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Professionals in rescue and relief operations:
Navy’s RRRRs ready to face disasters
By Ranil WIJAYAPALA
Rear Admiral Neil Rosayro |
‘As a nation how prepared are we to face disasters?’, was the biggest
question that emerged in the aftermath of the devastating Tsunami that
hit the coasts of Sri Lanka, claiming more than 30,000 lives on December
26, 2004.
It was an eye opener for the entire nation and all segments of
society started to talk about the necessity of having a mechanism to
face such calamities in a more effective manner. Then onwards as a
nation we moved forward in establishing such a mechanism to face
calamities of this nature.
But six years and one month after that devastating Tsunami, the
country was engulfed in another calamity with more than 8 districts
going under floods after it experienced probably the highest rainfall in
nearly hundred years. Floods may be a common phenomenon in Sri Lanka,
but in 2011 February, it was unusual in nature and beyond the capacities
of the existing mechanism to handle it effectively.
It was in the eve of the Independence Day in 2011, that the Sri Lanka
Navy responded to an emergency call to rescue a group of people stranded
due to raging floods.
The emergency call was to rescue a few people stranded in the bank of
Mahaweli river and they had to move at night, but they were ill equipped
and had to move in unfamiliar water without lights.
On their way back, their rescue mission turned into another tragedy
as the naval craft was caught in a strong current and hit a culvert
plunging all of them into the floods. Their mission to rescue 16 people
including women and children ended up losing one sailor who went on that
rescue mission and another three civilians.
Amidst such incidents the Navy had to respond to so many numbers of
emergency calls to rescue people and provide relief that they had to
operate in almost all parts of the country. More than 50 teams were
deployed in many parts of the country, in the East, West, North and
North Central provinces. The Navy ran out of resources and had to hire
boats from the fishermen to engage in their rescue operations.
The flood didn’t recede that fast and they had to continue relief
work for more than one week as more than 2.5 million people, a figure
quite similar to the number of people displaced on the boxing day
Tsunami in 2004, were displaced due to floods in almost every part of
the country.
It became an eye opener for the Sri Lanka Navy and the Commander of
the Navy. According to Rear Admiral Neil Rosayro, then the Director
Naval Operations and now Director Plans and Project said the Navy
Commander, Vice Admiral Somathilaka Dissanayake was quite serious about
the situation.
“He thought we were not better prepared as in some instances we had
to assist people during the night”, Rear Admiral Rosayro added.
“With this experience the Commander of the Navy said, ok, we must
develop a specialised unit for rescue and relief to handle this rescue
missions effectively and in a professional manner and that gave birth to
the Rapid Response Rescue and Relief Squadron”, explaining the
background for the formation of this new unit in the Sri Lanka Navy,
Rear Admiral Rosayro said.
“Being in the Navy, we are very fluent in handling things in salt
water. Not that we are not familiar with fresh water, but rescue in the
rivers or in the lakes, with civilians is totally a different subject”,
he added.
To rescue people caught in disasters you need a specialised skill.
When you are doing the rescue work in night in unfamiliar water, where
there was no water previously over roads, over paddy fields, over
culverts, over barbed wire fences and various other different obstacles
you need to have proper skills to do that.
The person who is called to rescue the people marooned in floods
might not have been to such areas and for the Navy it happens at so many
places.
“We start at one place and then we have to go to so many other places
as there are so many demands we have to meet in evacuating people during
floods and provide food for the people marooned in floods and to
evacuate people to provide them medical facilities. In that sense we are
taking undue risk because of the human factor”, Rosayro added.
“Under those circumstances we have come across a difficult situation
and our people have got into difficult situations because they have gone
beyond the points. But they go beyond that point because they have a
human touch. It happens naturally. That was why the Commander of the
Navy thought of having very well trained and specialised people who not
only can do flood relief duties but also engage in any type of relief
activities during disaster”, he added.
Therefore, the Rapid Response Rescue and Relief Squadron which is
commonly known as 4Rs among the Navy, was initially formed to respond to
the flood situations in the country as the Navy had to play a keyrole in
rescuing the people marooned in flood waters and provide food for them.
