January 15, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Civilization on a Fault Line
By DEBORAH BLUM
Madison, Wis.
I USED to be a science writer for a California newspaper, where I learned to think of the ground beneath my feet as something alive. It crawled and shivered, stretched and quaked. It was the thin, wrinkled skin of an A.D.D. planet, whose muscles and bones constantly twitched beneath it.
In California — as opposed to the relatively placid terrain of Wisconsin, where I now live — it’s impossible to miss that reality. The great San Andreas fault, where the Pacific and North American plates meet, slowly rumbles its way along the western edge of the state. The fault slides and catches, builds up pressure and then releases that pressure along smaller adjacent faults. Residents and scientists alike play a waiting game in California, uneasily trying to foretell when the big fault itself will go, setting off another geologic convulsion like the one that destroyed San Francisco in 1906.
At one meeting of seismologists I attended, the organizers strung a banner across the front of the conference room with a quotation attributed to the historian Will Durant: “Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” I’ve always liked that line — its rebuttal of our natural hubris, our assumption that we inevitably lord over this small sphere in one of our galaxy’s lesser solar systems.
Durant, writing with his wife, Ariel, came back to this point again in “The Lessons of History,” drawing this time on a Biblical analogy: “To the geologic eye all the surface of the earth is a fluid form, and man moves upon it as insecurely as Peter walking on the waves to Christ.” Again, the Durants hit the right note because a crushing earthquake — like the one that devastated Haiti on Tuesday — brings with it a Biblical, a Homeric, epic sense of the world gone wrong.
Surely, you think, we should be able to rely on rock. A country like Haiti, already battered enough by circumstance, should be able to find safety in solid ground. Somehow it should be so, even though our planet proves that wrong again and again. Remember the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province in eastern China, which left more than 88,000 people dead or missing? The Indonesian earthquake of 2006, which killed more than 6,000 people?
Haiti is situated along a strike-slip fault between two great plates of the earth’s crust, just like the San Andreas of California. The word fault does not imply a mistake. Nor does it suggest a stationary crack in the earth’s crust. In geology, the word “fault” implies motion. Beneath the thin outer skin on which we stake our lives, our planet flexes its muscles. The hot magma that lies below, the liquid minerals and metals that swirl around the earth’s core, conspire to keep the surface moving. The crustal plates, which cover the planet’s surface like a great rocky jigsaw puzzle, push against, under and over one another. All with the slowness, and the inevitability, of geologic time.
The great continental and oceanic plates of crust are always moving, rubbing, rearranging the bedrock of our lives. The motion is too slow to catch our attention except when it becomes erratic. Strike-slip faults tend to get stuck as they slide against each other, one jagged section catching on another. They grind slowly onward though, moved relentlessly by that underground current, eventually breaking the hold, setting off the reverberations of a quake. It’s been more than 100 years since the San Andreas broke in a spectacular way, more than 200 since the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault, the one adjacent to Haiti, did so. It takes time for even the earth to build up to a catastrophe.
Although we have used that time to learn the mechanics of earthquakes, we are still a long way from being able to predict them. The territory is too large, the hidden influences buried too deep. The United States Geological Survey, for instance, has long focused prediction research on an earthquake-prone section of the San Andreas, near the central California town of Parkfield. From 1857 to 1966, moderate earthquakes rattled Parkfield every 20 to 30 years. The survey forecast the next to occur before 1993. It came in 2004, a tremor registering 6.0. Geologists have been watching the fault region for 25 years now. More than 175 papers have been published on observations at Parkfield. When I read through them, they seem to all reach the same conclusion: we live on a very tricky planet, unstable, restless and, yes, still unpredictable.
But they also offer insights into the subterranean world that — we hope — will move us a little closer to predicting danger. We do know how to engineer buildings with a greater degree of earthquake safety. But that takes money, commitment and a rigorous standard of government regulation and inspection. It shouldn’t be surprising that a state like California has imposed safety measures while Haiti, long an impoverished and disorganized country, has struggled. I’m always heartened by international rescue efforts, like those in Haiti at the moment. But it would be even better if they were less necessary. Eventually, I hope, we will figure out a way to build an international coalition on building standards with some money behind it, able to invest in proactive safety measures.
After all, we’re together here, all of us clinging to the skin of this perilously active planet. At our best, we confront the risks as a global community. As Will Durant also pointed out, “Man, not the earth, makes civilization.”
Deborah Blum, a professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin, is the author of the forthcoming “The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opini ... nted=print
******
January 15, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Expecting the Big One
By SIMON WINCHESTER
THOUGH it can offer scant comfort to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, seismology is making some slight progress in its search for the holy grail of being able to predict dreadful events like that on Tuesday. New studies into ultra-slow-motion events deep underground called nonvolcanic tremors are showing vague but promising signs that the same kind of subterranean danger signals that allow us today to forecast when a volcano is about to erupt may one day offer some warning of the hitherto unpredictable nucleation — the explosive beginning — of an earthquake.
The most interesting studies are those that are proceeding, slowly and expensively, in Parkfield, Calif. (as it happens, just a little north of the road crossing where James Dean was killed in a traffic accident nearly 55 years ago). A deep hole has been drilled into the countryside there, directly into the San Andreas fault, which runs for 800 miles along the junction between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates.
The academic and government researchers who run the drilling program seek to find out what happens at the precise point of contact between two plates. It now appears highly likely that the very low impact, but still measurable, nonvolcanic tremors that the researchers have detected in boreholes deep beneath the San Andreas are in some way associated with the destructive earthquakes that occur at shallower depths above them. What the scientists would still like to determine is whether it might be possible to discern a nonvolcanic tremor’s signature in the deep crust some useful time before a major earthquake happens far above.
This is highly relevant to the disaster in Haiti because the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, the tectonic culprit behind Tuesday’s earthquake, shares many similarities with the San Andreas: it is a strike-slip fault of about half the length (it runs from the Dominican Republic to Jamaica), it separates two plates (the North American and the Caribbean), for most of its length it is simultaneously locked solid and under severe stress, and it shears substantially every century or so. (The last time was in 1907, in Jamaica; scientists have long warned of a catastrophe — one day — involving Port-au-Prince.)
It is highly likely that the low-impact, nonvolcanic tremors measured in the San Andreas happen in the Caribbean also. If a real correlation between these tremors and earthquakes can be found, then science will turn out to be truly on to something. Such a relationship has not yet been discovered. But the tremors do seem to have some unusual bellwether characteristics: there seems to be a correlation, for instance, between their occurrence and such external phenomena as the tides and the phases of the Moon. A link to movements within the Earth’s crust is at least a further possibility — and that is something that could not have been said five years ago. Hence the faintest glimmer of hope for progress.
But then what? If the geophysicists at the University of California at Berkeley, the United States Geological Survey, the California Institute of Technology and the Scripps Research Institute are convinced of a correlation, and then one day detect with their deeply buried devices a sudden swarm of nonvolcanic tremors, would they call the mayor of San Francisco or Los Angeles and issue a warning? And would the mayors then order a mass evacuation? And if they did, what if the scientists turned out to be wrong?
These are questions well worth asking — and asking even more stridently of a place that is somewhat less sophisticated than California. If a similar swarm of data is noticed in the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, would geologists try to warn the citizens of a city like Port-au-Prince? And even if the forecasts were right, would such a warning save lives, or would it set off panics more lethal than the earthquake itself?
The branch of seismology that deals with prediction is undoubtedly in a slightly better place than it was half a decade ago. But new questions arise with every step toward the grail, and the answers come too slowly to bring true comfort to anyone today, least of all the unfortunate people of Haiti.
Simon Winchester is the author of “A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906” and the forthcoming “Atlantic: A Biography of the Ocean.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opini ... nted=print
NATURAL DISASTERS
January 16, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Resolve Among the Ruins
By BOB HERBERT
In Haiti, the apocalypse wears the trappings of the norm. It’s a place where heartbreak never seems to end.
One evening many years ago, when I was on assignment in Haiti for The Daily News, a man took me to the back of a pickup truck and pointed to his two small children. It was obvious they were ill. Both were shivering, although the evening was quite warm.
The man pleaded with me to take the youngsters and smuggle them into the United States. “They will die here,” he said, whereas in America they would be safe and “grow strong.”
I tried to explain why that was impossible, that I could not take his children. The man listened politely, then quietly said thank you, and with an expression of the deepest despair climbed into the cab of his truck and drove off.
Enslavement, murderous colonial oppression, invasions by powerful foreign armies, grotesque homegrown tyrants, natural disasters — all you have to do is wait a while in Haiti for the next catastrophe to strike. On Tuesday, it was an earthquake that crushed the capital city of Port-au-Prince and much of its surroundings and raised the level of suffering and death to heights that defied comprehension.
“The world is coming to an end,” cried a woman in the midst of the carnage.
Pooja Bhatia, a journalist who lives in Haiti, told The Times, “I was here during the 2008 hurricanes that left thousands dead, and thousands and thousands homeless, and that felt like the apocalypse. But that pales in comparison to this.”
Just when you think the ultimate has happened, the absolute worst, something even more dire, comes along.
And yet. No matter how overwhelming the tragedy, how bleak the outlook, no matter what malevolent forces the fates see fit to hurl at this tiny, beleaguered, mountainous, sun-splashed portion of the planet, there is no quit in the Haitian people.
They rose up against the French and defeated the forces of Napoleon to become the only nation to grow out of a slave revolt. They rose up against the despotic Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier and sent him packing. Despite ruthless exploitation by more powerful nations, including the United States, and many long years of crippling civil strife, corruption, terror and chronic poverty, the Haitian people have endured.
They will not be defeated by this earthquake.
I spoke on Friday with Ruthzee Louijeune, who works at the Posse Foundation here in New York and had waited like so many others for word about her extended family in Haiti. Eventually, she learned that her uncle, 43-year-old Michelet Philippe, had been killed and that several relatives, including her grandparents, were living in a car in Port-au-Prince.
She wept as she talked. “We’re grateful that we have a body to bury,” she said. “So many people don’t even have that. But right now there is no transportation to take him back to the village where he is from, so they are looking for a respectable place to bury him. It’s so hard. He had a wife and three children.”
But even in her grief, Ms. Louijeune spoke forcefully about the resilience of her family and what she referred to as “her people.”
“My family always taught me to be proud of Haiti,” she said, “whatever anybody else might say about it. They taught me to read on my own and to learn the true history of the country. We’re strong, and despite the hunger, despite the poverty, despite all the problems, we’ll make it through.”
If there is any upside to such an enormous tragedy, it is to be found in the spirit of the people clawing, in some cases with their bare and bleeding hands, through concrete and filth and metal to comfort and rescue survivors and reclaim the dead. And it’s to be found in the powerfully humane way in which so many people, in Haiti and outside of the country, have responded to this shattering disaster — spontaneously, generously and in many, many cases, heroically.
There are no satisfactory explanations for why this kind of event should have occurred. But we can control the way we respond. Faulkner tells us: “I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
In the darkest of moments, Plutarch is also a comfort. “Good fortune,” he said, “will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/opini ... nted=print
Op-Ed Columnist
Resolve Among the Ruins
By BOB HERBERT
In Haiti, the apocalypse wears the trappings of the norm. It’s a place where heartbreak never seems to end.
One evening many years ago, when I was on assignment in Haiti for The Daily News, a man took me to the back of a pickup truck and pointed to his two small children. It was obvious they were ill. Both were shivering, although the evening was quite warm.
The man pleaded with me to take the youngsters and smuggle them into the United States. “They will die here,” he said, whereas in America they would be safe and “grow strong.”
I tried to explain why that was impossible, that I could not take his children. The man listened politely, then quietly said thank you, and with an expression of the deepest despair climbed into the cab of his truck and drove off.
Enslavement, murderous colonial oppression, invasions by powerful foreign armies, grotesque homegrown tyrants, natural disasters — all you have to do is wait a while in Haiti for the next catastrophe to strike. On Tuesday, it was an earthquake that crushed the capital city of Port-au-Prince and much of its surroundings and raised the level of suffering and death to heights that defied comprehension.
“The world is coming to an end,” cried a woman in the midst of the carnage.
Pooja Bhatia, a journalist who lives in Haiti, told The Times, “I was here during the 2008 hurricanes that left thousands dead, and thousands and thousands homeless, and that felt like the apocalypse. But that pales in comparison to this.”
Just when you think the ultimate has happened, the absolute worst, something even more dire, comes along.
And yet. No matter how overwhelming the tragedy, how bleak the outlook, no matter what malevolent forces the fates see fit to hurl at this tiny, beleaguered, mountainous, sun-splashed portion of the planet, there is no quit in the Haitian people.
They rose up against the French and defeated the forces of Napoleon to become the only nation to grow out of a slave revolt. They rose up against the despotic Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier and sent him packing. Despite ruthless exploitation by more powerful nations, including the United States, and many long years of crippling civil strife, corruption, terror and chronic poverty, the Haitian people have endured.
They will not be defeated by this earthquake.
I spoke on Friday with Ruthzee Louijeune, who works at the Posse Foundation here in New York and had waited like so many others for word about her extended family in Haiti. Eventually, she learned that her uncle, 43-year-old Michelet Philippe, had been killed and that several relatives, including her grandparents, were living in a car in Port-au-Prince.
She wept as she talked. “We’re grateful that we have a body to bury,” she said. “So many people don’t even have that. But right now there is no transportation to take him back to the village where he is from, so they are looking for a respectable place to bury him. It’s so hard. He had a wife and three children.”
But even in her grief, Ms. Louijeune spoke forcefully about the resilience of her family and what she referred to as “her people.”
“My family always taught me to be proud of Haiti,” she said, “whatever anybody else might say about it. They taught me to read on my own and to learn the true history of the country. We’re strong, and despite the hunger, despite the poverty, despite all the problems, we’ll make it through.”
If there is any upside to such an enormous tragedy, it is to be found in the spirit of the people clawing, in some cases with their bare and bleeding hands, through concrete and filth and metal to comfort and rescue survivors and reclaim the dead. And it’s to be found in the powerfully humane way in which so many people, in Haiti and outside of the country, have responded to this shattering disaster — spontaneously, generously and in many, many cases, heroically.
There are no satisfactory explanations for why this kind of event should have occurred. But we can control the way we respond. Faulkner tells us: “I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”
In the darkest of moments, Plutarch is also a comfort. “Good fortune,” he said, “will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/opini ... nted=print
The rescue operation in Afghanistan
Rescuers are continuing to dig through snow in Afghanistan to reach hundreds of people trapped in their vehicles by avalanches in the Salang Pass.
Government officials say at least 165 bodies have been recovered from the mountain pass north of Kabul.
Some 2,500 people have been rescued so far, but scores more are feared buried following several days of heavy snow.
More than two dozen avalanches have hit the pass north of Kabul since Monday, blocking 2.1 miles (3.5km) of road.
'Frozen bodies'
The total number of casualties remains unclear.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary told the AP news agency that rescuers had recovered 166 bodies from the road, which connects the Afghan capital with the north, over the past two days.
Acting health minister Suraya Dalil said hospitals had taken in the bodies of 165 people killed in the avalanches.
DEADLY AVALANCHES
February 19-20 2005: At least 250 people killed in avalanches after heavy snowfall in Indian-administered Kashmir
January 16 1995: At least 200 people killed in avalanches in Indian-administered Kashmir triggered by a snow storm and strong winds
September 20 2002: At least 125 people killed when the Kolka glacier collapses on the village of Nijni Karmadon in North Ossetia, Russia
March 24 1996: 56 people killed when avalanche hits main road between Tibet and Sichuan in China
February 23 1999: Avalanche hits Austrian village of Galtur, killing 31 people
Source: News agencies
Afghanistan's dangerous lifeline
In pictures: Afghan avalanches
Officials said crews were working to clear the route near the Salang Tunnel for ambulances, bulldozers and other road-clearing equipment.
Local people are helping Afghan soldiers dig through the snow to vehicles buried or stuck.
"There are many other cars swept away," Gen Mohammad Rajab, the head of the Kabul-Salang highway, told Reuters news agency.
"The death toll may rise as we dig out dozens of other frozen bodies."
Reporters said they could see a number of vehicles, including passenger buses, that had been swept deep into a gorge at the side of the road.
The area is often affected by heavy snow and has been hit by avalanches in the past, the BBC's Martin Patience says from Kabul.
On Tuesday, Afghan interior minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar fended off questions as to why the road had been open in the first place, insisting the situation had appeared manageable until snowstorms unexpectedly struck.
The road through the Salang Pass is the only major route over the Hindu Kush mountains linking southern Afghanistan to the north and Central Asia that remains open throughout the year.
Reaching 3,400m (11,000 ft) at the pass, the road is one of the highest in the world. It was finished in the 1960s with Soviet help.
Meanwhile, an Indian soldier was killed but 13 others were rescued after a second avalanche in two days in Kashmir.
The snow struck an army post on Tuesday in Indian-administered Kashmir, along the Line of Control adjoining Pakistani-administered Kashmir, officials said.
At least 17 Indian soldiers were killed on Monday when an avalanche hit a military training camp in Indian-administered Kashmir, the army said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8506033.stm
Rescuers are continuing to dig through snow in Afghanistan to reach hundreds of people trapped in their vehicles by avalanches in the Salang Pass.
Government officials say at least 165 bodies have been recovered from the mountain pass north of Kabul.
Some 2,500 people have been rescued so far, but scores more are feared buried following several days of heavy snow.
More than two dozen avalanches have hit the pass north of Kabul since Monday, blocking 2.1 miles (3.5km) of road.
'Frozen bodies'
The total number of casualties remains unclear.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary told the AP news agency that rescuers had recovered 166 bodies from the road, which connects the Afghan capital with the north, over the past two days.
Acting health minister Suraya Dalil said hospitals had taken in the bodies of 165 people killed in the avalanches.
DEADLY AVALANCHES
February 19-20 2005: At least 250 people killed in avalanches after heavy snowfall in Indian-administered Kashmir
January 16 1995: At least 200 people killed in avalanches in Indian-administered Kashmir triggered by a snow storm and strong winds
September 20 2002: At least 125 people killed when the Kolka glacier collapses on the village of Nijni Karmadon in North Ossetia, Russia
March 24 1996: 56 people killed when avalanche hits main road between Tibet and Sichuan in China
February 23 1999: Avalanche hits Austrian village of Galtur, killing 31 people
Source: News agencies
Afghanistan's dangerous lifeline
In pictures: Afghan avalanches
Officials said crews were working to clear the route near the Salang Tunnel for ambulances, bulldozers and other road-clearing equipment.
Local people are helping Afghan soldiers dig through the snow to vehicles buried or stuck.
"There are many other cars swept away," Gen Mohammad Rajab, the head of the Kabul-Salang highway, told Reuters news agency.
"The death toll may rise as we dig out dozens of other frozen bodies."
