Coping With Disaster

A disaster like an earthquake or a tsunami rips apart the bonds of civilization temporarily. The networks that normally operate and assist us in our daily lives stop working and people are left to their own devices. Life stops operating normally. What happens then? Do people turn on each other in a desperate bid for survival at any cost? What actually happens in the immediate aftermath of disaster is revealing. In case after case, the people in the affected area have turned to each other for help. Perfect strangers have done their best to aid their fellow humans. In the most trying of circumstances, networks are formed as people help not only themselves but also perfect strangers. In this fashion, humans show an innate empathy that is lacking in all other creatures. Even if the larger society fails to respond with aid in a timely fashion, the affected people rarely turn on each other unless instigated to do so in some fashion. This is a key point. We have an ability to empathize with others including perfect strangers. This empathy needs to be over ridden in some fashion before there can be descent into chaos.

How the broader society responds to a disaster depends on how egalitarian it is. Highly unequal societies will respond slowly no matter how rich they may be. Specifically they will respond in a piece meal fashion. The richer segments of society will be rescued fast while the less well off will be left largely to their own devices for a period of time. We saw this in action when Hurricane Katrina struck. The poor people who were stranded were left to their own devices while the state secured areas of concern to the well off. This occurred in the richest society in the world. Another problem in unequal societies is that there will always be people trying to take advantage of distress. Such people will try their best to over ride the empathy I talked of above since their interests are best served in chaotic conditions. More equal societies will respond in a speedy fashion to all the citizens in distress regardless of their economic status. People who try to take advantage of distress (and there are always some in any society) tend to get marginalized and rendered essentially harmless fairly quickly.

We are not brutes who are only kept in check by the controls imposed by civilization. This has always been the excuse of despots and would be despots down the ages. If people can be convinced that they are innately brutal, then strong controls can be imposed in the name of order. But events have shown again and again that when the need arises, humans reach out to help each other irrespective of relations. In this respect, an innate humanity wins out.

Related articles

• Feeling powerless in the face of Japan's disaster (postworksavvy.com)

Disaster in Haiti

Haiti has suffered from a terrible earthquake which has flattened its main city and left thousands dead and many more homeless. This is also the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. As such, its ability to cope with a disaster of this scale is severely limited. Disasters, whether natural or otherwise tend to test the mettle of the affected society to the utmost. Haiti seems to be unusually ill equipped to deal with a disaster of this scale. Much of the blame for this seems to rest with interference by outside powers.

Most societies have a natural resilience that enables them to recover fairly quickly from disasters and disturbances. Most of the affected areas of the countries that were affected by the Tsunami of 2004 were well on the road to recovery with a fairly short span of time. Sometimes, outsiders are surprised by the extent of the ill preparedness of societies that one normally thinks would be fairly well prepared. Thus the outside world was surprised by the inept response of the US government to Hurricane Katrina.

In recent time, the scale and speed of natural and man made disasters seems to have increased enormously. Partly this is due to larger number of people living in disaster prone areas. Thus for example, there is an increase in the number of people living in flood prone riverside areas. This in turn is driven partly by a larger number of people seeking housing on increasingly scarce land, partly by developers opening up marginal areas for developers and partly by increasing land prices in areas that are considered desirable. Then there are the disasters which are accentuated because of development. Economic forces have increased pressure on all types of natural resources. A major reason why the Asian Tsunami was so devastating was that the mangrove swamps that would have absorbed the force of the waves had been cleared in the name of development and tourism. Similarly in Haiti, forest cover was denuded in the name of development. In urban landscapes, the effect of disaster is heightened as a result of greed. Land developers in a bid to push up profits and complete projects quickly cut corners. This results in unsafe structures which collapse when something like an earthquake or a storm strikes. When entire infrastructures collapse, relief work becomes extremely difficult.