“Being in the Navy, we are called very often for relief activities
during floods. When we look at statistics with the Disaster Management
Centre, the majority effect on civilians by disasters is from floods. We
have very rare Tsunami incidents, and seldom cyclones and it affects
only a small area. Earthslips affect only a small area. But if you are
dealing with the floods it affects a very large area and floods remain
for three to seven days sometimes. We have to keep on sustaining relief.
The other thing is that floods do not have limits”, he added.
“Looking at all these factors the Commander of the Navy told us that
we have to establish a specialised unit for flood relief and to further
develop it to act in any type of disaster”, Rear Admiral Rosayro added.
“We thought that we have to be prepared for worse flood situations in
the country due to climatic changes. When we are dealing with climate
and natural disasters you cannot have limits. We try to do the best as
possible”, he added.
Further explaining what is exactly meant by RRRRs, the Rear Admiral
said that the squadron was formed to respond to disasters rapidly. “We
have to go there before the disaster affects them and be prepared to
rescue people”, he added.
Therefore, the role of the RRRRs is more proactive than reacting to a
situation. The words here are very important because it meant not only
Rapid Response and Rescue, but also for providing relief.
“If we rescue 50 people we keep them in one place and assisting them
in first aid, medicine and some sort of relief at the initial stage. If
the Government Agent or the Divisional Secretary or the Grama Sevaka
says they want further assistance to transport goods, logistics we are
assisting them in that process also. That is the relief part. Rapid
Response Rescue and Relief, so these four words mean a lot”, he added.
“We have to know how to professionally rescue them as much as
possible. Even the Director General of the Disaster Management Centre,
Major General (Retd) Hettiarachchi has told us that because of the
Navy’s Rapid Response and quick reaction the fatality has come down”, he
added.
“What we do now is to try and predict disaster because in our
operations room we have got facilities to get very fast meteorology
updates and through the internet also we can get a lot of information.
We are also doing a lot of analysis. These days we are watching the
skies for rain. Once rain comes we look at the rainfall and the areas
that get the highest rainfall, which area gets stagnated water, and
check whether the lakes are overflowing. We are having a close eye on
this situation and we are getting ready for action based on those
information,” he added.But the formation and strengthening of RRRR
squadron was not only aimed at providing assistance for the disaster
affected people in Sri Lanka alone. It also filled the void of non
availability of professionally trained and self sustained unit to
provide assistance to disaster affected people. The tsunami in Japan
came as another eye opener for the Sri Lanka Navy.
“When the tsunami hit Japan there was a call to send people to Japan
to assist them. But in Sri Lanka I don’t think any one had a specialised
unit to handle or provide rescue and relief. The military is trained for
rescue and relief but there is no specialised professional unit. So the
Government asked the Army, Navy and Air Force to pool people and send
them to Japan.
So we get 60 to 70 people from the Navy, the Army had 200 or 300, and
the Air Force also had some similar amount and they were ready to go.
Then the Japanese Government said don’t send people unless they are
self sustained. If they are not it will be a problem to them.
Therefore, only a token number of people from the Army were sent to
Japan”, he added.
“It was yet another eye opener for us and we said ok when there is a
similar situation in any other country and if there is a call from that
Government to our Government, we say we can send people as labour. But
if we have at least 50 professionally trained people who can take charge
of another 200 and get things done, that will be much better. So that is
why, we went a step further and trained them for other types of disaster
relief matters also”, Rear Admiral Rosayro added.
“What we focused was after floods we get cyclones and there is a
possibility to have heavy rains and floods. A cyclone remains only for
two or three hours and it moves on. After that it is a matter of
rescuing people. Even to clear debris there is professional way.
There can be high tension wires, there can be power and there can be
various other obstacles. These have to be known by our teams”, he
added.Then the RRRR Squadron also focused on landslides and fire
fighting also.“We are experts in handling fire fighting. We are highly
trained in fire fighting because we work on ships and fire is a hazard
the ship doesn’t like. So everyone is highly trained in fire fighting.
So that we can automatically impart that but we need certain equipment.
We are looking at the rescue part. When there is smoked up building
we cannot go and rescue a person if we don’t have proper gear. We are
purchasing these gear”, he added.