Reporters said they could see a number of vehicles, including passenger buses, that had been swept deep into a gorge at the side of the road.
The area is often affected by heavy snow and has been hit by avalanches in the past, the BBC's Martin Patience says from Kabul.
On Tuesday, Afghan interior minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar fended off questions as to why the road had been open in the first place, insisting the situation had appeared manageable until snowstorms unexpectedly struck.
The road through the Salang Pass is the only major route over the Hindu Kush mountains linking southern Afghanistan to the north and Central Asia that remains open throughout the year.
Reaching 3,400m (11,000 ft) at the pass, the road is one of the highest in the world. It was finished in the 1960s with Soviet help.
Meanwhile, an Indian soldier was killed but 13 others were rescued after a second avalanche in two days in Kashmir.
The snow struck an army post on Tuesday in Indian-administered Kashmir, along the Line of Control adjoining Pakistani-administered Kashmir, officials said.
At least 17 Indian soldiers were killed on Monday when an avalanche hit a military training camp in Indian-administered Kashmir, the army said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8506033.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8521750.stm
Pakistan avalanche buries village and kills at least 38
At least 38 people are dead after an avalanche buried an entire village in north-west Pakistan.
The avalanche hit a remote village in Kohistan district, about 200km (124 miles) north of Islamabad.
Local government head Aminul Haq told the BBC that the eventual death toll could exceed 56, as many others are missing.
According to most recent reports from the area, 38 bodies had been dug up by the villagers before sunset, he said.
The regional police chief said roads had been blocked by landslides and several feet of snow.
"Rescue workers are facing a lot of problems," a local police official was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
"We fear that some women and children were also trapped," Mohammad Sadiq told AFP.
Increased risk
Avalanches are common in the mountains of Pakistan.
The village of Bagaro Serai in the Kandia Valley is so remote that it took hours for news to get out, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says.
Rescuers are trying to find survivors, but conditions are poor.
A helicopter that flew in from Peshawar with relief goods could not reach the area due to bad weather.
Heavy snow over the past two weeks has meant an increased risk of avalanches across northern Pakistan.
On Monday, a mass of snow killed seven people about 150km from Bagaro Serai, local police said.
Pakistan avalanche buries village and kills at least 38
At least 38 people are dead after an avalanche buried an entire village in north-west Pakistan.
The avalanche hit a remote village in Kohistan district, about 200km (124 miles) north of Islamabad.
Local government head Aminul Haq told the BBC that the eventual death toll could exceed 56, as many others are missing.
According to most recent reports from the area, 38 bodies had been dug up by the villagers before sunset, he said.
The regional police chief said roads had been blocked by landslides and several feet of snow.
"Rescue workers are facing a lot of problems," a local police official was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
"We fear that some women and children were also trapped," Mohammad Sadiq told AFP.
Increased risk
Avalanches are common in the mountains of Pakistan.
The village of Bagaro Serai in the Kandia Valley is so remote that it took hours for news to get out, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says.
Rescuers are trying to find survivors, but conditions are poor.
A helicopter that flew in from Peshawar with relief goods could not reach the area due to bad weather.
Heavy snow over the past two weeks has meant an increased risk of avalanches across northern Pakistan.
On Monday, a mass of snow killed seven people about 150km from Bagaro Serai, local police said.
February 25, 2010
Disaster Awaits Cities in Earthquake Zones
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
ISTANBUL — As he surveys the streets of this sprawling mega-city, Mustafa Erdik, the director of an earthquake engineering institute here, says he sometimes feels like a doctor scanning a crowded hospital ward.
It is not so much the city’s modern core, where two sleek Trump Towers and a huge airport terminal were built to withstand a major earthquake that is considered all but inevitable in the next few decades. Nor does Dr. Erdik agonize over Istanbul’s ancient monuments, whose yards-thick walls have largely withstood more than a dozen potent seismic blows over the past two millenniums.
His biggest worry is that tens of thousands of buildings throughout the city, erected in a haphazard, uninspected rush as the population soared past 10 million from the 1 million it was just 50 years ago, are what some seismologists call “rubble in waiting.”
“Earthquakes always find the weakest point,” said Dr. Erdik, a professor at Bogazici University here.
Istanbul is one of a host of quake-threatened cities in the developing world where populations have swelled far faster than the capacity to house them safely, setting them up for disaster of a scope that could, in some cases, surpass the devastation in Haiti from last month’s earthquake.
Roger Bilham, a seismologist at the University of Colorado who has spent decades studying major earthquakes around the world, including the recent quake in Haiti, said that the planet’s growing, urbanizing population, projected to swell by two billion more people by midcentury and to require one billion dwellings, faced “an unrecognized weapon of mass destruction: houses.”
Without vastly expanded efforts to change construction practices and educate people, from mayors to masons, on simple ways to bolster structures, he said, Haiti’s tragedy is almost certain to be surpassed sometime this century when a major quake hits Karachi, Pakistan, Katmandu, Nepal, Lima, Peru, or one of a long list of big poor cities facing inevitable major earthquakes.
In Tehran, Iran’s capital, Dr. Bilham has calculated that one million people could die in a predicted quake similar in intensity to the one in Haiti, which the Haitian government estimates killed 230,000. (Some Iranian geologists have pressed their government for decades to move the capital because of the nest of surrounding geologic faults.)
As for Istanbul, a study led by Dr. Erdik mapped out a situation in which a quake could kill 30,000 to 40,000 people and seriously injure 120,000 at the very minimum.
The city is rife with buildings with glaring flaws, like ground floors with walls or columns removed to make way for store displays, or a succession of illegal new floors added in each election period on the presumption that local officials will look the other way. On many blocks, upper floors jut precariously over the sidewalk, taking advantage of an old permitting process that governed only a building’s footprint.
More......
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/scien ... nted=print
Disaster Awaits Cities in Earthquake Zones
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
ISTANBUL — As he surveys the streets of this sprawling mega-city, Mustafa Erdik, the director of an earthquake engineering institute here, says he sometimes feels like a doctor scanning a crowded hospital ward.
It is not so much the city’s modern core, where two sleek Trump Towers and a huge airport terminal were built to withstand a major earthquake that is considered all but inevitable in the next few decades. Nor does Dr. Erdik agonize over Istanbul’s ancient monuments, whose yards-thick walls have largely withstood more than a dozen potent seismic blows over the past two millenniums.
His biggest worry is that tens of thousands of buildings throughout the city, erected in a haphazard, uninspected rush as the population soared past 10 million from the 1 million it was just 50 years ago, are what some seismologists call “rubble in waiting.”
“Earthquakes always find the weakest point,” said Dr. Erdik, a professor at Bogazici University here.
Istanbul is one of a host of quake-threatened cities in the developing world where populations have swelled far faster than the capacity to house them safely, setting them up for disaster of a scope that could, in some cases, surpass the devastation in Haiti from last month’s earthquake.
Roger Bilham, a seismologist at the University of Colorado who has spent decades studying major earthquakes around the world, including the recent quake in Haiti, said that the planet’s growing, urbanizing population, projected to swell by two billion more people by midcentury and to require one billion dwellings, faced “an unrecognized weapon of mass destruction: houses.”
Without vastly expanded efforts to change construction practices and educate people, from mayors to masons, on simple ways to bolster structures, he said, Haiti’s tragedy is almost certain to be surpassed sometime this century when a major quake hits Karachi, Pakistan, Katmandu, Nepal, Lima, Peru, or one of a long list of big poor cities facing inevitable major earthquakes.
In Tehran, Iran’s capital, Dr. Bilham has calculated that one million people could die in a predicted quake similar in intensity to the one in Haiti, which the Haitian government estimates killed 230,000. (Some Iranian geologists have pressed their government for decades to move the capital because of the nest of surrounding geologic faults.)
As for Istanbul, a study led by Dr. Erdik mapped out a situation in which a quake could kill 30,000 to 40,000 people and seriously injure 120,000 at the very minimum.
The city is rife with buildings with glaring flaws, like ground floors with walls or columns removed to make way for store displays, or a succession of illegal new floors added in each election period on the presumption that local officials will look the other way. On many blocks, upper floors jut precariously over the sidewalk, taking advantage of an old permitting process that governed only a building’s footprint.
More......
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/scien ... nted=print
There is a related video and more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world ... ?th&emc=th
1.5 Million Displaced After Chile Quake
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO and LIZ ROBBINS
RIO DE JANEIRO — A strong aftershock struck Chile on Sunday, a day after a destructive 8.8-magnitude earthquake left hundreds of people dead and a long swath of the country in smoky rubble.
The death toll was expected to rise, particularly around Concepción, Chile's second-largest metropolitan area, which is roughly 70 miles from the quake's center. The aftershock was reported around 8:30 local time Sunday morning from the capital of Santiago, where it shook buildings, according to Reuters.
More than 1.5 million people have displaced by the quake, according to local news services that quoted the director of Chile's emergency management office. In Concepción, which appeared to be especially hard hit, the mayor said Sunday morning that 100 people were trapped under the rubble of a building that had collapsed, according to Reuters.
Elsewhere in Concepción, cars lay mangled and upended on streets littered with telephone wires and power cables. A new 14-story apartment building fell, while an older, biochemical lab at the University of Concepción caught fire.
In the nearby port of Talcahuano, a giant wave flooded the main square before receding and leaving behind a large fishing boat on the city streets.
“It was terrible, terrible,” said Adela Galaz, a 59-year-old cosmetologist who said glasses and paintings fell to the floor of her 22nd-floor apartment in Santiago, 200 miles from the quake’s center. “We are grateful to be alive.”
President Michelle Bachelet, speaking at a news conference on Saturday night, called the quake “one of the worst tragedies in the last 50 years” and declared a “state of catastrophe.”
While this earthquake was far stronger than the 7.0-magnitude one that ravaged Haiti six weeks ago, the damage and death toll in Chile are likely to be far less extensive, in part because of strict building codes put in place after devastating earthquakes.
The quake Saturday, tied for the fifth largest in the world since 1900, set off tsunami waves that swamped some nearby islands before moving across the Pacific. Hawaii began evacuations before dawn, but by early afternoon there — more than 15 hours after the earthquake first struck 6,500 miles away — the fears of a destructive wave had passed. Countries including Japan and the Philippines were on alert and ordered limited evacuations in anticipation of waves hitting Sunday.
Chileans were only just beginning to grapple with the devastation before them, even as more than two dozen significant aftershocks struck the country.
In Santiago, the capital, residents reported having been terrified as the city shook for about 90 seconds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world ... ?th&emc=th
1.5 Million Displaced After Chile Quake
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO and LIZ ROBBINS
RIO DE JANEIRO — A strong aftershock struck Chile on Sunday, a day after a destructive 8.8-magnitude earthquake left hundreds of people dead and a long swath of the country in smoky rubble.
The death toll was expected to rise, particularly around Concepción, Chile's second-largest metropolitan area, which is roughly 70 miles from the quake's center. The aftershock was reported around 8:30 local time Sunday morning from the capital of Santiago, where it shook buildings, according to Reuters.
More than 1.5 million people have displaced by the quake, according to local news services that quoted the director of Chile's emergency management office. In Concepción, which appeared to be especially hard hit, the mayor said Sunday morning that 100 people were trapped under the rubble of a building that had collapsed, according to Reuters.
Elsewhere in Concepción, cars lay mangled and upended on streets littered with telephone wires and power cables. A new 14-story apartment building fell, while an older, biochemical lab at the University of Concepción caught fire.
In the nearby port of Talcahuano, a giant wave flooded the main square before receding and leaving behind a large fishing boat on the city streets.
“It was terrible, terrible,” said Adela Galaz, a 59-year-old cosmetologist who said glasses and paintings fell to the floor of her 22nd-floor apartment in Santiago, 200 miles from the quake’s center. “We are grateful to be alive.”
President Michelle Bachelet, speaking at a news conference on Saturday night, called the quake “one of the worst tragedies in the last 50 years” and declared a “state of catastrophe.”
While this earthquake was far stronger than the 7.0-magnitude one that ravaged Haiti six weeks ago, the damage and death toll in Chile are likely to be far less extensive, in part because of strict building codes put in place after devastating earthquakes.
The quake Saturday, tied for the fifth largest in the world since 1900, set off tsunami waves that swamped some nearby islands before moving across the Pacific. Hawaii began evacuations before dawn, but by early afternoon there — more than 15 hours after the earthquake first struck 6,500 miles away — the fears of a destructive wave had passed. Countries including Japan and the Philippines were on alert and ordered limited evacuations in anticipation of waves hitting Sunday.
Chileans were only just beginning to grapple with the devastation before them, even as more than two dozen significant aftershocks struck the country.
In Santiago, the capital, residents reported having been terrified as the city shook for about 90 seconds.
At least 113 dead in Brazil as downpours spur landslides
Herald News ServicesApril 8, 2010
Rescuers searched for flood and landslide survivors Wednesday in southeastern Brazil after the heaviest downpours in almost half a century left at least 113 people dead.
The state of Rio de Janeiro was in mourning as the extent of the disaster became clear and a third day of rains compounded the misery for 5,000 municipal employees trying to clear streets turned to mud.
Rain fell intermittently on Wednesday amid sunny spells, providing hope that the worst was over. But the toll could rise further as dozens were reportedly still missing.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 9&sponsor=
Herald News ServicesApril 8, 2010
Rescuers searched for flood and landslide survivors Wednesday in southeastern Brazil after the heaviest downpours in almost half a century left at least 113 people dead.
The state of Rio de Janeiro was in mourning as the extent of the disaster became clear and a third day of rains compounded the misery for 5,000 municipal employees trying to clear streets turned to mud.
Rain fell intermittently on Wednesday amid sunny spells, providing hope that the worst was over. But the toll could rise further as dozens were reportedly still missing.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 9&sponsor=
April 11, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
The Earth Holds Steady
By ROGER MUSSON
Edinburgh
ARE earthquakes becoming more frequent? This is a question that every seismologist is used to. I was asked it 30 years ago. Thanks to large quakes in Haiti and Chile — not to mention 7-plus magnitude quakes in Indonesia and Baja California over the past week — I’ve been asked it a lot lately. And the answer is no. You would think this would be good news, but sometimes people seem faintly disappointed when they hear it. It’s as if a dose of disaster makes life more interesting.
It’s true that more earthquakes are recorded than used to be the case, but that’s simply because there are more monitoring stations that are able to pick up minor earthquakes that once went undetected. If we compare the average global rates of large earthquakes, we find that these are stable as far back as we can trace them. On average, we record an earthquake with a magnitude over 6 every three days or so, and over 7 at least once a month.
Why then, does it sometimes seem they are more common occurrences? There are two reasons for this. First, people notice it when earthquakes happen in populated places. A big earthquake in California is news; a big earthquake in the Southern Ocean is noticed only by seismologists. So a run of earthquakes that by chance hit populated places makes it look as though the rate has increased, even if it hasn’t.
The classic case of this was in 1976. That year, there were a number of high-casualty earthquakes — including a 7.5 magnitude quake in Tangshan, China, that killed more than a quarter of a million people — prompting a lot of news media questions about the increasing frequency of earthquakes. But, in the end, 1976 turned out to have a relatively low number of quakes. It was just that an abnormal number hit populated areas.
The second reason is that in any semi-random process, you get clustering. Throw enough dice, and sometimes you’ll get several sixes in a row. People notice the clusters; they don’t notice the gaps in between. No one ever asks me during the quiet periods if earthquakes are becoming less frequent. Also, people tend to have short memories; they notice the current cluster, but don’t remember the previous one.
Basic geology explains why the number of earthquakes remains relatively constant. Quakes release a lot of energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. Ultimately, the source of it is heat released by the steady decay of radioactive material deep inside the earth. For a real long-term increase in earthquake activity, there would have to be an increase in that energy supply, and it’s hard to see how that could happen.
One problem that we do have to face is that our exposure to earthquakes is increasing. As the world becomes more populated and cities grow ever bigger, the potential for quakes to become disasters rises. Tehran, for instance, has been destroyed by earthquakes several times, but it was still quite small at the time of its last damaging quake, in 1830. Now the city is home to millions, and when the next major quake hits, the results will be catastrophic.
Unless we devote more effort to protecting communities, the number of earthquake disasters will grow, even if the number of earthquakes stays the same.
Roger Musson is a seismologist with the British Geological Survey.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opini ... ?th&emc=th
Op-Ed Contributor
The Earth Holds Steady
By ROGER MUSSON
Edinburgh
ARE earthquakes becoming more frequent? This is a question that every seismologist is used to. I was asked it 30 years ago. Thanks to large quakes in Haiti and Chile — not to mention 7-plus magnitude quakes in Indonesia and Baja California over the past week — I’ve been asked it a lot lately. And the answer is no. You would think this would be good news, but sometimes people seem faintly disappointed when they hear it. It’s as if a dose of disaster makes life more interesting.
It’s true that more earthquakes are recorded than used to be the case, but that’s simply because there are more monitoring stations that are able to pick up minor earthquakes that once went undetected. If we compare the average global rates of large earthquakes, we find that these are stable as far back as we can trace them. On average, we record an earthquake with a magnitude over 6 every three days or so, and over 7 at least once a month.
Why then, does it sometimes seem they are more common occurrences? There are two reasons for this. First, people notice it when earthquakes happen in populated places. A big earthquake in California is news; a big earthquake in the Southern Ocean is noticed only by seismologists. So a run of earthquakes that by chance hit populated places makes it look as though the rate has increased, even if it hasn’t.
The classic case of this was in 1976. That year, there were a number of high-casualty earthquakes — including a 7.5 magnitude quake in Tangshan, China, that killed more than a quarter of a million people — prompting a lot of news media questions about the increasing frequency of earthquakes. But, in the end, 1976 turned out to have a relatively low number of quakes. It was just that an abnormal number hit populated areas.
The second reason is that in any semi-random process, you get clustering. Throw enough dice, and sometimes you’ll get several sixes in a row. People notice the clusters; they don’t notice the gaps in between. No one ever asks me during the quiet periods if earthquakes are becoming less frequent. Also, people tend to have short memories; they notice the current cluster, but don’t remember the previous one.
Basic geology explains why the number of earthquakes remains relatively constant. Quakes release a lot of energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. Ultimately, the source of it is heat released by the steady decay of radioactive material deep inside the earth. For a real long-term increase in earthquake activity, there would have to be an increase in that energy supply, and it’s hard to see how that could happen.
One problem that we do have to face is that our exposure to earthquakes is increasing. As the world becomes more populated and cities grow ever bigger, the potential for quakes to become disasters rises. Tehran, for instance, has been destroyed by earthquakes several times, but it was still quite small at the time of its last damaging quake, in 1830. Now the city is home to millions, and when the next major quake hits, the results will be catastrophic.
Unless we devote more effort to protecting communities, the number of earthquake disasters will grow, even if the number of earthquakes stays the same.
