigers generated a variety of concerns regarding how aid was distributed, which made understanding the difference between political and disaster response issues complicated.

A boat that was split in half by the force of the tsunami in the Village of Valinkani, Tamil Nadu, India.

Problems aside, the team found that many communities indicated that the work and disaster relief aid generated by nongovernmental organizations were extremely important and contributed to meeting many of their basic needs, including the repair of damaged boats or the provision of new ones.

“Effective and continuous communication and coordination of local, government and international relief agencies is key to effective disaster response and recovery,” the team wrote.

The Disaster Research Center was established 40 years ago by Enrico Quarantelli and Russell Dynes at Ohio State University and moved to the campus of the University of Delaware in 1985. It was the first social science research center in the world devoted to the study of disasters.

DRC conducts field and survey research on group, organizational and community preparation for, response to, and recovery from natural and technological disasters and other community-wide crises. DRC researchers have conducted nearly 600 field studies since the center’s inception, including cutting-edge research on the multi-organizational response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photos courtesy of UD’s Disaster Research Center

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