Tsunami struck Sri Lankan shores on Boxing Day

by. Justice P.H.K. Kulatilaka

Part 3

Reporting about Typhoon Haiyan which struck Philippines recently The Telegraph Group, London 2013 had this to say, 'Supplies of food and water are running dangerously short in many regions while hospitals in the worst hit areas are barely functioning due to a lack of medicine'.

This was never the case in Sri Lanka. Food, clothing and shelter were promptly provided. There were no shortages. People themselves, Army, Navy, Air Force and Police, other Govt. institutions saw to it that victims were well looked after. Television stations and the NGOs immensely did their part in helping the victims to get back to their day to day work. There were no reports of any looting or breakdown in law. Even in the LTTE controlled Tsunami affected areas everybody was looked after by the navy and the army.Under the guidance of the Chief Justice and The Sri Lanka Judges Institute the Judicial Officers carried out the Inquests in disposing the dead bodies without any delay,

Post tsunami period

The Government of the day with its own funds and financial aid coming from foreign governments, donations coming from well wishers living abroad and NGOs put up Tsunami houses.

It was reported in the dailies that a former German Chancellor who had seen the tsunami rampage with his own eyes put up a hospital in the Southern Province. Dry provisions were supplied to the victims during the time they lived in the camps. Some families were provided with a living allowance for a long period.

Urgent legislations were introduced to look into the care and custody of the Tsunami affected children .Health care was enhanced to prevent any disease outbreaks among people in the affected areas. An interim Technical Committee was set up for Natural Disaster Monitoring. Director General of the Dept. of Meteorology was designatedz as the focal point of the government of Sri Lanka to receive/ disseminate Tsunami warnings / advisories.

The experts who gave evidence before the Commission expressed the view that the education authorities should include study of natural disasters and even disaster management in the school curriculum. Chances of another tsunami of such magnitude hitting our coasts in near future looks remote but cannot be ruled out in view of the research studies carried out by James Cohoran and his team of experts at Lamont Doberty Earth Observatory relating to development of a new plate boundary [13th plate] just 350 km south of the island.

It appears that this plate boundary is linked to the subduction zone of the Sunda Strait the focus of 26 December 2004 Tsunami. In this regard the Commission made recommendation inter alia that our geoscientists must pay serious attention to these new developments.

Concluded

The writer was a member of the Tsunami Commission 2005. He is also an honours Graduate in Geography.