Roger Musson is a seismologist with the British Geological Survey.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opini ... ?th&emc=th
April 19, 2010
Editorial
The Icelandic Plume
When severe storms blow through, meteorologists can track their path and predict with considerable confidence when the disturbance will end. Volcanoes don’t blow through. Even with all of the sophisticated monitoring technology and expertise, no one knows when the eruptions at Eyjafjallajokull — the Icelandic volcano now venting ash into the atmosphere — will subside.
That uncertainty only deepens the sense of helplessness across Europe, where much of the airspace has been closed since late last week, stranding millions of passengers across the globe. Even President Obama had to forgo his planned trip to Poland for Sunday’s funeral of President Lech Kaczynski.
Like the ash cloud, the economic costs of this eruption are immense. The airlines, which estimate that they have lost about a billion dollars worldwide, are pressing officials to allow at least some flights to resume. For all that, the physical damage is minute, especially when compared with the recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China. Luckily it has taken no lives.
What Eyjafjallajokull has done above all is force upon us a visceral awareness of our interconnected world — woven together by the crisscrossing of airline routes. For all of the talk of globalization, we see what a global construct our sense of normality really is.
With luck, the volcano will simmer down soon and the ash plume will disperse. Flights will resume, business will begin to make up its losses, and weary travelers will safely find their way home. It will be a long time before we forget the threat that lies smoldering under an Icelandic glacier. Or its lesson that even in the 21st centry, our lives are still at the sufferance of nature.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opini ... ?th&emc=th
Editorial
The Icelandic Plume
When severe storms blow through, meteorologists can track their path and predict with considerable confidence when the disturbance will end. Volcanoes don’t blow through. Even with all of the sophisticated monitoring technology and expertise, no one knows when the eruptions at Eyjafjallajokull — the Icelandic volcano now venting ash into the atmosphere — will subside.
That uncertainty only deepens the sense of helplessness across Europe, where much of the airspace has been closed since late last week, stranding millions of passengers across the globe. Even President Obama had to forgo his planned trip to Poland for Sunday’s funeral of President Lech Kaczynski.
Like the ash cloud, the economic costs of this eruption are immense. The airlines, which estimate that they have lost about a billion dollars worldwide, are pressing officials to allow at least some flights to resume. For all that, the physical damage is minute, especially when compared with the recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China. Luckily it has taken no lives.
What Eyjafjallajokull has done above all is force upon us a visceral awareness of our interconnected world — woven together by the crisscrossing of airline routes. For all of the talk of globalization, we see what a global construct our sense of normality really is.
With luck, the volcano will simmer down soon and the ash plume will disperse. Flights will resume, business will begin to make up its losses, and weary travelers will safely find their way home. It will be a long time before we forget the threat that lies smoldering under an Icelandic glacier. Or its lesson that even in the 21st centry, our lives are still at the sufferance of nature.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opini ... ?th&emc=th
There are a related video and a multimedia linked at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/world ... &th&emc=th
August 1, 2010
Pakistan Challenged in Flood Rescue
By ADAM B. ELLICK
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The military and other emergency workers struggled against time and nature on Sunday to reach at least 10,000 people trapped by collapsed bridges and flooded roads and threatened by rising water brought by the worst monsoon rains in Pakistan’s history.
The army announced Sunday night that it had reached up to 20,000 people, but the government’s response to the disaster — which has already claimed hundreds of lives — has been widely assailed as slow and inadequate. Criticism was further fed by a decision by President Asif Zardari, already deeply unpopular, to leave the country this week for political talks in Europe.
“We’re out of bridges, so it’s the necessity of time to reach them by air,” said Adnan Khan, an official at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, who called the situation “very urgent.”
The crisis is especially catastrophic in Swat, once famed as a tourist valley, where the army defeated militants last year. Local leaders said at least 900 Swatis have died, and nearly all the bridges that the army built after last year’s war have collapsed.
Officials said at least 10,000 people were stranded in Upper Swat and Dir Ismail Khan, which were inaccessible by road because 40 bridges had fallen. Efforts were under way to erect temporary spans, but officials were skeptical that they could be built in time.
Estimates of the total death toll on Sunday ranged up to 1,100, although the national government put the figure at 730. The nation’s largest and most respected private rescue service, the Edhi Foundation, predicted the death toll would reach 3,000.
The great disparity in numbers reflects the challenge facing the government and other emergency workers struggling to reach isolated areas and to gain reliable information.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/world ... &th&emc=th
August 1, 2010
Pakistan Challenged in Flood Rescue
By ADAM B. ELLICK
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The military and other emergency workers struggled against time and nature on Sunday to reach at least 10,000 people trapped by collapsed bridges and flooded roads and threatened by rising water brought by the worst monsoon rains in Pakistan’s history.
The army announced Sunday night that it had reached up to 20,000 people, but the government’s response to the disaster — which has already claimed hundreds of lives — has been widely assailed as slow and inadequate. Criticism was further fed by a decision by President Asif Zardari, already deeply unpopular, to leave the country this week for political talks in Europe.
“We’re out of bridges, so it’s the necessity of time to reach them by air,” said Adnan Khan, an official at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, who called the situation “very urgent.”
The crisis is especially catastrophic in Swat, once famed as a tourist valley, where the army defeated militants last year. Local leaders said at least 900 Swatis have died, and nearly all the bridges that the army built after last year’s war have collapsed.
Officials said at least 10,000 people were stranded in Upper Swat and Dir Ismail Khan, which were inaccessible by road because 40 bridges had fallen. Efforts were under way to erect temporary spans, but officials were skeptical that they could be built in time.
Estimates of the total death toll on Sunday ranged up to 1,100, although the national government put the figure at 730. The nation’s largest and most respected private rescue service, the Edhi Foundation, predicted the death toll would reach 3,000.
The great disparity in numbers reflects the challenge facing the government and other emergency workers struggling to reach isolated areas and to gain reliable information.
500,000 fleeing floods in Pakistan
By Hasan Mansoor, Agence France-Presse
August 6, 2010
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 0&sponsor=
A woman yells as her child is evacuated from the roof of a mosque in Pakistan's Punjab province on Thursday. So far, the floods have killed more than 1,600 people and officials say the toll is likely to climb.
Photograph by: Reuters, Agence France-Presse
Pakistan began evacuating half a million people from flood-risk areas in the south on Thursday as the overall number hit by the country's worst floods in living memory rose to more than four million.
The United Nations rushed a top envoy to Pakistan to mobilize international support and address the urgent plight of millions affected by torrential monsoon rains that have killed around 1,500 across the volatile country.
The disaster is now into its second week and the rains are spreading into Pakistan's most populous provinces of Punjab and Sindh, as anger mounts against the government response after villages and farmland were washed away.
In Sindh, authorities warned that major floods were expected on Saturday and Sunday in fertile agricultural areas along the Indus river.
The military said 25,000 people had been evacuated in parts of the province while the local government put the number at 150,000.
"We have a target evacuation of at least 500,000 people who live in 11 most vulnerable districts," said provincial irrigation minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo, saying many towns and villages were in danger.
Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said rising water levels could pose threat to Sukkur Barrage.
Further north in Punjab, an AFP reporter saw an exodus of people streaming out of flooded villages, wading barefoot through water, cramming belongings onto donkey carts and into cars under heavy rains.
"Altogether, more than four million people are in one way or another affected," said Manuel Bessler, who heads the OCHA in Pakistan.
"What we are facing now is a major catastrophe," he said.
Officials warned that dams could burst as heavy rain lashed the Punjab town of Kot Addu, transforming the area into a giant lake.
Army helicopters flew overhead as people streamed out of flooded villages searching for safer ground.
"All these villages are dangerous now. We are evacuating the population. Important installations are in danger," said Manzoor Sarwar, police chief for Muzaffargarh district.
Survivors lashed out at authorities for failing to come to their rescue and provide better relief, piling pressure on a cash-strapped administration straining to contain Taliban violence and an economic crisis.
By Hasan Mansoor, Agence France-Presse
August 6, 2010
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 0&sponsor=
A woman yells as her child is evacuated from the roof of a mosque in Pakistan's Punjab province on Thursday. So far, the floods have killed more than 1,600 people and officials say the toll is likely to climb.
Photograph by: Reuters, Agence France-Presse
Pakistan began evacuating half a million people from flood-risk areas in the south on Thursday as the overall number hit by the country's worst floods in living memory rose to more than four million.
The United Nations rushed a top envoy to Pakistan to mobilize international support and address the urgent plight of millions affected by torrential monsoon rains that have killed around 1,500 across the volatile country.
The disaster is now into its second week and the rains are spreading into Pakistan's most populous provinces of Punjab and Sindh, as anger mounts against the government response after villages and farmland were washed away.
In Sindh, authorities warned that major floods were expected on Saturday and Sunday in fertile agricultural areas along the Indus river.
The military said 25,000 people had been evacuated in parts of the province while the local government put the number at 150,000.
"We have a target evacuation of at least 500,000 people who live in 11 most vulnerable districts," said provincial irrigation minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo, saying many towns and villages were in danger.
Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said rising water levels could pose threat to Sukkur Barrage.
Further north in Punjab, an AFP reporter saw an exodus of people streaming out of flooded villages, wading barefoot through water, cramming belongings onto donkey carts and into cars under heavy rains.
"Altogether, more than four million people are in one way or another affected," said Manuel Bessler, who heads the OCHA in Pakistan.
"What we are facing now is a major catastrophe," he said.
Officials warned that dams could burst as heavy rain lashed the Punjab town of Kot Addu, transforming the area into a giant lake.
Army helicopters flew overhead as people streamed out of flooded villages searching for safer ground.
"All these villages are dangerous now. We are evacuating the population. Important installations are in danger," said Manzoor Sarwar, police chief for Muzaffargarh district.
Survivors lashed out at authorities for failing to come to their rescue and provide better relief, piling pressure on a cash-strapped administration straining to contain Taliban violence and an economic crisis.
August 15, 2010
Drowning Today, Parched Tomorrow
By STEVEN SOLOMON
Washington
HARD as it may be to believe when you see the images of the monsoon floods that are now devastating Pakistan, the country is actually on the verge of a critical shortage of fresh water. And water scarcity is not only a worry for Pakistan’s population — it is a threat to America’s national security as well.
Given the rapid melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the Indus River — a possible contributor to the current floods — and growing tensions with upriver archenemy India about use of the river’s tributaries, it’s unlikely that Pakistani food production will long keep pace with the growing population.
It’s no surprise, then, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made Pakistani headlines a few weeks before the flooding by unveiling major water projects aimed at bolstering national storage capacity, irrigation, safe drinking water and faltering electrical power service under America’s new $7.5 billion assistance program. In March, the State Department announced that water scarcity had been upgraded to “a central U.S. foreign policy concern.” Pakistan is at the center of it.
This is because a widespread water shortage in Pakistan would further destabilize the fractious country, hurting its efforts to root out its resident international terrorists. The struggle for water could also become a tipping point for renewed war with India. The jihadists know how important the issue is: in April 2009, Taliban forces launched an offensive that got within 35 miles of the giant Tarbela Dam, the linchpin of Pakistan’s hydroelectric and irrigation system.
Pakistan needs to rebuild and overhaul the administration of the world’s largest contiguous irrigation network. For decades, Islamabad has spent far too little on basic maintenance, drainage and distribution canals, new water storage and hydropower plants.
To some extent, these deficiencies have been masked since the 1970s by farmers drilling hundreds of thousands of little tube wells, which now provide half of the country’s irrigation. But in many of these places the groundwater is running dry and becoming too salty for use. The result is an agricultural crisis of wasted water, inefficient production and incipient crop shortfalls.
Like Egypt on the Nile, arid Pakistan is totally reliant on the Indus and its tributaries. Yet the river’s water is already so overdrawn that it no longer reaches the sea, dribbling to a meager end near the Indian Ocean port of Karachi. Its once-fertile delta of rice paddies and fisheries has shriveled up.
Chronic water shortages in the southern province of Sindh breed suspicions that politically connected landowners in upriver Punjab are siphoning more than their allotted share. There have been repeated riots over lack of water and electricity in Karachi, and across the country people suffer from contaminated drinking water, poor sanitation and pollution.
The future looks grim. Pakistan’s population is expected to rise to 220 million over the next decade, up from around 170 million today. Yet, eventually, flows of the Indus are expected to decrease as global warming causes the Himalayan glaciers to retreat, while monsoons will get more intense. Terrifyingly, Pakistan only has the capacity to hold a 30-day reserve storage of water as a buffer against drought.
India, meanwhile, is straining the limits of the Indus Waters Treaty, a 1960 agreement on sharing the river system. To cope with its own severe electricity shortages, it is building a series of hydropower dams on Indus tributaries in Jammu and Kashmir State, where the rivers emerge from the Himalayas.
While technically permissible under the treaty provided the overall volumes flowing downstream aren’t diminished, untimely dam-filling by India during planting season could destroy Pakistan’s harvest. Pakistan, downriver and militarily weaker than India, understandably regards the dams’ cumulative one-month storage capacity as a potentially lethal new water weapon in India’s arsenal.
Now, on top of all this, come the monsoon floods, which have obliterated countless canals, diversion weirs and huge swaths of cropland. Pakistan needs help, and projects like those heralded by Secretary Clinton, while valuable, are not on the scale needed to turn things around.
The best first step is a huge one: for Washington to kick-start progress on the Diamer-Bhasha dam, an agricultural and hydroelectric project on the Indus that’s been on the drawing board for decades. The project, likely to cost more than $12 billion, has languished for want of financing. It has also has run afoul of the developed world’s knee-jerk disfavor of giant dams.
But there is simply no other project that can add so much desperately needed water storage and hydroelectricity — Pakistan is tapping just 12 percent of its hydropower potential. Giant dams, moreover, can be inspiring, iconic projects — the Hoover Dam was a statement of American fortitude at the height of the Depression. Beleaguered Pakistan could use a symbol of progress.
There are other projects, already shown to be successful, that on a larger scale could save more water than building half a dozen giant dams. Managers at one Punjabi canal branch, for example, are working with international experts to replace the traditional supply system called warabandi — in which farmers draw water on a simple rotational basis — with one that requires less overall water but delivers it on a reliable, as-needed basis.
Finally, President Obama should take a lesson from John F. Kennedy. In 1961 President Kennedy and President Ayub Khan of Pakistan established a technical collaboration between American experts and a young generation of Pakistani engineers who, together, largely ameliorated Pakistan’s seemingly intractable problem of waterlogging and soil salinization. Yes, Washington’s interest may have been more related to the cold war than to helping the Pakistani people, but we’ve again reached the point where national security and benevolence align.
The Pakistanis may never come to love us. But as the current spectacle of Islamic jihadists bringing emergency aid to flooded areas warns us, we can’t afford to ignore Pakistan’s looming freshwater crisis.
Steven Solomon is the author of “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opini ... &th&emc=th
Drowning Today, Parched Tomorrow
By STEVEN SOLOMON
Washington
HARD as it may be to believe when you see the images of the monsoon floods that are now devastating Pakistan, the country is actually on the verge of a critical shortage of fresh water. And water scarcity is not only a worry for Pakistan’s population — it is a threat to America’s national security as well.
Given the rapid melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the Indus River — a possible contributor to the current floods — and growing tensions with upriver archenemy India about use of the river’s tributaries, it’s unlikely that Pakistani food production will long keep pace with the growing population.
It’s no surprise, then, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made Pakistani headlines a few weeks before the flooding by unveiling major water projects aimed at bolstering national storage capacity, irrigation, safe drinking water and faltering electrical power service under America’s new $7.5 billion assistance program. In March, the State Department announced that water scarcity had been upgraded to “a central U.S. foreign policy concern.” Pakistan is at the center of it.
This is because a widespread water shortage in Pakistan would further destabilize the fractious country, hurting its efforts to root out its resident international terrorists. The struggle for water could also become a tipping point for renewed war with India. The jihadists know how important the issue is: in April 2009, Taliban forces launched an offensive that got within 35 miles of the giant Tarbela Dam, the linchpin of Pakistan’s hydroelectric and irrigation system.
Pakistan needs to rebuild and overhaul the administration of the world’s largest contiguous irrigation network. For decades, Islamabad has spent far too little on basic maintenance, drainage and distribution canals, new water storage and hydropower plants.
To some extent, these deficiencies have been masked since the 1970s by farmers drilling hundreds of thousands of little tube wells, which now provide half of the country’s irrigation. But in many of these places the groundwater is running dry and becoming too salty for use. The result is an agricultural crisis of wasted water, inefficient production and incipient crop shortfalls.
Like Egypt on the Nile, arid Pakistan is totally reliant on the Indus and its tributaries. Yet the river’s water is already so overdrawn that it no longer reaches the sea, dribbling to a meager end near the Indian Ocean port of Karachi. Its once-fertile delta of rice paddies and fisheries has shriveled up.
Chronic water shortages in the southern province of Sindh breed suspicions that politically connected landowners in upriver Punjab are siphoning more than their allotted share. There have been repeated riots over lack of water and electricity in Karachi, and across the country people suffer from contaminated drinking water, poor sanitation and pollution.
The future looks grim. Pakistan’s population is expected to rise to 220 million over the next decade, up from around 170 million today. Yet, eventually, flows of the Indus are expected to decrease as global warming causes the Himalayan glaciers to retreat, while monsoons will get more intense. Terrifyingly, Pakistan only has the capacity to hold a 30-day reserve storage of water as a buffer against drought.
India, meanwhile, is straining the limits of the Indus Waters Treaty, a 1960 agreement on sharing the river system. To cope with its own severe electricity shortages, it is building a series of hydropower dams on Indus tributaries in Jammu and Kashmir State, where the rivers emerge from the Himalayas.
While technically permissible under the treaty provided the overall volumes flowing downstream aren’t diminished, untimely dam-filling by India during planting season could destroy Pakistan’s harvest. Pakistan, downriver and militarily weaker than India, understandably regards the dams’ cumulative one-month storage capacity as a potentially lethal new water weapon in India’s arsenal.
Now, on top of all this, come the monsoon floods, which have obliterated countless canals, diversion weirs and huge swaths of cropland. Pakistan needs help, and projects like those heralded by Secretary Clinton, while valuable, are not on the scale needed to turn things around.
The best first step is a huge one: for Washington to kick-start progress on the Diamer-Bhasha dam, an agricultural and hydroelectric project on the Indus that’s been on the drawing board for decades. The project, likely to cost more than $12 billion, has languished for want of financing. It has also has run afoul of the developed world’s knee-jerk disfavor of giant dams.
But there is simply no other project that can add so much desperately needed water storage and hydroelectricity — Pakistan is tapping just 12 percent of its hydropower potential. Giant dams, moreover, can be inspiring, iconic projects — the Hoover Dam was a statement of American fortitude at the height of the Depression. Beleaguered Pakistan could use a symbol of progress.
