US expert on disaster mitigation:

People should be relocated from disaster-prone areas

By Manjula Fernando

In the aftermath of the two tragic landslides in Sri Lanka, which buried nearly 200 alive, a visiting US expert on disaster mitigation said the Government will have to take tough decisions in the future to ensure the safety of the people and prevent such calamities from recurring.

South Asia Regional Advisor for Disaster Risk Reduction from the Office of the Foreign Disaster Assistance of the USAID Michael J. Ernst said there were certain areas where people should not be allowed to live and this will be a tough decision for any government to take.

He said South Asia, lately, has developed dramatically in disaster response and mitigation and Sri Lanka was ahead in the region, inspite of the recent calamity in the central hills resulting in the loss of many lives.

There is ‘tremendous capacity in human resource’ during a disaster situation but the country is weighted down by ‘limited resources and technical expertise’, he said adding the response by the ordinary citizens during the recent flooding was ‘dramatic’.

He referred to flooding in urban areas as a global phenomenon, the world was grappling with due to rapid urbanization. Ernst who is also a hydrology expert said the best of models will not help in mitigating disasters without public cooperation.

He said the US government will collaborate with the Sri Lankan government to offer technical support to improve early warning mechanisms in the country as a long-term project but the immediate focus is on supporting psycho-social efforts to those who have lost their loved ones. The US has offered US $ 1.3 million as immediate disaster relief.

“Hydrological modeling in a flat urban area where the surface is constantly changing due to development is a difficult thing to do,” he said emphasizing that people were living in areas that simply cannot be made safe so these areas are more of trade-offs .

He was of the view people must learn to observe nature and act fast without waiting for official warnings as it could be too late in some instances. He said such things can happen not just in Sri Lanka but in the US as well. Natural calamities such as landslides are very hard to predict.

He said there was genuine openness by officials to recognize that more needs to be done, to improve future response and increase resilience.

He added that everyone - the public, the government and the media - has a role to play to increase understanding and reduce risk during natural disasters.