But to do all these things the Navy should have enough man power,
proper gear and also provide training for the people engaged in these
jobs. The Sri Lanka Navy has been able to mobilise the human resources
available within the Navy for these purposes without enlisting new
people. The Rapid Action Boat Squadron of the Navy came in handy to
fulfill this task effectively.
"Rapid Action Boat Squadron is highly trained in operating very small
boats and fighting the enemy in the sea and we have 560 people in the
RABS. After the end of the war their duty also came to a standstill as
they were specialised in one job - to get on to these boats, go and
smash the LTTE and come back. They are highly motivated people who have
volunteered to join that force. They are very good swimmers and they are
familiar with the water and one important thing is they are brave,
volunteered and they are pretty good in handling boats. So we selected
them to be trained in rescue and relief operations", he added.
"Then we gear ourselves and selected these people and put 45 in each
batch. We immediately made our syllabuses after getting various
expertise, knowledge and inputs. We planned for 30-day training.
Initially we were looking at two weeks training but when we go through
the syllabus we found that we have to train them with so much of
things", he added.
Within these 30 days they get a good training and also enhance their
capability of survival in water, rescue techniques and various other
aspects. At present Navy has trained 330 and have another 160 people to
be trained. The training of sailors was started in Trincomalee because
the Navy had accommodation and certain instructors.
"Apart from this we have also advertised in the Navy for those who
have specialised skills in swimming or other skills to join this
squadron. They get their training, go back and work in their respective
departments. That way we have trained medical assistants, certain
technicians and they also get these particular training. Therefore we
have extra people available with us to be called for duties in an
emergency", he added.
But the formation of this squadron was not enough and they wanted a
suitable land to establish themselves and have their headquarters. About
four to five acre land close to Kalutara Temple was given to them to
have their headquarters.
"We had advantage and we have the river to do training on this river.
The other thing we found was that the Kalutara district normally gets
affected from floods and the Gampaha and Galle districts too. Therefore,
it became a central point for our operations. We can deploy fast", he
added.
Looking at the threat levels, the RRRR squadron is looking for lands
to deploy their teams in the North, East, South, North Central and North
Western.
"We have six commands and we have deployed them in various numbers.
In the Western we have more numbers because the three districts are very
prone for disasters by water. And also in the North Central we have
deployed our teams. In the North we have deployed only a very few people
as this area goes under water very seldom. In the North Central we have
a very large number in Punewa", he added.
To gear up for this process, the Navy has got 100 boats.
Forty of them are coming and we are also looking at developing some
specialised boats with aluminum flat bottom that can operate in very
shallow waters. Already one boat is being built and we are testing it.
We are making certain modifications to suit it for rescue operations",
he added. "Now we are really geared to go for a better job", the Rear
Admiral said.
The RRRR Squadron is expanding their training aspects to many other
areas getting more experts in the subject to get in-depth knowledge and
skills.
The RRRR squadron also got a Canadian who is an expert in rescue
techniques in rapids.
"It was really good because we did not know certain things that can
happen in rapids as the water is moving so fast. This Canadian taught us
a lot of techniques when operating in rapids. We got a batch of RRRRs
who are promoted as instructors and few officers and got them trained in
rapids in various life saving techniques, dangers and how to handle
boats in rapids and to see the boat we are using for rescuing is safe in
rapid waters", he added.
Apart from this they were also trained at the Commando Training
school in Uva Kuda Oya to train them in moving through obstacles,
mountain climbing, climbing to high buildings. "That is how we are
expanding our scope in rescue operations," he added.
"We also have close links with the Disaster Management Centre. If we
see a disaster coming and there is a warning an officer is immediately
goes to the ops room. When handling disaster we can't handle things
single handedly. Especially during floods we are the most demanded. The
most important thing is that we have limited number of resources and we
have to use it in the most affected places. We should decide where to
deploy our teams", he added.
"Another thing we need is to move from one area to the other. If one
area is cut off due to floods if we have resources already in that area
it becomes easy to respond swiftly and before the floods come we are
there with the boats. We are looking at lands at Ampara, Ratnapura,
Polonnaruwa to have our resources", he added."We think we will be very
successful with our training and preparedness and through the
monitoring. We don't wait until places go under water. What our
commander always says is that, you be there when the floods come. Don't
wait till the floods come to that area. Earlier the better, we can
rescue more people", he added. |