There are other projects, already shown to be successful, that on a larger scale could save more water than building half a dozen giant dams. Managers at one Punjabi canal branch, for example, are working with international experts to replace the traditional supply system called warabandi — in which farmers draw water on a simple rotational basis — with one that requires less overall water but delivers it on a reliable, as-needed basis.
Finally, President Obama should take a lesson from John F. Kennedy. In 1961 President Kennedy and President Ayub Khan of Pakistan established a technical collaboration between American experts and a young generation of Pakistani engineers who, together, largely ameliorated Pakistan’s seemingly intractable problem of waterlogging and soil salinization. Yes, Washington’s interest may have been more related to the cold war than to helping the Pakistani people, but we’ve again reached the point where national security and benevolence align.
The Pakistanis may never come to love us. But as the current spectacle of Islamic jihadists bringing emergency aid to flooded areas warns us, we can’t afford to ignore Pakistan’s looming freshwater crisis.
Steven Solomon is the author of “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opini ... &th&emc=th
There is a related multimedia and more linked at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world ... pstan.html
August 22, 2010
Floods Force Thousands From Homes in Pakistan
By CARLOTTA GALL
SUKKUR, Pakistan — Floodwaters surged deeper into areas of southern Pakistan on Sunday, forcing thousands more people to abandon their homes in haste and flee to higher ground. Attention has now focused on the province of Sindh as the floods that have torn through the length of the country for three weeks finally move toward the Arabian Sea.
Water reached within half a mile of Shadad Kot, a town of 150,000 people, on Sunday afternoon, and several nearby villages were already cut off when a protective embankment began to give way, Yasin Shar, the district coordination officer of Shadad Kot, said by telephone. Most of the population had been evacuated and more were still leaving, he said. “We are trying to save the embankment and keep on repairing wherever it is damaged, but the water is flowing with a lot of pressure,” Mr. Shar said. “We hope the embankment won’t break. We are praying.”
Nearly five million people have been displaced from the worst flooding ever recorded in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands are being housed in orderly tented camps set up in army compounds, schools and other public buildings, but thousands more are living on roadsides and canal embankments, spreading out mats under the trees or making shade over the simple rope beds they brought with them.
******
There is a related video linked at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world ... ?th&emc=th
August 22, 2010
Severe Flooding Hits Northeast China
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — More than 250,000 people were evacuated in northeastern China over the weekend after torrential rains battered the area and led to severe flooding along the border with North Korea, Chinese state media reported on Monday.
The government said that four people were killed and one was missing near the port city of Dandong in the northeastern province of Liaoning after some of the worst flooding to hit the region in decades.
Emergency crews worked beginning Saturday into Sunday to move the estimated 253,500 people, the Xinhua news agency reported.
China has been suffering from severe flooding in various parts of the country for months, and is still trying to cope with massive mudslides that killed at least 1,400 people this month in Gansu Province, in the northwestern part of the country.
The heavy rains in North China over the weekend flooded the Yalu River, which separates China from North Korea, forcing the river to breach its banks, China’s state-run news media reported.
In North Korea, flooding submerged much of Sinuiju. The North Korean state-run media said Sunday that the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il, had mobilized military forces to rescue and evacuate thousands of North Koreans from floods that hit Sinuiju, the isolated country’s major trading gate on its border with China.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency said that about a foot of rain had fallen around Sinuiju from midnight until 9 a.m. Saturday. The agency reported “severe damage” and said that 5,150 people had been evacuated to higher ground. It reported no deaths.
Sinuiju forms a vital lifeline for the North’s impoverished economy. Much of the country’s land traffic with China, its main trading partner, travels trough Sinuiju.
Since the mid-1990s, North Korea’s agricultural sector has often been devastated by both floods and drought. After decades of denuding its hills for firewood, North Korea remains vulnerable to landslides and flash floods.
In the Chinese province of Liaoning, the floodwaters damaged five border cities, destroying or damaging thousands of homes and buildings and causing at least $100 million in losses, the government said.
The heavy rains began pounding Liaoning Province on Thursday and did not let up until Saturday. But, the government said Sunday, another wave of heavy rains was expected to worsen the situation.
Choe Sang-hun contributed reporting from Seoul.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world ... pstan.html
August 22, 2010
Floods Force Thousands From Homes in Pakistan
By CARLOTTA GALL
SUKKUR, Pakistan — Floodwaters surged deeper into areas of southern Pakistan on Sunday, forcing thousands more people to abandon their homes in haste and flee to higher ground. Attention has now focused on the province of Sindh as the floods that have torn through the length of the country for three weeks finally move toward the Arabian Sea.
Water reached within half a mile of Shadad Kot, a town of 150,000 people, on Sunday afternoon, and several nearby villages were already cut off when a protective embankment began to give way, Yasin Shar, the district coordination officer of Shadad Kot, said by telephone. Most of the population had been evacuated and more were still leaving, he said. “We are trying to save the embankment and keep on repairing wherever it is damaged, but the water is flowing with a lot of pressure,” Mr. Shar said. “We hope the embankment won’t break. We are praying.”
Nearly five million people have been displaced from the worst flooding ever recorded in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands are being housed in orderly tented camps set up in army compounds, schools and other public buildings, but thousands more are living on roadsides and canal embankments, spreading out mats under the trees or making shade over the simple rope beds they brought with them.
******
There is a related video linked at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world ... ?th&emc=th
August 22, 2010
Severe Flooding Hits Northeast China
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — More than 250,000 people were evacuated in northeastern China over the weekend after torrential rains battered the area and led to severe flooding along the border with North Korea, Chinese state media reported on Monday.
The government said that four people were killed and one was missing near the port city of Dandong in the northeastern province of Liaoning after some of the worst flooding to hit the region in decades.
Emergency crews worked beginning Saturday into Sunday to move the estimated 253,500 people, the Xinhua news agency reported.
China has been suffering from severe flooding in various parts of the country for months, and is still trying to cope with massive mudslides that killed at least 1,400 people this month in Gansu Province, in the northwestern part of the country.
The heavy rains in North China over the weekend flooded the Yalu River, which separates China from North Korea, forcing the river to breach its banks, China’s state-run news media reported.
In North Korea, flooding submerged much of Sinuiju. The North Korean state-run media said Sunday that the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il, had mobilized military forces to rescue and evacuate thousands of North Koreans from floods that hit Sinuiju, the isolated country’s major trading gate on its border with China.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency said that about a foot of rain had fallen around Sinuiju from midnight until 9 a.m. Saturday. The agency reported “severe damage” and said that 5,150 people had been evacuated to higher ground. It reported no deaths.
Sinuiju forms a vital lifeline for the North’s impoverished economy. Much of the country’s land traffic with China, its main trading partner, travels trough Sinuiju.
Since the mid-1990s, North Korea’s agricultural sector has often been devastated by both floods and drought. After decades of denuding its hills for firewood, North Korea remains vulnerable to landslides and flash floods.
In the Chinese province of Liaoning, the floodwaters damaged five border cities, destroying or damaging thousands of homes and buildings and causing at least $100 million in losses, the government said.
The heavy rains began pounding Liaoning Province on Thursday and did not let up until Saturday. But, the government said Sunday, another wave of heavy rains was expected to worsen the situation.
Choe Sang-hun contributed reporting from Seoul.
September 7, 2010, 11:05 am
In Earthquakes, Poverty, Population and Motion Matter
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
David Alexander/NZPA, via Associated Press
Dean Marshall, left, and Shaun Stockman assessed damage to buildings they own in downtown Christchurch.There are plenty of reasons damage and deaths from the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck near Christchurch, New Zealand, on Saturday utterly paled compared to the absolute devastation wrought by the 7.0-magnitude quake near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I sent a query about the different outcomes in Christchuch, Haiti (and Chile) to a half dozen engineers and geologists working on earthquake preparedness and design and you can read some of their observations below.
Here are some of the main points:
- Poverty kills.
- Not all earthquakes of the same magnitude have the same destructive force. Ground motion is a critical factor. Check the two charts below for a comparison of the motion of the earth in New Zealand and Haiti. No competition.
- Communities and countries that have frequent low-level seismic activity (New Zealand, Japan, California) tend to have better construction standards and preparation than those where quakes are devastating, but rare (Haiti, the Pacific Northwest).
Below you can compare tables showing the intensity of ground motion in communities around the epicenters in New Zealand and Haiti. Click here for descriptions of the rankings. Basically red and orange are very bad. (Santiago Pujol of Purdue University sent the charts, which are from the U.S. Geological Survey.) Also look at the populations in the two quake’s danger zones.
New Zealand:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... n&emc=tya3
In Earthquakes, Poverty, Population and Motion Matter
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
David Alexander/NZPA, via Associated Press
Dean Marshall, left, and Shaun Stockman assessed damage to buildings they own in downtown Christchurch.There are plenty of reasons damage and deaths from the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck near Christchurch, New Zealand, on Saturday utterly paled compared to the absolute devastation wrought by the 7.0-magnitude quake near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I sent a query about the different outcomes in Christchuch, Haiti (and Chile) to a half dozen engineers and geologists working on earthquake preparedness and design and you can read some of their observations below.
Here are some of the main points:
- Poverty kills.
- Not all earthquakes of the same magnitude have the same destructive force. Ground motion is a critical factor. Check the two charts below for a comparison of the motion of the earth in New Zealand and Haiti. No competition.
- Communities and countries that have frequent low-level seismic activity (New Zealand, Japan, California) tend to have better construction standards and preparation than those where quakes are devastating, but rare (Haiti, the Pacific Northwest).
Below you can compare tables showing the intensity of ground motion in communities around the epicenters in New Zealand and Haiti. Click here for descriptions of the rankings. Basically red and orange are very bad. (Santiago Pujol of Purdue University sent the charts, which are from the U.S. Geological Survey.) Also look at the populations in the two quake’s danger zones.
New Zealand:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... n&emc=tya3
After the storm: A dispatch from Pakistan
This is the fourth in a series of commentaries contributed by the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE). PACE is working to ensure that existing safe and effective vaccines for pneumonia—the world’s leading childhood killer—reach all of the children who need them
Heavy media coverage of the recent MDG Summit in New York has meant that many people who don’t keep close tabs on global health issues are now aware of the realities facing the world’s poorest people. The Summit highlighted the need for many things, including immediate action and a longer-term plan to ensure sustainable access to food, clean water, sanitation, medical care, immunization and housing in the developing world.
From my base in Pakistan, this sums up exactly what we need. The flooding that began in July was the single worst disaster in my country’s history. The statistics are beyond comprehension. The number of people who remain displaced from their homes is roughly equal to the population of Australia. At one point, 20 percent of the country—including more than a third of the province of Sindh—was underwater, with almost 7 million people displaced from their homes. Although this story has fallen off the front pages, the situation remains devastating, the health system in most affected areas destroyed, and for millions of men, women and children, exposed to extraordinary risks of undernutrition and disease.
As the floodwaters recede, it is evident that the disaster has affected the poorest of the poor and many communities have lost everything: their homes, crops and livestock. The communal infrastructure is also gone—including roads, hospitals and schools—and in most places, the environmental damage and soil conditions will make rebuilding livelihoods and planting crops huge challenges. Given the high probability of waterborne and airborne disease outbreaks, vaccinations against pneumonia and diarrheal disease and appropriate case management can truly save lives. Immunizations are unique in that they continue to protect people even when they are at their most vulnerable.
Although the Summit has come to an end, the issues it has brought both in terms of immediate interventions and long-term planning are of dire importance in my country. The US Fund for UNICEF referred to the aftermath of the flood as “the worst humanitarian crisis the international community has ever faced” and the Gates Foundation echoed the call that much more support is needed to help Pakistan recover. Encouragingly, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria’s recent commitment to help rebuild Pakistan’s health system demonstrates that leading organizations are embracing smart tactics that will help my country recover.
In resource-poor settings such as these, where disasters have destroyed or crippled local medical resources, vaccinations become even more important to saving children’s lives. In the case of pneumonia, the world’s leading killer of children, the majority of deaths can be prevented through the use of safe and effective vaccines for the leading childhood killers. Children in Pakistan who have already been immunized received a lifetime of protection, while those who have not and now contract the deadly disease in the weeks and months after the flood will struggle to find timely medical treatment. Vaccination is a critical part of a broader health strategy and I hope you will do all that you can to secure the funding, technical know-how and political will to protect the lives of millions of children against disease.
I have spent my career in global health, but being in Pakistan providing support in the aftermath of the flooding has been one of the most difficult tasks I have ever undertaken. And were it not for the heroic work of Pakistan’s armed forces and many civic-society organizations, the death toll would have been even higher. Recovery will be a long road but -– with your help -– Pakistan’s people will not walk it alone.
Zulfiqar Bhutta is the Founding Chair of the Division of Women & Child Health at Aga Khan University in Pakistan and a member of the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE).
http://www.one.org/blog/2010/10/07/afte ... -pakistan/
This is the fourth in a series of commentaries contributed by the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE). PACE is working to ensure that existing safe and effective vaccines for pneumonia—the world’s leading childhood killer—reach all of the children who need them
Heavy media coverage of the recent MDG Summit in New York has meant that many people who don’t keep close tabs on global health issues are now aware of the realities facing the world’s poorest people. The Summit highlighted the need for many things, including immediate action and a longer-term plan to ensure sustainable access to food, clean water, sanitation, medical care, immunization and housing in the developing world.
From my base in Pakistan, this sums up exactly what we need. The flooding that began in July was the single worst disaster in my country’s history. The statistics are beyond comprehension. The number of people who remain displaced from their homes is roughly equal to the population of Australia. At one point, 20 percent of the country—including more than a third of the province of Sindh—was underwater, with almost 7 million people displaced from their homes. Although this story has fallen off the front pages, the situation remains devastating, the health system in most affected areas destroyed, and for millions of men, women and children, exposed to extraordinary risks of undernutrition and disease.
As the floodwaters recede, it is evident that the disaster has affected the poorest of the poor and many communities have lost everything: their homes, crops and livestock. The communal infrastructure is also gone—including roads, hospitals and schools—and in most places, the environmental damage and soil conditions will make rebuilding livelihoods and planting crops huge challenges. Given the high probability of waterborne and airborne disease outbreaks, vaccinations against pneumonia and diarrheal disease and appropriate case management can truly save lives. Immunizations are unique in that they continue to protect people even when they are at their most vulnerable.
Although the Summit has come to an end, the issues it has brought both in terms of immediate interventions and long-term planning are of dire importance in my country. The US Fund for UNICEF referred to the aftermath of the flood as “the worst humanitarian crisis the international community has ever faced” and the Gates Foundation echoed the call that much more support is needed to help Pakistan recover. Encouragingly, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria’s recent commitment to help rebuild Pakistan’s health system demonstrates that leading organizations are embracing smart tactics that will help my country recover.
In resource-poor settings such as these, where disasters have destroyed or crippled local medical resources, vaccinations become even more important to saving children’s lives. In the case of pneumonia, the world’s leading killer of children, the majority of deaths can be prevented through the use of safe and effective vaccines for the leading childhood killers. Children in Pakistan who have already been immunized received a lifetime of protection, while those who have not and now contract the deadly disease in the weeks and months after the flood will struggle to find timely medical treatment. Vaccination is a critical part of a broader health strategy and I hope you will do all that you can to secure the funding, technical know-how and political will to protect the lives of millions of children against disease.
I have spent my career in global health, but being in Pakistan providing support in the aftermath of the flooding has been one of the most difficult tasks I have ever undertaken. And were it not for the heroic work of Pakistan’s armed forces and many civic-society organizations, the death toll would have been even higher. Recovery will be a long road but -– with your help -– Pakistan’s people will not walk it alone.
Zulfiqar Bhutta is the Founding Chair of the Division of Women & Child Health at Aga Khan University in Pakistan and a member of the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE).
http://www.one.org/blog/2010/10/07/afte ... -pakistan/
A Country’s Lasting Aftershocks
By SATORU IKEUCHI, GENICHIRO TAKAHASHI and MITSUYOSHI NUMANO
Science’s Arrogance
Hayama, Japan
The physicist Torahiko Terada wrote in 1934, “The more civilization progresses, the greater the violence of nature’s wrath.” Nearly 67 years later, his words appear prescient.
Humans have become increasingly arrogant, believing they have conquered nature. We build ever larger, ever more concentrated, ever more uniform structures. Scientists and engineers think that they are responding to the demands of society, but they have forgotten their larger responsibilities to society, emphasizing only the positive aspects of their endeavors.
The catastrophe facing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant epitomizes this phenomenon. Although earthquakes are so frequent in Japan that it has been described as “a nation lying atop a block of tofu,” we have built some 54 nuclear reactors along the coast, vulnerable to tsunamis. It should have been foreseen that an earthquake of this magnitude might occur, and if the plant could not withstand such an event, it should not have been constructed.
In addition, the failure of power systems fueling the plant’s emergency core cooling system suggests that the models used to design the system were too lax. The decision to pump seawater into the nuclear reactor was late in coming. Each of these problems was foreseeable.
Even now, as workers at the plant continue to do their utmost, I am haunted by a nightmare in which a succession of nuclear meltdowns produces radioactive pollution greater than what was released at Chernobyl.
Until a few years ago, power usage in Japan was such that during the summer Obon holidays, when people typically return to their ancestral homes, it would have been possible to meet demand even if all nuclear power plants were turned off. Now, nuclear energy has come to be indispensable for both industry and for our daily lives. Our excessive consumption of energy has somehow become part of our very character; it is something we no longer think twice about.
Japan reached global prominence through science and technology, but we cannot deny that this has also resulted in an arrogance that has diminished our ability to imagine disaster. We have fallen into the trap of being stupefied by civilization.
— SATORU IKEUCHI, astrophysicist at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies. This article was translated by Matthew Fraleigh from the Japanese.
Post-Postwar
Tokyo
Hours after the earthquake, the columnist Masahiko Katsuya scrapped the article he had been writing and started over. “Surely, this is a national emergency,” his new column began. “Just when the Japanese nation had hit bottom politically, economically and morally, we suffered a blow so crushing it seemed it might well be the end of us. But we mustn’t let that happen. ... My fellows, let us fight! Fight until our vigor is restored!”
This is the rhetoric of war. And it’s not a metaphor. This disaster is the war that many Japanese have been dreading, and expecting, for a long time.
Four years ago, an article titled “War Is Our Only Hope” appeared in a political magazine. “More than a decade has passed,” the young writer wrote, “since we were set adrift in society as low-wage workers. And yet society, far from extending a helping hand, heaps insults on us, saying we lower the G.D.P., calling us lazy bums. If the peace endures, the current inequality will last until we die. We need something to break this asphyxiating stagnation and set things in motion. War is one possible solution.”
These words jolted Japanese society. It was a rejection of all the country has believed in for over 60 years.
Japan was fundamentally altered by its defeat in World War II. It chose to abjure war and to recreate itself as a wealthy country. But how long, one wonders, did our faith in peace, democracy and economic growth really last? Not long, it seems. Over the past two decades growth has faltered, economic disparity has greatly increased and faith in the political order has eroded. Though they didn’t say it, people could tell that sooner or later some disaster had to happen. That young writer only gave it a name.
Days after the earthquake, supermarket shelves were empty, long lines of cars had formed outside gas stations, parents were taking their children out of Tokyo. The television showed endless images of demolished towns; the numbers of the dead and missing climbed mercilessly upward into five digits; and refugees in dark gymnasiums lay trembling in the freezing cold, waiting for help. These are scenes from a war.
For the first time in his reign, Emperor Akihito made a televised address to the Japanese people. This, too, reminded us of his father’s radio address at the end of World War II, 66 years ago.
And now we are transfixed by the images of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant; they’re emitting flames, exploding. When the first small, brown mushroom cloud rose, memories we had sealed off deep inside suddenly surfaced.
For 66 years, we lived the “postwar” life. Periodically someone would point out that the postwar period must surely be over by now — and yet it wasn’t. We had no other word to describe the present.
We lost many things in those years, chief among them the bond between people. Companies, families and neighbors ceased to work together, and the word kozoku was coined to describe our country: ko meaning “isolated” or “orphaned,” zoku meaning “family” or “tribe.” We were lonely, adrift.
Eiji Oguma, one of the most prominent social historians here, once asked, “How long do we have to go on using this word ‘postwar’?” He answered himself: “Forever. Because we established a new country after the defeat. When we say ‘however many years after the defeat,’ it really means ‘however many years after the founding of the nation.’ ”
“Then again,” Mr. Oguma added, “maybe we’ll only use it until the next war.”
Now, amid the chaos of the battle we are waging, we feel a familiar sense of exhilaration in the air, an intense feeling of solidarity. We can only wonder what the new Japan will look like.
— GENICHIRO TAKAHASHI, author of “Sayonara, Gangsters.” This article was translated by Michael Emmerich from the Japanese.
Beyond Expectations
Tokyo
Many people are wondering why anyone would build nuclear power plants in a country so prone to natural disasters — and that’s a very reasonable question. But the reality is that, having accepted nuclear power as a necessary evil, we have no choice but to go on living with it.
What is hard to accept, however, is that the electrical power companies and government agencies tried to account for the disaster by explaining that the circumstances that led up to it were far outside the bounds of anything that could have been predicted — in their words, “beyond all expectations.” We have heard this phrase repeatedly on television reports.
There is something strange about this line of thinking. It even begins to appear that Japan’s vaunted scientific and technical prowess has taken on the character of a kind of myth, and that myth has deluded the nation’s politicians and business leaders. But it has been obvious all along that science and technology can deal only with things that fall within the range of what can be expected. And also that it is all too likely that some things that happen in our lives will indeed be “beyond all expectations” — and that it is precisely for this reason that we are able to live those lives. What, after all, would be the meaning of a life in which everything that happened was “within expectations”?
Every one of the images of the victims that we have seen on television has been gripping, but the one that has made the deepest impression on my heart is that of a little girl tearfully calling out for her missing mother. I believe in the purity of this girl’s heart more than I believe in the pledges of any politician, no matter how sincere. A cry of despair, to be sure, but also a sign of her unshakable will to face reality in its very harshest form.
And yet, in the end, what else is there for each of us to do but to keep on doing what we have been doing, as long and as hard as we can? From within the daily lives of each one of us, a small light of hope will begin to glow. This is what I want to believe. Would it be too much to say that a person’s ability to harbor such an unlikely belief in the power of hope is also something “beyond all expectation”?
— MITSUYOSHI NUMANO, professor of literature at the University of Tokyo. This article was translated by Joel R. Cohn from the Japanese.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opini ... emc=tha212
By SATORU IKEUCHI, GENICHIRO TAKAHASHI and MITSUYOSHI NUMANO
Science’s Arrogance
Hayama, Japan
The physicist Torahiko Terada wrote in 1934, “The more civilization progresses, the greater the violence of nature’s wrath.” Nearly 67 years later, his words appear prescient.
Humans have become increasingly arrogant, believing they have conquered nature. We build ever larger, ever more concentrated, ever more uniform structures. Scientists and engineers think that they are responding to the demands of society, but they have forgotten their larger responsibilities to society, emphasizing only the positive aspects of their endeavors.
The catastrophe facing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant epitomizes this phenomenon. Although earthquakes are so frequent in Japan that it has been described as “a nation lying atop a block of tofu,” we have built some 54 nuclear reactors along the coast, vulnerable to tsunamis. It should have been foreseen that an earthquake of this magnitude might occur, and if the plant could not withstand such an event, it should not have been constructed.
In addition, the failure of power systems fueling the plant’s emergency core cooling system suggests that the models used to design the system were too lax. The decision to pump seawater into the nuclear reactor was late in coming. Each of these problems was foreseeable.
Even now, as workers at the plant continue to do their utmost, I am haunted by a nightmare in which a succession of nuclear meltdowns produces radioactive pollution greater than what was released at Chernobyl.
Until a few years ago, power usage in Japan was such that during the summer Obon holidays, when people typically return to their ancestral homes, it would have been possible to meet demand even if all nuclear power plants were turned off. Now, nuclear energy has come to be indispensable for both industry and for our daily lives. Our excessive consumption of energy has somehow become part of our very character; it is something we no longer think twice about.
Japan reached global prominence through science and technology, but we cannot deny that this has also resulted in an arrogance that has diminished our ability to imagine disaster. We have fallen into the trap of being stupefied by civilization.
— SATORU IKEUCHI, astrophysicist at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies. This article was translated by Matthew Fraleigh from the Japanese.
Post-Postwar
Tokyo
Hours after the earthquake, the columnist Masahiko Katsuya scrapped the article he had been writing and started over. “Surely, this is a national emergency,” his new column began. “Just when the Japanese nation had hit bottom politically, economically and morally, we suffered a blow so crushing it seemed it might well be the end of us. But we mustn’t let that happen. ... My fellows, let us fight! Fight until our vigor is restored!”
This is the rhetoric of war. And it’s not a metaphor. This disaster is the war that many Japanese have been dreading, and expecting, for a long time.
Four years ago, an article titled “War Is Our Only Hope” appeared in a political magazine. “More than a decade has passed,” the young writer wrote, “since we were set adrift in society as low-wage workers. And yet society, far from extending a helping hand, heaps insults on us, saying we lower the G.D.P., calling us lazy bums. If the peace endures, the current inequality will last until we die. We need something to break this asphyxiating stagnation and set things in motion. War is one possible solution.”
These words jolted Japanese society. It was a rejection of all the country has believed in for over 60 years.
Japan was fundamentally altered by its defeat in World War II. It chose to abjure war and to recreate itself as a wealthy country. But how long, one wonders, did our faith in peace, democracy and economic growth really last? Not long, it seems. Over the past two decades growth has faltered, economic disparity has greatly increased and faith in the political order has eroded. Though they didn’t say it, people could tell that sooner or later some disaster had to happen. That young writer only gave it a name.
Days after the earthquake, supermarket shelves were empty, long lines of cars had formed outside gas stations, parents were taking their children out of Tokyo. The television showed endless images of demolished towns; the numbers of the dead and missing climbed mercilessly upward into five digits; and refugees in dark gymnasiums lay trembling in the freezing cold, waiting for help. These are scenes from a war.
For the first time in his reign, Emperor Akihito made a televised address to the Japanese people. This, too, reminded us of his father’s radio address at the end of World War II, 66 years ago.
And now we are transfixed by the images of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant; they’re emitting flames, exploding. When the first small, brown mushroom cloud rose, memories we had sealed off deep inside suddenly surfaced.
For 66 years, we lived the “postwar” life. Periodically someone would point out that the postwar period must surely be over by now — and yet it wasn’t. We had no other word to describe the present.
We lost many things in those years, chief among them the bond between people. Companies, families and neighbors ceased to work together, and the word kozoku was coined to describe our country: ko meaning “isolated” or “orphaned,” zoku meaning “family” or “tribe.” We were lonely, adrift.
Eiji Oguma, one of the most prominent social historians here, once asked, “How long do we have to go on using this word ‘postwar’?” He answered himself: “Forever. Because we established a new country after the defeat. When we say ‘however many years after the defeat,’ it really means ‘however many years after the founding of the nation.’ ”
“Then again,” Mr. Oguma added, “maybe we’ll only use it until the next war.”
Now, amid the chaos of the battle we are waging, we feel a familiar sense of exhilaration in the air, an intense feeling of solidarity. We can only wonder what the new Japan will look like.
— GENICHIRO TAKAHASHI, author of “Sayonara, Gangsters.” This article was translated by Michael Emmerich from the Japanese.
Beyond Expectations
Tokyo
Many people are wondering why anyone would build nuclear power plants in a country so prone to natural disasters — and that’s a very reasonable question. But the reality is that, having accepted nuclear power as a necessary evil, we have no choice but to go on living with it.
What is hard to accept, however, is that the electrical power companies and government agencies tried to account for the disaster by explaining that the circumstances that led up to it were far outside the bounds of anything that could have been predicted — in their words, “beyond all expectations.” We have heard this phrase repeatedly on television reports.
There is something strange about this line of thinking. It even begins to appear that Japan’s vaunted scientific and technical prowess has taken on the character of a kind of myth, and that myth has deluded the nation’s politicians and business leaders. But it has been obvious all along that science and technology can deal only with things that fall within the range of what can be expected. And also that it is all too likely that some things that happen in our lives will indeed be “beyond all expectations” — and that it is precisely for this reason that we are able to live those lives. What, after all, would be the meaning of a life in which everything that happened was “within expectations”?
Every one of the images of the victims that we have seen on television has been gripping, but the one that has made the deepest impression on my heart is that of a little girl tearfully calling out for her missing mother. I believe in the purity of this girl’s heart more than I believe in the pledges of any politician, no matter how sincere. A cry of despair, to be sure, but also a sign of her unshakable will to face reality in its very harshest form.
And yet, in the end, what else is there for each of us to do but to keep on doing what we have been doing, as long and as hard as we can? From within the daily lives of each one of us, a small light of hope will begin to glow. This is what I want to believe. Would it be too much to say that a person’s ability to harbor such an unlikely belief in the power of hope is also something “beyond all expectation”?
— MITSUYOSHI NUMANO, professor of literature at the University of Tokyo. This article was translated by Joel R. Cohn from the Japanese.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/opini ... emc=tha212
July 16, 2011
Drought: A Creeping Disaster
By ALEX PRUD’HOMME
FLOODS, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and other extreme weather have left a trail of destruction during the first half of 2011. But this could be just the start to a remarkable year of bad weather. Next up: drought. In the South, 14 states are now baking in blast-furnace conditions — from Arizona, which is battling the largest wildfire in its history, to Florida, where fires have burned some 200,000 acres so far. Worse, drought, unlike earthquakes, hurricanes and other rapid-moving weather, could become a permanent condition in some regions.
Climatologists call drought a “creeping disaster” because its effects are not felt at once. Others compare drought to a python, which slowly and inexorably squeezes its prey to death.
The great aridification of 2011 began last fall; now temperatures in many states have spiked to more than 100 degrees for days at a stretch. A high pressure system has stalled over the middle of the country, blocking cool air from the north. Texas and New Mexico are drier than in any year on record.
The deadly heat led to 138 deaths last year, more than hurricanes, tornadoes or floods, and it turns brush to tinder that is vulnerable to lightning strikes and human carelessness. Already this year, some 40,000 wildfires have torched over 5.8 million acres nationwide — and the deep heat of August is likely to make conditions worse before they get better.
Climatologists disagree about what caused this remarkable dry-out. But there is little disagreement about the severity of the drought — or its long-term implications. When I asked Richard Seagar, who analyzed historical records and climate model projections for the Southwest for the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, if a perpetual drought was possible there, he replied: “You can’t really call it a drought because that implies a temporary change. The models show a progressive aridification. You don’t say, ‘The Sahara is in drought.’ It’s a desert. If the models are right, then the Southwest will face a permanent drying out.”
Growing population has increased the burden on our water supply. There are more people on earth than ever, and in many places we are using water at unsustainable rates. Cultural shifts contribute to subtle, far-reaching effects on water supplies. In 2008, for the first time, more people lived in cities than in rural communities worldwide, and water is becoming urbanized. Yet some of the world’s biggest cities — Melbourne, Australia; Barcelona, Spain; and Mexico City — have already suffered drought emergencies. Further drying could lead to new kinds of disasters. Consider Perth, Australia: its population has surpassed 1.7 million while precipitation has decreased. City planners worry that unless drastic action is taken, Perth could become the world’s first “ghost city” — a modern metropolis abandoned for lack of water.
Similar fates may await America’s booming desert cities: Las Vegas, Phoenix or Los Angeles.
Our traditional response to desiccation has been to build hydro-infrastructure — dams, pipelines, aqueducts, levees. Many advocate building even bigger dams and ambitious plumbing projects including one that calls for “flipping the Mississippi,” a scheme to capture Mississippi floodwater and pipe it to the parched West. But it is now widely believed that large water diversion projects are expensive, inefficient and environmentally destructive.
The Holy Grail of water managers is to find a drought-proof water source. Weather modification (“weather mod”), or cloud seeding, is a particularly appealing ideal. When American chemists discovered that dry ice dropped into clouds produced snow, and that clouds seeded with silver iodide produced rain, they rhapsodized about ending drought. Under perfect conditions, weather mod can increase precipitation by 10 to 15 percent. Ski areas, including Vail, Colo., hire companies to seed snow-producing clouds. And China claims that it produced 36 billion metric tons of rain a year between 1999 and 2006.
But critics, including the National Research Council, question weather mod and its efficacy. Bottom line: though evidence suggests weather mod works to a limited extent, it is unlikely to produce a major supply of water soon.
The ocean is a more promising water source. For centuries people have dreamed of converting saltwater into a limitless supply of fresh water. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy said that “if we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from saltwater” it would “dwarf any other scientific accomplishments.” By 2008 over 13,000 desalination plants around the world produced billions of gallons of water a day. But “desal,” which is costly and environmentally controversial, has been slow to catch on the United States.
Recycled sewage offers an interesting, if aesthetically questionable, drinking source. (Supporters call recycled sewage “showers to flowers”; detractors condemn “toilet to tap” schemes.) Plans for sewage recycling, which involves extracting and purifying the water, are slowly gaining acceptance. Windhoek, Namibia — one of the driest places on earth — relies solely on treated wastewater for its drinking supply. In El Paso 40 percent of the tap water is recycled sewage. Fairfax, Va., gets 5 percent of its tap water from recycling effluent. But the “yuck factor” has led to a sharp debate about its merits.
MEANWHILE, global demand for water is expected to increase by two-thirds by 2025, and the United Nations fears a “looming water crisis.” To forestall a drought emergency, we must redefine how we think of water, value it, and use it.
Singapore provides a noteworthy model: no country uses water more sparingly. In the 1950s, it faced water rationing, but it began to build a world-class water system in the 1960s. Now 40 percent of its water comes from Malaysia, while a remarkable 25 to 30 percent is provided by desalination and the recycling of wastewater; the rest is drawn from sources that include large-scale rainwater collection. Demand is curbed by high water taxes and efficient technologies, and Singaporeans are constantly exhorted to conserve every drop. Most important, the nation’s water is managed by a sophisticated, well-financed, politically autonomous water authority. As a result, Singapore’s per-capita water use fell to 154 liters, about 41 gallons, a day in 2011, from 165 liters, about 44 gallons, in 2003.
America is a much larger and more complex nation. But Singapore’s example suggests we could do a far better job of educating our citizens about conservation. And we could take other basic steps: install smart meters to find out how much water we use, and identify leaks (which drain off more than 1 trillion gallons a year); use tiered water pricing to encourage efficiency; promote rainwater harvesting and wastewater recycling on a large scale. And like Singapore, we could streamline our Byzantine water governance system and create a new federal water office — a water czar or an interagency national water board — to manage the nation’s supply in a holistic way.
No question this will be an expensive, politically cumbersome effort. But as reports from New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida make plain, business as usual is not a real option. The python of drought is already wrapped tightly around us, and in weeks — and years — to come it will squeeze us dangerously dry.
Alex Prud'Homme is the author of “The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the 21st Century.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opini ... emc=tha212
Drought: A Creeping Disaster
By ALEX PRUD’HOMME
FLOODS, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and other extreme weather have left a trail of destruction during the first half of 2011. But this could be just the start to a remarkable year of bad weather. Next up: drought. In the South, 14 states are now baking in blast-furnace conditions — from Arizona, which is battling the largest wildfire in its history, to Florida, where fires have burned some 200,000 acres so far. Worse, drought, unlike earthquakes, hurricanes and other rapid-moving weather, could become a permanent condition in some regions.
Climatologists call drought a “creeping disaster” because its effects are not felt at once. Others compare drought to a python, which slowly and inexorably squeezes its prey to death.
The great aridification of 2011 began last fall; now temperatures in many states have spiked to more than 100 degrees for days at a stretch. A high pressure system has stalled over the middle of the country, blocking cool air from the north. Texas and New Mexico are drier than in any year on record.
The deadly heat led to 138 deaths last year, more than hurricanes, tornadoes or floods, and it turns brush to tinder that is vulnerable to lightning strikes and human carelessness. Already this year, some 40,000 wildfires have torched over 5.8 million acres nationwide — and the deep heat of August is likely to make conditions worse before they get better.
Climatologists disagree about what caused this remarkable dry-out. But there is little disagreement about the severity of the drought — or its long-term implications. When I asked Richard Seagar, who analyzed historical records and climate model projections for the Southwest for the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, if a perpetual drought was possible there, he replied: “You can’t really call it a drought because that implies a temporary change. The models show a progressive aridification. You don’t say, ‘The Sahara is in drought.’ It’s a desert. If the models are right, then the Southwest will face a permanent drying out.”
Growing population has increased the burden on our water supply. There are more people on earth than ever, and in many places we are using water at unsustainable rates. Cultural shifts contribute to subtle, far-reaching effects on water supplies. In 2008, for the first time, more people lived in cities than in rural communities worldwide, and water is becoming urbanized. Yet some of the world’s biggest cities — Melbourne, Australia; Barcelona, Spain; and Mexico City — have already suffered drought emergencies. Further drying could lead to new kinds of disasters. Consider Perth, Australia: its population has surpassed 1.7 million while precipitation has decreased. City planners worry that unless drastic action is taken, Perth could become the world’s first “ghost city” — a modern metropolis abandoned for lack of water.
Similar fates may await America’s booming desert cities: Las Vegas, Phoenix or Los Angeles.
Our traditional response to desiccation has been to build hydro-infrastructure — dams, pipelines, aqueducts, levees. Many advocate building even bigger dams and ambitious plumbing projects including one that calls for “flipping the Mississippi,” a scheme to capture Mississippi floodwater and pipe it to the parched West. But it is now widely believed that large water diversion projects are expensive, inefficient and environmentally destructive.
The Holy Grail of water managers is to find a drought-proof water source. Weather modification (“weather mod”), or cloud seeding, is a particularly appealing ideal. When American chemists discovered that dry ice dropped into clouds produced snow, and that clouds seeded with silver iodide produced rain, they rhapsodized about ending drought. Under perfect conditions, weather mod can increase precipitation by 10 to 15 percent. Ski areas, including Vail, Colo., hire companies to seed snow-producing clouds. And China claims that it produced 36 billion metric tons of rain a year between 1999 and 2006.
But critics, including the National Research Council, question weather mod and its efficacy. Bottom line: though evidence suggests weather mod works to a limited extent, it is unlikely to produce a major supply of water soon.
The ocean is a more promising water source. For centuries people have dreamed of converting saltwater into a limitless supply of fresh water. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy said that “if we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from saltwater” it would “dwarf any other scientific accomplishments.” By 2008 over 13,000 desalination plants around the world produced billions of gallons of water a day. But “desal,” which is costly and environmentally controversial, has been slow to catch on the United States.
Recycled sewage offers an interesting, if aesthetically questionable, drinking source. (Supporters call recycled sewage “showers to flowers”; detractors condemn “toilet to tap” schemes.) Plans for sewage recycling, which involves extracting and purifying the water, are slowly gaining acceptance. Windhoek, Namibia — one of the driest places on earth — relies solely on treated wastewater for its drinking supply. In El Paso 40 percent of the tap water is recycled sewage. Fairfax, Va., gets 5 percent of its tap water from recycling effluent. But the “yuck factor” has led to a sharp debate about its merits.
MEANWHILE, global demand for water is expected to increase by two-thirds by 2025, and the United Nations fears a “looming water crisis.” To forestall a drought emergency, we must redefine how we think of water, value it, and use it.
Singapore provides a noteworthy model: no country uses water more sparingly. In the 1950s, it faced water rationing, but it began to build a world-class water system in the 1960s. Now 40 percent of its water comes from Malaysia, while a remarkable 25 to 30 percent is provided by desalination and the recycling of wastewater; the rest is drawn from sources that include large-scale rainwater collection. Demand is curbed by high water taxes and efficient technologies, and Singaporeans are constantly exhorted to conserve every drop. Most important, the nation’s water is managed by a sophisticated, well-financed, politically autonomous water authority. As a result, Singapore’s per-capita water use fell to 154 liters, about 41 gallons, a day in 2011, from 165 liters, about 44 gallons, in 2003.
America is a much larger and more complex nation. But Singapore’s example suggests we could do a far better job of educating our citizens about conservation. And we could take other basic steps: install smart meters to find out how much water we use, and identify leaks (which drain off more than 1 trillion gallons a year); use tiered water pricing to encourage efficiency; promote rainwater harvesting and wastewater recycling on a large scale. And like Singapore, we could streamline our Byzantine water governance system and create a new federal water office — a water czar or an interagency national water board — to manage the nation’s supply in a holistic way.
No question this will be an expensive, politically cumbersome effort. But as reports from New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida make plain, business as usual is not a real option. The python of drought is already wrapped tightly around us, and in weeks — and years — to come it will squeeze us dangerously dry.
Alex Prud'Homme is the author of “The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the 21st Century.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opini ... emc=tha212
August 5, 2011
Pakistan: Devastating flood, one year later.
Devastating floods, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains, began late in July 2010, leaving one-fifth of Pakistan submerged. The rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan regions of Pakistan directly affected 20 million people mostly by destruction of property, livelihood and infrastructure. It left 2,000 people dead and 11 million homeless. In this post, we revisit some of those affected as the monsoon season approaches the region again. The last five images by Reuters photographer Adrees Latif (click on the image to fade the photograph) show us his subjects almost one year later, as he brought them back to the place where he photographed them during the 2010 flooding. -- Paula Nelson (34 photos total)
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/0 ... later.html
Pakistan: Devastating flood, one year later.
Devastating floods, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains, began late in July 2010, leaving one-fifth of Pakistan submerged. The rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan regions of Pakistan directly affected 20 million people mostly by destruction of property, livelihood and infrastructure. It left 2,000 people dead and 11 million homeless. In this post, we revisit some of those affected as the monsoon season approaches the region again. The last five images by Reuters photographer Adrees Latif (click on the image to fade the photograph) show us his subjects almost one year later, as he brought them back to the place where he photographed them during the 2010 flooding. -- Paula Nelson (34 photos total)
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/0 ... later.html
Over one million affected by floods in Sindh: Qaim Ali Shah
Published: August 16, 2011
KARACHI: Chief Minister Sindh, Qaim Ali Shah has said more than one million people have been affected by the recent floods in six districts of the province, Express 24/7 reported on Tuesday.
Speaking to the media at Sukkur Airport, Shah said that 1,100,000 people had fallen victim to floods in interior Sindh.
He said 123 flood relief camps had been set up in Badin and the army, navy and civil administration had been mobilised to begin relief work.
The chief minister said flood victims had been provided with accommodation in schools and Watan Cards would be distributed to the victims soon.
Badin, Tando Muhammad Khan, Mirpur Khas calamity hit
The government of Sindh has declared Badin, Tando Muhammad Khan and Mirpur Khas calamity hit areas following fresh floods in the province.
Rescue operations are currently underway and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has ordered the use of helicopters to help with the effort.
Recent rains have caused flooding and destruction of infrastructure and crops in 24 out of 30 union councils in Mirpur Khas.
Around 120 relief camps have been set up in the region for 18,000 people.
In Badin, breaches in canals have not been repaired as yet. More than 45,000 people have been shifted to 170 relief centres set up by the district administration.
Rescuers are facing problems in the inundated villages due to absence of a road network.
Six Union Councils of Mathi District have also been inundated and all schools across the district have been converted into relief camps to shelter the victims.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) had earlier said over 200,000 people have been affected in flood-hit areas in interior Sindh.
The authority says a hundred villages have been flooded in Badin after a breach in a major salinity drain widened further to 200 feet.
UN agencies monitoring situation
United Nations humanitarian agencies are closely watching the flood situation in affected areas of Punjab and Sindh and waiting for a green signal from the government to start relief operations.
World Food Program (WFP) spokesman Amjad Jamal said around 750,000 people have been affected in Punjab & Sindh, 25 have died in Sindh and about 50,000 others were displaced in rain-hit areas.
He said humanitarian agencies can only start relief operations after a written request from the government.
“We are ready to start relief operations and begin work in rain affected areas as soon as a request is received. First government would fulfill its responsibility of relief operation and if authorities feel affected people need operation on large scale in that situation they will call UN humanitarian agencies,” he said.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/232612/over ... -ali-shah/
Published: August 16, 2011
KARACHI: Chief Minister Sindh, Qaim Ali Shah has said more than one million people have been affected by the recent floods in six districts of the province, Express 24/7 reported on Tuesday.
Speaking to the media at Sukkur Airport, Shah said that 1,100,000 people had fallen victim to floods in interior Sindh.
He said 123 flood relief camps had been set up in Badin and the army, navy and civil administration had been mobilised to begin relief work.
The chief minister said flood victims had been provided with accommodation in schools and Watan Cards would be distributed to the victims soon.
Badin, Tando Muhammad Khan, Mirpur Khas calamity hit
The government of Sindh has declared Badin, Tando Muhammad Khan and Mirpur Khas calamity hit areas following fresh floods in the province.
Rescue operations are currently underway and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has ordered the use of helicopters to help with the effort.
Recent rains have caused flooding and destruction of infrastructure and crops in 24 out of 30 union councils in Mirpur Khas.
Around 120 relief camps have been set up in the region for 18,000 people.
In Badin, breaches in canals have not been repaired as yet. More than 45,000 people have been shifted to 170 relief centres set up by the district administration.
Rescuers are facing problems in the inundated villages due to absence of a road network.
Six Union Councils of Mathi District have also been inundated and all schools across the district have been converted into relief camps to shelter the victims.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) had earlier said over 200,000 people have been affected in flood-hit areas in interior Sindh.
The authority says a hundred villages have been flooded in Badin after a breach in a major salinity drain widened further to 200 feet.
UN agencies monitoring situation
United Nations humanitarian agencies are closely watching the flood situation in affected areas of Punjab and Sindh and waiting for a green signal from the government to start relief operations.
World Food Program (WFP) spokesman Amjad Jamal said around 750,000 people have been affected in Punjab & Sindh, 25 have died in Sindh and about 50,000 others were displaced in rain-hit areas.
He said humanitarian agencies can only start relief operations after a written request from the government.
“We are ready to start relief operations and begin work in rain affected areas as soon as a request is received. First government would fulfill its responsibility of relief operation and if authorities feel affected people need operation on large scale in that situation they will call UN humanitarian agencies,” he said.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/232612/over ... -ali-shah/
October 3, 2011
Trial Over Earthquake in Italy Puts Focus on Probability and Panic
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
The manslaughter trial of six seismologists and a government official in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, stemming from what the authorities say was a failure to warn the population before a deadly 2009 earthquake, has outraged many scientists. Thousands have signed petitions protesting the prosecution as anti-science.
But the trial, which resumed Saturday, has also focused attention on a vexing problem in earthquake-prone regions around the world: how to effectively communicate the risk of potential disaster. Whatever the merits of the L’Aquila case, scientists and government officials have difficulty conveying what they know about the risk of earthquakes in ways that help prepare the public without sowing panic.
“People are expecting much more information, in particular quantitative information,” said Thomas H. Jordan, a professor at the University of Southern California and director of the Southern California Earthquake Center. “Coming clean with what you know is being demanded by the public.”
Earthquakes differ from other types of natural disasters. Meteorologists can track a hurricane with precision, but seismologists cannot predict exactly when and where an earthquake will occur. Scientists have condemned the Italian prosecution for this reason, saying the defendants are on trial for failing to do something that is impossible.
What seismologists are increasingly able to do, however, is forecast the likelihood that a quake will occur in a certain area over a certain time. Statistical analysis shows, for example, that some seismic activity — a minor quake or a swarm of very small ones — increases the probability of a larger, destructive earthquake in the same area.
But the probabilities are still very small, and they become even smaller with time. Given a low-probability forecast of an event that has potentially high consequences, the problem, Dr. Jordan said, becomes “what the heck do you do with that kind of information?”
That was a question that the Italian defendants faced. In the months before a magnitude 6.3 quake hit L’Aquila on April 6, 2009, killing more than 300, the area had experienced an earthquake swarm. That probably increased the likelihood of a major earthquake in the near future by a factor of 100 or 1,000, Dr. Jordan said, but the probability remained very low — perhaps 1 in 1,000.
But there was a wild card in L’Aquila that complicated the situation. As the earthquake swarm continued over several months, a local man who is not a scientist issued several predictions of a large earthquake — specific as to date and location — based on measurements of radon, a radioactive gas that is released as rocks fracture.
The predictions, none of which proved accurate, increased public anxiety in the city — so much so that the Italian government convened a meeting of a national risk-forecasting commission, including the seismologists and the government official, in L’Aquila on March 30.
At the meeting, the seismologists noted that it was possible, though unlikely, that the seismic activity could be a sign that a larger quake was imminent. They also noted that there was always some risk in L’Aquila, which has a history of earthquakes. But in a news conference afterward, the message to the public became garbled, with the government official assuring that there was no danger.
“The government ended up looking like it was saying, ‘No, there’s not going to be a big earthquake,’ ” when the scientists had not precluded the possibility, said Dr. Jordan, who was the chairman of a commission established by the Italian government after the quake to look at the forecasting issue.
The statement by the official, who is not a seismologist, violated a cardinal rule of risk communication, which is that those involved should speak only to their expertise, said Dennis Mileti, an emeritus professor of behavioral science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “This person should not have been speaking,” said Dr. Mileti, who has studied risk communication.
In general, said Michael Lindell, a professor at Texas A & M, scientists should advise emergency managers about the likelihood of events, and then the managers should make the yes-or-no decisions about whether to order an evacuation or urge the public to make other, simpler preparations. But often the roles become confused.
“When you step over the boundary outside your area of expertise, then there aren’t necessarily any warning signs,” Dr. Lindell said.
The L’Aquila news conference did not fill what was essentially an information vacuum, Dr. Jordan said. “One of the principles that social science has shown is that the public wants to hear things from people they trust,” he said. “They want to hear things repeated.
“You don’t want to put out information just when there’s a seismic crisis, because people then don’t have the context for this kind of information,” he added. “You want people to get used to how these things ebb and flow.”
California, with its active seismic zones, has a system for communicating risks to the public on a regular basis — though it, too, has flaws, Dr. Jordan said.
Just a few weeks before the L’Aquila quake, an analysis of an earthquake swarm in Southern California showed an increased likelihood of a major earthquake near the southern end of the San Andreas fault. While the probability was small, it was high enough that a scientific group decided to advise the state’s emergency management agency. (In the end, no quake occurred.)
Even if the information at the L’Aquila news conference had been correct and the public had been warned there was a slightly higher risk, Dr. Mileti said, it would probably have made little difference. “One person saying once ‘You don’t have to worry’ is probably not why they didn’t do what they might have done to protect themselves,” he said. “Humans are hard-wired to deny low-probability, high-impact events.”
The only way to overcome that, he continued, is through constant communication. Once-a-year earthquake drills, like those in California, are not enough. The messages have to be everywhere, repeated ad nauseam.
“If you want to sell earthquake preparation in a way that it affects human behavior,” he said, “you have to sell it like Coca-Cola.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/scien ... emc=tha210
Trial Over Earthquake in Italy Puts Focus on Probability and Panic
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
The manslaughter trial of six seismologists and a government official in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, stemming from what the authorities say was a failure to warn the population before a deadly 2009 earthquake, has outraged many scientists. Thousands have signed petitions protesting the prosecution as anti-science.
But the trial, which resumed Saturday, has also focused attention on a vexing problem in earthquake-prone regions around the world: how to effectively communicate the risk of potential disaster. Whatever the merits of the L’Aquila case, scientists and government officials have difficulty conveying what they know about the risk of earthquakes in ways that help prepare the public without sowing panic.
“People are expecting much more information, in particular quantitative information,” said Thomas H. Jordan, a professor at the University of Southern California and director of the Southern California Earthquake Center. “Coming clean with what you know is being demanded by the public.”
Earthquakes differ from other types of natural disasters. Meteorologists can track a hurricane with precision, but seismologists cannot predict exactly when and where an earthquake will occur. Scientists have condemned the Italian prosecution for this reason, saying the defendants are on trial for failing to do something that is impossible.
What seismologists are increasingly able to do, however, is forecast the likelihood that a quake will occur in a certain area over a certain time. Statistical analysis shows, for example, that some seismic activity — a minor quake or a swarm of very small ones — increases the probability of a larger, destructive earthquake in the same area.
But the probabilities are still very small, and they become even smaller with time. Given a low-probability forecast of an event that has potentially high consequences, the problem, Dr. Jordan said, becomes “what the heck do you do with that kind of information?”
That was a question that the Italian defendants faced. In the months before a magnitude 6.3 quake hit L’Aquila on April 6, 2009, killing more than 300, the area had experienced an earthquake swarm. That probably increased the likelihood of a major earthquake in the near future by a factor of 100 or 1,000, Dr. Jordan said, but the probability remained very low — perhaps 1 in 1,000.
But there was a wild card in L’Aquila that complicated the situation. As the earthquake swarm continued over several months, a local man who is not a scientist issued several predictions of a large earthquake — specific as to date and location — based on measurements of radon, a radioactive gas that is released as rocks fracture.
The predictions, none of which proved accurate, increased public anxiety in the city — so much so that the Italian government convened a meeting of a national risk-forecasting commission, including the seismologists and the government official, in L’Aquila on March 30.
At the meeting, the seismologists noted that it was possible, though unlikely, that the seismic activity could be a sign that a larger quake was imminent. They also noted that there was always some risk in L’Aquila, which has a history of earthquakes. But in a news conference afterward, the message to the public became garbled, with the government official assuring that there was no danger.
“The government ended up looking like it was saying, ‘No, there’s not going to be a big earthquake,’ ” when the scientists had not precluded the possibility, said Dr. Jordan, who was the chairman of a commission established by the Italian government after the quake to look at the forecasting issue.
The statement by the official, who is not a seismologist, violated a cardinal rule of risk communication, which is that those involved should speak only to their expertise, said Dennis Mileti, an emeritus professor of behavioral science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “This person should not have been speaking,” said Dr. Mileti, who has studied risk communication.
In general, said Michael Lindell, a professor at Texas A & M, scientists should advise emergency managers about the likelihood of events, and then the managers should make the yes-or-no decisions about whether to order an evacuation or urge the public to make other, simpler preparations. But often the roles become confused.
“When you step over the boundary outside your area of expertise, then there aren’t necessarily any warning signs,” Dr. Lindell said.
The L’Aquila news conference did not fill what was essentially an information vacuum, Dr. Jordan said. “One of the principles that social science has shown is that the public wants to hear things from people they trust,” he said. “They want to hear things repeated.
“You don’t want to put out information just when there’s a seismic crisis, because people then don’t have the context for this kind of information,” he added. “You want people to get used to how these things ebb and flow.”
California, with its active seismic zones, has a system for communicating risks to the public on a regular basis — though it, too, has flaws, Dr. Jordan said.
Just a few weeks before the L’Aquila quake, an analysis of an earthquake swarm in Southern California showed an increased likelihood of a major earthquake near the southern end of the San Andreas fault. While the probability was small, it was high enough that a scientific group decided to advise the state’s emergency management agency. (In the end, no quake occurred.)
Even if the information at the L’Aquila news conference had been correct and the public had been warned there was a slightly higher risk, Dr. Mileti said, it would probably have made little difference. “One person saying once ‘You don’t have to worry’ is probably not why they didn’t do what they might have done to protect themselves,” he said. “Humans are hard-wired to deny low-probability, high-impact events.”
The only way to overcome that, he continued, is through constant communication. Once-a-year earthquake drills, like those in California, are not enough. The messages have to be everywhere, repeated ad nauseam.
“If you want to sell earthquake preparation in a way that it affects human behavior,” he said, “you have to sell it like Coca-Cola.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/scien ... emc=tha210
More Than Just a ‘Category 1’
Introduction
Many residents of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts didn’t get too worried when Hurricane Isaac was bearing down on them recently, perhaps in part because it was ranked as only Category 1. They might have been expecting a drizzle like New York City got a year ago from its Category 1 storm, Irene, rather than the drenching that other areas suffered from that storm. There can be a similar disconnect in how we think about earthquakes; the quakes in China on Friday, all less than magnitude 5.8, killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes.
How could we improve the rating systems for natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes?
Debate....
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/20 ... y_20120907
Introduction
Many residents of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts didn’t get too worried when Hurricane Isaac was bearing down on them recently, perhaps in part because it was ranked as only Category 1. They might have been expecting a drizzle like New York City got a year ago from its Category 1 storm, Irene, rather than the drenching that other areas suffered from that storm. There can be a similar disconnect in how we think about earthquakes; the quakes in China on Friday, all less than magnitude 5.8, killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes.
How could we improve the rating systems for natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes?
Debate....
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/20 ... y_20120907
A View of Katmandu After the Earthquake
Katmandu is first on the list of cities deemed most vulnerable to seismic risk in the world. Every year in mid-January, Nepal marks National Earthquake Safety Day to commemorate the massive earthquake that flattened Katmandu in 1934. Our newspaper’s coverage of that occasion this year had highlighted the need for Nepal to better prepare for a disaster; it was only a matter of time before the next one hit.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/opini ... 05309&_r=0
Katmandu is first on the list of cities deemed most vulnerable to seismic risk in the world. Every year in mid-January, Nepal marks National Earthquake Safety Day to commemorate the massive earthquake that flattened Katmandu in 1934. Our newspaper’s coverage of that occasion this year had highlighted the need for Nepal to better prepare for a disaster; it was only a matter of time before the next one hit.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/opini ... 05309&_r=0
Insuring for Disaster
NATURAL disasters like the devastating earthquake in Nepal constitute a highly uncertain but quantifiable risk. No one can say for sure when a major earthquake will strike. But the fault lines are known. We need a new global system of disaster insurance, akin to how homeowners guard against calamity.
Relief teams and millions of dollars of aid are arriving in Nepal, but despite the best of intentions, emergency operations will be a desperate patchwork, and long-term rebuilding will be hampered by lack of funds, donor fatigue and red tape. That’s what happened in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, in the Philippines after a string of recent typhoons, and in the West Africa Ebola epidemic. We need a better approach.
Even poor countries can take precautions, especially if international organizations help them to do it. Think of commercial airline safety, which, though not flawless, is high even in the poorest regions in the world. There is an integrated system that connects airplane manufacturers, airline companies, air-traffic controllers, global insurers and national and global regulators.
Catastrophes like earthquakes, typhoons, droughts, floods and epidemics pose quantifiable risks. These risks can’t be specified with the actuarial precision that underlies home and life insurance, but there is enough precision to allow for insurance coverage. For hundreds of years, Lloyd’s and other insurers have been diversifying the risks of even one-time events; natural hazards like earthquakes are not one-time events, but occurrences that return with calculable probabilities.
Suppose Nepal’s government could have gone shopping for earthquake insurance to cover the large-scale losses and public-sector response after a disaster. Potential underwriters would examine the probabilities of earthquakes at various magnitudes, using the historical record, seismic modeling and assessments of the vulnerabilities of the buildings.
The leading insurer, generally a reinsurance company, would then sell off its excess exposure to Nepal’s earthquake risk to other insurance companies, or even capital markets around the world via so-called catastrophe bonds and similar instruments. These risk carriers would receive part of Nepal’s premium payments, and be required to pay out to Nepal in the event of an earthquake. Nepal would be financially protected, and insurers would diversify the risk.
The original insurance underwriter would have made demands of Nepal, that it implement cost-effective earthquake-preparedness measures, like updated building and zoning codes; a disaster response plan; and emergency health systems. These steps would limit expected damages caused by natural disaster — and lower the premium and expected payout. Over time, underwriting benchmarks would be standardized around the world.
Most low-income countries and some rich ones as well are woefully unprepared for the quantifiable catastrophic risks they face, whether seismological shocks, climate-related catastrophes or epidemics. After each disaster, the afflicted countries and United Nations agencies must call on other countries to make ad hoc pledges of funds and response teams; there’s no global equivalent of the fire department. It’s often too little, too late.
How would a disaster insurance system work? World-leading reinsurers, such as Swiss Re, Munich Re and others, would bid to provide countries with the service. Governments would pay annual premiums, linked to actuarial assessments of risks, with international donor agencies like the World Bank helping to share the costs, based on the resources of the insured countries. For some large and unpredictable risks, where the private sector alone won’t provide cover, additional official financing would be blended with private funds, similar to what takes place in the United States with flood and crop insurance.
Cost-sharing with international agencies like the World Bank would have to be attractive enough for poor countries to obtain coverage on reasonable terms. For high-income donor countries, the upside would be a global system with reduced vulnerability and with less need to provide ad hoc post-disaster aid.
Insurance would reveal how vulnerable certain parts of the world are to rising costs of disasters, including those associated with global warming. But at least we’d be able to begin to account for this. It would provide a powerful way to drive mitigation and adaptation investments, a point emphasized in recent years by Rowan Douglas of the insurer Willis Group.
A global system of disaster insurance would of course not be perfect and would take time to implement, but could save many lives and livelihoods in the years ahead, and help vulnerable low-income countries like Haiti and Nepal chart a path to sustainable development.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/opini ... 05309&_r=0
NATURAL disasters like the devastating earthquake in Nepal constitute a highly uncertain but quantifiable risk. No one can say for sure when a major earthquake will strike. But the fault lines are known. We need a new global system of disaster insurance, akin to how homeowners guard against calamity.
Relief teams and millions of dollars of aid are arriving in Nepal, but despite the best of intentions, emergency operations will be a desperate patchwork, and long-term rebuilding will be hampered by lack of funds, donor fatigue and red tape. That’s what happened in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, in the Philippines after a string of recent typhoons, and in the West Africa Ebola epidemic. We need a better approach.
Even poor countries can take precautions, especially if international organizations help them to do it. Think of commercial airline safety, which, though not flawless, is high even in the poorest regions in the world. There is an integrated system that connects airplane manufacturers, airline companies, air-traffic controllers, global insurers and national and global regulators.
Catastrophes like earthquakes, typhoons, droughts, floods and epidemics pose quantifiable risks. These risks can’t be specified with the actuarial precision that underlies home and life insurance, but there is enough precision to allow for insurance coverage. For hundreds of years, Lloyd’s and other insurers have been diversifying the risks of even one-time events; natural hazards like earthquakes are not one-time events, but occurrences that return with calculable probabilities.
Suppose Nepal’s government could have gone shopping for earthquake insurance to cover the large-scale losses and public-sector response after a disaster. Potential underwriters would examine the probabilities of earthquakes at various magnitudes, using the historical record, seismic modeling and assessments of the vulnerabilities of the buildings.
The leading insurer, generally a reinsurance company, would then sell off its excess exposure to Nepal’s earthquake risk to other insurance companies, or even capital markets around the world via so-called catastrophe bonds and similar instruments. These risk carriers would receive part of Nepal’s premium payments, and be required to pay out to Nepal in the event of an earthquake. Nepal would be financially protected, and insurers would diversify the risk.
The original insurance underwriter would have made demands of Nepal, that it implement cost-effective earthquake-preparedness measures, like updated building and zoning codes; a disaster response plan; and emergency health systems. These steps would limit expected damages caused by natural disaster — and lower the premium and expected payout. Over time, underwriting benchmarks would be standardized around the world.
Most low-income countries and some rich ones as well are woefully unprepared for the quantifiable catastrophic risks they face, whether seismological shocks, climate-related catastrophes or epidemics. After each disaster, the afflicted countries and United Nations agencies must call on other countries to make ad hoc pledges of funds and response teams; there’s no global equivalent of the fire department. It’s often too little, too late.
How would a disaster insurance system work? World-leading reinsurers, such as Swiss Re, Munich Re and others, would bid to provide countries with the service. Governments would pay annual premiums, linked to actuarial assessments of risks, with international donor agencies like the World Bank helping to share the costs, based on the resources of the insured countries. For some large and unpredictable risks, where the private sector alone won’t provide cover, additional official financing would be blended with private funds, similar to what takes place in the United States with flood and crop insurance.
Cost-sharing with international agencies like the World Bank would have to be attractive enough for poor countries to obtain coverage on reasonable terms. For high-income donor countries, the upside would be a global system with reduced vulnerability and with less need to provide ad hoc post-disaster aid.
Insurance would reveal how vulnerable certain parts of the world are to rising costs of disasters, including those associated with global warming. But at least we’d be able to begin to account for this. It would provide a powerful way to drive mitigation and adaptation investments, a point emphasized in recent years by Rowan Douglas of the insurer Willis Group.
A global system of disaster insurance would of course not be perfect and would take time to implement, but could save many lives and livelihoods in the years ahead, and help vulnerable low-income countries like Haiti and Nepal chart a path to sustainable development.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/opini ... 05309&_r=0
Tajikistan Floods – 10,000 Forced to Evacuate in Gorno-Badakhsan Region
The rapid melting of snow and glaciers due to higher temperatures between 01 and 15 July 2015 have triggered mudflows in the Shugnan District in the eastern region of Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan.
The mudflows have caused damage to buildings and infrastructure in local villages. The debris has also blocked the flow of the Gund river, creating an artificial lake which has flooded areas along the river.
As of 18 July 2015, the UN’s Rapid Emergency Assessment and Coordination Team (REACT) in Tajikistan reports that at least 56 houses have been destroyed and 10,000 people forced to evacuate to safer sites. Schools, stores, roads and electricity lines have also been damaged and 80% of the communities in the region have been without electricity. No casualties have been reported.
There is a risk of the lake overflowing or breaking through its temporary blockage. REACT say that this could cause devastating floods in Khorog and nearby communities, including three districts of Khatlon Oblast.
Photo credit: Focus Humanitarian Assistance in Tajikistan Map of debris and floods. Image: Rapid Emergency Assessment and Coordination Team in Tajikistan. See the full map here.
http://floodlist.com/asia/tajikistan-fl ... san-region
The rapid melting of snow and glaciers due to higher temperatures between 01 and 15 July 2015 have triggered mudflows in the Shugnan District in the eastern region of Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan.
The mudflows have caused damage to buildings and infrastructure in local villages. The debris has also blocked the flow of the Gund river, creating an artificial lake which has flooded areas along the river.
As of 18 July 2015, the UN’s Rapid Emergency Assessment and Coordination Team (REACT) in Tajikistan reports that at least 56 houses have been destroyed and 10,000 people forced to evacuate to safer sites. Schools, stores, roads and electricity lines have also been damaged and 80% of the communities in the region have been without electricity. No casualties have been reported.
There is a risk of the lake overflowing or breaking through its temporary blockage. REACT say that this could cause devastating floods in Khorog and nearby communities, including three districts of Khatlon Oblast.
Photo credit: Focus Humanitarian Assistance in Tajikistan Map of debris and floods. Image: Rapid Emergency Assessment and Coordination Team in Tajikistan. See the full map here.
http://floodlist.com/asia/tajikistan-fl ... san-region
0.3m people affected by Chitral floods
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Tuesday said around 300,000 people had been affected by the flash floods in the northern district of Chitral.
Information minister Mushtaq Ghani told reporters at the Peshawar Press Club that roads, power transmission system and water schemes across the district were worst hit by the natural calamity.
He said 26 villages were worst hit by floods.
The minister said upper parts of Chitral was cut-off, while in Kuragh, raging currents washed away Chitral-Booni Road, stranding around 200,000 people.
He said Kalash valley with a population of 25,000 and Lotkuh tehsil with a population of over 60,000 were also cut off.
Ghani said the government had allocated Rs140 million for the rehabilitation of flood-affected infrastructure in Chitral.
He said of the funds allocated, Rs100 million was for the rehabilitation of roads, Rs30 million for restoration of drinking water supply and Rs10 million for repairs of irrigation channels.
The minister said 20 tonnes of relief goods were dispatched to the district, while another 20 tonnes of goods would be sent today (Wednesday).
He said the Chitral deputy commissioner had been authorised to use Rs20 million funds from the district relief account.
Ghani said the flooding had destroyed 103 houses in Chitral and partially damaged 63, while 25 water supply schemes were destroyed.
He said roads from Chitral to Booni, Orguch, Garam Chashma, Bambouret and Mastuj were badly damaged in the calamity.
The minister said the floods washed away 30 percent of trees in Shoghar, Mastuj, Garam Chashma and Oveer villages and damaged 40 percent of cultivable land in the district.
“The flash floods also washed away nine bridges and buildings of a hotel, a private college and a power station in Chitral,” he said.
The minister said the secretaries of public health and communication and works departments had been sent to Chitral to access damages caused by flash floods.
He said the army and Chitral Scouts were helping the district government handle the crisis.
Ghani said PTI chief Imran Khan and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak would visit Chitral today (Wednesday).
JI, ANP CRITICISE GOVT: The Awami National Party and Jamaat-i-Islami on Tuesday criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for allocating Rs1 million for the flood-hit people of Chitral.
In a news release issued here, ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan regretted the losses caused by flash floods in Chitral and asked the government to reach out to the calamity victims for rescue and relief.
He said Chitralis had no 0.3m affected by Chitral floods food and drinking water and had lost contact with other parts of the country.
Asfandyar criticised the government for allocating Rs1 million for the flood-hit families in Chitral.
“That is a meagre amount compared to the losses they (people of Chitral) have suffered due to floods,” he said.
In a press statement issued here, JI provincial chief Professor Ibrahim Khan criticised the chief minister for announcing only Rs1 million for the flood-hit Chitral.
He said the government should allocate a hefty amount of money to help flood victims in Chitral.
The JI leader said Al-Khidmat Foundation, the party’s welfare organisation, was helping Chitralis restore water channels.
He said the people, whose houses were destroyed by flooding, would also be supported.
Professor Ibrahim said senior provincial minister Inayatullah Khan would go to Chitral today (Wednesday) to oversee relief activities.
He said provincial president of Al-Khidmat Foundation Noorul Haq would also reach Chitral today (Wednesday) for distribution of cash to flood victims for the restoration of small water channels.
The JI leader said the welfare organisation had already dispatched trucks loaded with food items to the calamity-hit district.
Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/news/1195630
New spate of floods hits Chitral
CHITRAL: After a day of respite, a new spate of flash floods caused by torrential rains struck Chitral on Thursday afternoon, leaving two people dead and washing away more than two dozen homes in different parts of the district.
The high-magnitude flood in Chitral Gol stream passing transversally through the city washed away five homes, a pedestrian bridge and two shops, causing panic among people and forcing them to leave the area.
Know more: Torrential rain adds to misery of flood-hit Chitral
Having its origin in the Chitral Gol National Park, the stream was seen carrying with it a large number of deodar logs.
Floods in Kalash valleys of Bumburate and Rumbur swept away four houses and a pedestrian track, inflicting further damage to roads and agricultural lands.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two people killed, over two dozen houses swept away
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An army helicopter rescued at least 24 tourists.
Muhkamuddin, a local journalist who was among the people stranded in Bumburate, told Dawn by phone that the new spate of floods had terrified people as they were fast losing their lands and homes to the flood.
Seven homes were washed away in Lone village in Upper Chitral, four in Nisur Gol of Laspur valley, five in Karimabad village and three in Ayun village.
The deceased were identified as M. Khan, of Ayun, and Asif Ahmed, of Karimabad. Their bodies were retrieved from the flood.
According to residents, a number of Kashmir markhors were killed by the flood. Chitral Gol Community Conservation and Development Association Chairman Hussain Ahmed put the number at eight and said it might increase.
The flood abnormally raised the water level in river Chitral, inundating low-lying villages of Gwari Jughur, Kuju, Ragh, Jinjirate and Drosh.
Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/news/1196026/new-sp ... ts-chitral
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Tuesday said around 300,000 people had been affected by the flash floods in the northern district of Chitral.
Information minister Mushtaq Ghani told reporters at the Peshawar Press Club that roads, power transmission system and water schemes across the district were worst hit by the natural calamity.
He said 26 villages were worst hit by floods.
The minister said upper parts of Chitral was cut-off, while in Kuragh, raging currents washed away Chitral-Booni Road, stranding around 200,000 people.
He said Kalash valley with a population of 25,000 and Lotkuh tehsil with a population of over 60,000 were also cut off.
Ghani said the government had allocated Rs140 million for the rehabilitation of flood-affected infrastructure in Chitral.
He said of the funds allocated, Rs100 million was for the rehabilitation of roads, Rs30 million for restoration of drinking water supply and Rs10 million for repairs of irrigation channels.
The minister said 20 tonnes of relief goods were dispatched to the district, while another 20 tonnes of goods would be sent today (Wednesday).
He said the Chitral deputy commissioner had been authorised to use Rs20 million funds from the district relief account.
Ghani said the flooding had destroyed 103 houses in Chitral and partially damaged 63, while 25 water supply schemes were destroyed.
He said roads from Chitral to Booni, Orguch, Garam Chashma, Bambouret and Mastuj were badly damaged in the calamity.
The minister said the floods washed away 30 percent of trees in Shoghar, Mastuj, Garam Chashma and Oveer villages and damaged 40 percent of cultivable land in the district.
“The flash floods also washed away nine bridges and buildings of a hotel, a private college and a power station in Chitral,” he said.
The minister said the secretaries of public health and communication and works departments had been sent to Chitral to access damages caused by flash floods.
He said the army and Chitral Scouts were helping the district government handle the crisis.
Ghani said PTI chief Imran Khan and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak would visit Chitral today (Wednesday).
JI, ANP CRITICISE GOVT: The Awami National Party and Jamaat-i-Islami on Tuesday criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for allocating Rs1 million for the flood-hit people of Chitral.
In a news release issued here, ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan regretted the losses caused by flash floods in Chitral and asked the government to reach out to the calamity victims for rescue and relief.
He said Chitralis had no 0.3m affected by Chitral floods food and drinking water and had lost contact with other parts of the country.
Asfandyar criticised the government for allocating Rs1 million for the flood-hit families in Chitral.
“That is a meagre amount compared to the losses they (people of Chitral) have suffered due to floods,” he said.
In a press statement issued here, JI provincial chief Professor Ibrahim Khan criticised the chief minister for announcing only Rs1 million for the flood-hit Chitral.
He said the government should allocate a hefty amount of money to help flood victims in Chitral.
The JI leader said Al-Khidmat Foundation, the party’s welfare organisation, was helping Chitralis restore water channels.
He said the people, whose houses were destroyed by flooding, would also be supported.
Professor Ibrahim said senior provincial minister Inayatullah Khan would go to Chitral today (Wednesday) to oversee relief activities.
He said provincial president of Al-Khidmat Foundation Noorul Haq would also reach Chitral today (Wednesday) for distribution of cash to flood victims for the restoration of small water channels.
The JI leader said the welfare organisation had already dispatched trucks loaded with food items to the calamity-hit district.
Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/news/1195630
New spate of floods hits Chitral
CHITRAL: After a day of respite, a new spate of flash floods caused by torrential rains struck Chitral on Thursday afternoon, leaving two people dead and washing away more than two dozen homes in different parts of the district.
The high-magnitude flood in Chitral Gol stream passing transversally through the city washed away five homes, a pedestrian bridge and two shops, causing panic among people and forcing them to leave the area.
Know more: Torrential rain adds to misery of flood-hit Chitral
Having its origin in the Chitral Gol National Park, the stream was seen carrying with it a large number of deodar logs.
Floods in Kalash valleys of Bumburate and Rumbur swept away four houses and a pedestrian track, inflicting further damage to roads and agricultural lands.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two people killed, over two dozen houses swept away
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An army helicopter rescued at least 24 tourists.
Muhkamuddin, a local journalist who was among the people stranded in Bumburate, told Dawn by phone that the new spate of floods had terrified people as they were fast losing their lands and homes to the flood.
Seven homes were washed away in Lone village in Upper Chitral, four in Nisur Gol of Laspur valley, five in Karimabad village and three in Ayun village.
The deceased were identified as M. Khan, of Ayun, and Asif Ahmed, of Karimabad. Their bodies were retrieved from the flood.
According to residents, a number of Kashmir markhors were killed by the flood. Chitral Gol Community Conservation and Development Association Chairman Hussain Ahmed put the number at eight and said it might increase.
The flood abnormally raised the water level in river Chitral, inundating low-lying villages of Gwari Jughur, Kuju, Ragh, Jinjirate and Drosh.
Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/news/1196026/new-sp ... ts-chitral
Preparing for emergency
The National Disaster Management Authority in Sindh is working on a curriculum to help people make the right decisions in crisis situations to stay safe
As Pakistan observed the 10th anniversary of the devastating earthquake which wreaked havoc in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Kashmir, the Sindh government is contemplating to introduce a comprehensive section on disaster management in its school curriculum — as natural disasters are becoming a routine affair in the province.
Since past five years, the most recurring calamity to hit the province is floods, which render millions homeless and damage livelihood worth billions of dollars. Last summer, a heat wave struck the provincial capital Karachi, killing over a 1000 people in a span of four days. Recurring droughts, minor earthquake jolts have also become common in the last one decade.
Director General of Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh Syed Salman Shah says that his department is working on a curriculum with the help of the World Bank which will be presented to the Sindh Textbook Board by the end of this year.
“It is really important that people learn to make the right decisions in crisis situations,” he says. “In developed countries major earthquakes do not result in high causalities because the government teaches its citizens how to remain safe. So, that’s the idea.”
Only last Monday, in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar area, a middle class neighborhood — a landslide killed 13 people, including women and children. In an investigation report, the Karachi Development Authority claimed it was a natural calamity as opposed to what many environment activists say was the result of criminal negligence of the officials as illegal settlers were not forbidden from building makeshift huts under massive boulders that fell on them.
Elders of coastal communities can predict that there is a storm brewing in deep sea when a certain fish is seen jumping frequently in the coastal waters. Or, they can forecast an imminent flood by the turn of water in certain seasons.
Environment experts and urban planners welcome the PDMA’s suggestion to make students aware of the various disasters and train them on survival drills but argued that the curriculum should take into account the typology of natural disasters that hit the province. Given the Sindh government’s track record, some are cynical that it might take a one-size-fits-all approach, without delving into the dynamics of natural disasters that the province is vulnerable to.
Sindh is hit by floods, wildfires, famine, drought and the threat of cyclone lingers on the coastal areas of the province during summers and Karachi — its biggest city — is prone to earthquake. The effects of climate change were evident last year when an unprecedented heat wave killed over thousand.
“The government should make the children aware about the various natural threats and how they can deal with each, but major rescue operations will always be the state’s responsibility. At an individual level, the people can help themselves only to a certain extent. The primary task of rescue will always rest with the government,” says Mansoor Raza, an independent researcher who studies mega cities.
On the urban front, Raza says safety guidelines are essential while planning a city’s infrastructure to avert any disaster. “I believe high casualty in natural disaster is the result of bad planning,” he says.
Referring to the 2005 earthquake, he asks, “where were the land control authorities when people were building three to four story buildings on the mountains in KPK and Azad Kashmir?”
Raza points out that schools run under the Aga Khan management in the quake-affected areas remained safe because they were designed taking the environment into account.
On Karachi’s infrastructural mis-planning, he says that certain neighbourhoods in the city cannot tackle a massive fire incident. If fire erupts, God forbid, vehicles carrying water aid won’t be able to reach these areas and the casualty will be enormous.
The awareness programme can be more far-reaching and effective if the NDMA benefits from the knowledge of the indigenous communities in Sindh who are living here for hundreds of years. They have learned signs to predict various calamities that should be looked into. These people belong to the region and have survived for hundreds of years on their wisdom, says Mansoor Raza. For instance, elders of coastal communities can predict that there is a storm brewing in deep sea when a certain fish is seen jumping frequently in the coastal waters. Or, they can forecast an imminent flood by the turn of water in certain seasons.
Dr Noman Ahmed, the head of architecture at NED University says preparing students for any disaster situation is always welcome, but for that to effectively happen, the children should know the various types of disasters their areas are prone to and work out ways to deal with them.
Annually, Sindh is hit by floods, lightings, cyclones and other disasters, the students should know their responsibilities and the duties of the various government departments in order to take on a crisis situation.
“It’s a complete science. So if the Sindh government is planning to add it to the curriculum. It should be done effectively so that when anything happens, children are prepared,” adds Raza.
http://tns.thenews.com.pk/preparing-for ... i7IISu5KDm
The National Disaster Management Authority in Sindh is working on a curriculum to help people make the right decisions in crisis situations to stay safe
As Pakistan observed the 10th anniversary of the devastating earthquake which wreaked havoc in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Kashmir, the Sindh government is contemplating to introduce a comprehensive section on disaster management in its school curriculum — as natural disasters are becoming a routine affair in the province.
Since past five years, the most recurring calamity to hit the province is floods, which render millions homeless and damage livelihood worth billions of dollars. Last summer, a heat wave struck the provincial capital Karachi, killing over a 1000 people in a span of four days. Recurring droughts, minor earthquake jolts have also become common in the last one decade.
Director General of Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh Syed Salman Shah says that his department is working on a curriculum with the help of the World Bank which will be presented to the Sindh Textbook Board by the end of this year.
“It is really important that people learn to make the right decisions in crisis situations,” he says. “In developed countries major earthquakes do not result in high causalities because the government teaches its citizens how to remain safe. So, that’s the idea.”
Only last Monday, in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar area, a middle class neighborhood — a landslide killed 13 people, including women and children. In an investigation report, the Karachi Development Authority claimed it was a natural calamity as opposed to what many environment activists say was the result of criminal negligence of the officials as illegal settlers were not forbidden from building makeshift huts under massive boulders that fell on them.
Elders of coastal communities can predict that there is a storm brewing in deep sea when a certain fish is seen jumping frequently in the coastal waters. Or, they can forecast an imminent flood by the turn of water in certain seasons.
Environment experts and urban planners welcome the PDMA’s suggestion to make students aware of the various disasters and train them on survival drills but argued that the curriculum should take into account the typology of natural disasters that hit the province. Given the Sindh government’s track record, some are cynical that it might take a one-size-fits-all approach, without delving into the dynamics of natural disasters that the province is vulnerable to.
Sindh is hit by floods, wildfires, famine, drought and the threat of cyclone lingers on the coastal areas of the province during summers and Karachi — its biggest city — is prone to earthquake. The effects of climate change were evident last year when an unprecedented heat wave killed over thousand.
“The government should make the children aware about the various natural threats and how they can deal with each, but major rescue operations will always be the state’s responsibility. At an individual level, the people can help themselves only to a certain extent. The primary task of rescue will always rest with the government,” says Mansoor Raza, an independent researcher who studies mega cities.
On the urban front, Raza says safety guidelines are essential while planning a city’s infrastructure to avert any disaster. “I believe high casualty in natural disaster is the result of bad planning,” he says.
Referring to the 2005 earthquake, he asks, “where were the land control authorities when people were building three to four story buildings on the mountains in KPK and Azad Kashmir?”
Raza points out that schools run under the Aga Khan management in the quake-affected areas remained safe because they were designed taking the environment into account.
On Karachi’s infrastructural mis-planning, he says that certain neighbourhoods in the city cannot tackle a massive fire incident. If fire erupts, God forbid, vehicles carrying water aid won’t be able to reach these areas and the casualty will be enormous.
The awareness programme can be more far-reaching and effective if the NDMA benefits from the knowledge of the indigenous communities in Sindh who are living here for hundreds of years. They have learned signs to predict various calamities that should be looked into. These people belong to the region and have survived for hundreds of years on their wisdom, says Mansoor Raza. For instance, elders of coastal communities can predict that there is a storm brewing in deep sea when a certain fish is seen jumping frequently in the coastal waters. Or, they can forecast an imminent flood by the turn of water in certain seasons.
Dr Noman Ahmed, the head of architecture at NED University says preparing students for any disaster situation is always welcome, but for that to effectively happen, the children should know the various types of disasters their areas are prone to and work out ways to deal with them.
Annually, Sindh is hit by floods, lightings, cyclones and other disasters, the students should know their responsibilities and the duties of the various government departments in order to take on a crisis situation.
“It’s a complete science. So if the Sindh government is planning to add it to the curriculum. It should be done effectively so that when anything happens, children are prepared,” adds Raza.
http://tns.thenews.com.pk/preparing-for ... i7IISu5KDm
Avalanche in Karimabad, Chitral: Rescue Operation continues
The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2016: A rescue operation continued for the sixth consecutive day to recover a buried student under an avalanche in Karimabad, Chitral, said an ISPR statement.
On March 19, nine people were trapped by a landslide in Karimabad and an immediate rescue operation was launched by the Chitral Scouts who were aided by the civil administration and locals. The military moved specialised rescue teams with equipment and sniffer dogs, while army aviation flew three sorties to transport manpower and necessary tools.
NDMA urban search and rescue teams of and CDA used ground penetration radar with a life object locator and snow melting chemicals were also transported to Chitral.
Former nazim Sultan Shah and Karimabad district council member Muhammad Yaqub said 300 people are struggling to recover buried bodies.
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... continues/
The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2016: A rescue operation continued for the sixth consecutive day to recover a buried student under an avalanche in Karimabad, Chitral, said an ISPR statement.
On March 19, nine people were trapped by a landslide in Karimabad and an immediate rescue operation was launched by the Chitral Scouts who were aided by the civil administration and locals. The military moved specialised rescue teams with equipment and sniffer dogs, while army aviation flew three sorties to transport manpower and necessary tools.
NDMA urban search and rescue teams of and CDA used ground penetration radar with a life object locator and snow melting chemicals were also transported to Chitral.
Former nazim Sultan Shah and Karimabad district council member Muhammad Yaqub said 300 people are struggling to recover buried bodies.
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... continues/
Team aids mountain societies facing climate change
An international team of scientists – led by a Cornell professor of natural resources – will help communities in Asia’s Pamir Mountains recalibrate their seasonal-indicator ecological calendars to reckon the future effects of climate change. The Belmont Forum, which funds global environmental research, will provide a $1.35 million for a three-year study.
“Indigenous societies in mountain communities around the world have used ‘ecological calendars’ as seasonal indicators for hundreds of years to sow seeds, grow crops, tend to animals, fish, hunt and harvest. Ecological calendars are systems that track time by observing seasonal changes in our habitat, such as the nascence of a flower, the appearance of an insect, the arrival of a migratory bird, the breakup of ice, last day of snow-cover,” said Karim-Aly Kassam, associate professor of environmental and indigenous studies in the Department of Natural Resources, who will lead the project.
Ecological calendars offer a way to anticipate climatic variation, as “Indigenous societies are at the vanguard of climate-change impacts – yet none of these societies contributed to its causes,” he said.
By adapting the ecological calendars, a transdisciplinary group of scientists hope to improve food and livelihood security among communities in the Pamir Mountains – some the world’s tallest peaks and surrounded by Afghanistan, China, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. The transdisciplinary aspect is key, as social and biophysical scientists work in tandem with indigenous groups to address highly challenging problems of this millennium.
Following the research, Kassam said, the scientists hope to provide a replicable model for similar initiatives in other mountain communities.
To establish long-term adaptation of these calendars, the scientists will strengthen partnerships between communities and regional universities by initiating community-based climatic and phenological-monitoring programs, said Kassam. The group will train undergraduates at the University of Central Asia, whose campuses are located in mountain regions, as community researchers.
For this international effort, Jianchu Xu from the Kunming Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences will research ethno-ecology, climate change adaptation and plant phenology, as another team led by Cyrus Samimi, University of Bayreuth, Germany, will investigate time-series analyses of climate data, remote-sensed imagery and local perceptions of environmental change. Antonio Trabucco, of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, Italy, will examine the impacts of climate on agricultural and ecosystem services.
The Belmont Forum funding builds on 2015 Academic Venture Fund money received from Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, which supported research on ecological calendars. Those ACSF faculty included Kassam as principal investigator; Art DeGaetano, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences; Christopher Dunn, director of Cornell Plantations; Amanda Rodewald, professor and director of conservation science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; and David Wolfe, professor of horticulture.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/03 ... ate-change
An international team of scientists – led by a Cornell professor of natural resources – will help communities in Asia’s Pamir Mountains recalibrate their seasonal-indicator ecological calendars to reckon the future effects of climate change. The Belmont Forum, which funds global environmental research, will provide a $1.35 million for a three-year study.
“Indigenous societies in mountain communities around the world have used ‘ecological calendars’ as seasonal indicators for hundreds of years to sow seeds, grow crops, tend to animals, fish, hunt and harvest. Ecological calendars are systems that track time by observing seasonal changes in our habitat, such as the nascence of a flower, the appearance of an insect, the arrival of a migratory bird, the breakup of ice, last day of snow-cover,” said Karim-Aly Kassam, associate professor of environmental and indigenous studies in the Department of Natural Resources, who will lead the project.
Ecological calendars offer a way to anticipate climatic variation, as “Indigenous societies are at the vanguard of climate-change impacts – yet none of these societies contributed to its causes,” he said.
By adapting the ecological calendars, a transdisciplinary group of scientists hope to improve food and livelihood security among communities in the Pamir Mountains – some the world’s tallest peaks and surrounded by Afghanistan, China, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. The transdisciplinary aspect is key, as social and biophysical scientists work in tandem with indigenous groups to address highly challenging problems of this millennium.
Following the research, Kassam said, the scientists hope to provide a replicable model for similar initiatives in other mountain communities.
To establish long-term adaptation of these calendars, the scientists will strengthen partnerships between communities and regional universities by initiating community-based climatic and phenological-monitoring programs, said Kassam. The group will train undergraduates at the University of Central Asia, whose campuses are located in mountain regions, as community researchers.
For this international effort, Jianchu Xu from the Kunming Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences will research ethno-ecology, climate change adaptation and plant phenology, as another team led by Cyrus Samimi, University of Bayreuth, Germany, will investigate time-series analyses of climate data, remote-sensed imagery and local perceptions of environmental change. Antonio Trabucco, of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, Italy, will examine the impacts of climate on agricultural and ecosystem services.
The Belmont Forum funding builds on 2015 Academic Venture Fund money received from Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, which supported research on ecological calendars. Those ACSF faculty included Kassam as principal investigator; Art DeGaetano, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences; Christopher Dunn, director of Cornell Plantations; Amanda Rodewald, professor and director of conservation science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; and David Wolfe, professor of horticulture.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/03 ... ate-change
Heavy rains, landslides damage 600 houses in Gilgit Baltistan – FOCUS Humanitarian Pakistan responds immediately
Heavy rains, snowfall that continued for 48 hours has brought life to a standstill in parts of Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Chitral, which triggered a series of snow avalanches, unusual flash floods and landslides damaging 600 houses with thousands of other homes reporting leaks in the roof.
Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS) Pakistan, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) immediately responded to the crisis. It has deployed its Disaster Assessment Response Team (DART) to conduct rapid assessments working with local communities.
Over 100 affected households were immediately provided tents and blankets from community stockpiles setup by FOCUS Pakistan for emergencies. Water purification sachets have been provided to over 50 households in Oshikhandas and Sherqilla with support from the Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan.
Access continues to be a major challenge, as roads are blocked in multiple locations …
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... mediately/
Heavy rains, snowfall that continued for 48 hours has brought life to a standstill in parts of Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Chitral, which triggered a series of snow avalanches, unusual flash floods and landslides damaging 600 houses with thousands of other homes reporting leaks in the roof.
Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS) Pakistan, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) immediately responded to the crisis. It has deployed its Disaster Assessment Response Team (DART) to conduct rapid assessments working with local communities.
Over 100 affected households were immediately provided tents and blankets from community stockpiles setup by FOCUS Pakistan for emergencies. Water purification sachets have been provided to over 50 households in Oshikhandas and Sherqilla with support from the Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan.
Access continues to be a major challenge, as roads are blocked in multiple locations …
https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2016/ ... mediately/
Italy’s Fragile Beauty
Extract:
Italy’s beauty is fragile. Ancient buildings are gorgeous but can be dangerous. Its cities are old and dense, and its buildings rendered vulnerable by heritage laws that protect them from modernization, for better and worse. Carmine Galasso, a lecturer in earthquake engineering at University College London, told Time magazine: “The challenge is really to assess the seismic safety of existing old buildings and prioritize interventions for retrofitting and strengthening.”
That takes time and costs money, though. And while Italy is a modern, wealthy country, many parts of the country are poor, its residents unable to shoulder the costs. Corrado Longa, an architect who lives in Spelonga, near Arquata del Tronto, in the area hit by the quake, told Corriere della Sera: “The owners are old and live alone, and they don’t have the resources. Or because they are considered just holiday homes, and people don’t care.” When disaster strikes, lack of resources and Italy’s cumbersome bureaucracy make it difficult to rebuild. Seven years and $13.5 billion were not enough to bring L’Aquila’s vast historic downtown back to life.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/opini ... &te=1&_r=0
Extract:
Italy’s beauty is fragile. Ancient buildings are gorgeous but can be dangerous. Its cities are old and dense, and its buildings rendered vulnerable by heritage laws that protect them from modernization, for better and worse. Carmine Galasso, a lecturer in earthquake engineering at University College London, told Time magazine: “The challenge is really to assess the seismic safety of existing old buildings and prioritize interventions for retrofitting and strengthening.”
That takes time and costs money, though. And while Italy is a modern, wealthy country, many parts of the country are poor, its residents unable to shoulder the costs. Corrado Longa, an architect who lives in Spelonga, near Arquata del Tronto, in the area hit by the quake, told Corriere della Sera: “The owners are old and live alone, and they don’t have the resources. Or because they are considered just holiday homes, and people don’t care.” When disaster strikes, lack of resources and Italy’s cumbersome bureaucracy make it difficult to rebuild. Seven years and $13.5 billion were not enough to bring L’Aquila’s vast historic downtown back to life.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/opini ... &te=1&_r=0