As the third anniversary of the devastating December 2004 tsunami approaches, Thailand’s fledgling National Disaster Warning Centre (NDWC) is growing but not without hiccups.
Established in the aftermath of the deadly waves that killed more than 5,400 people in Thailand, the centre is designed to process information on seismic activity in the region and issue warnings, particularly for tsunamis that may hit the country’s Andaman Sea coastline.
The NDWC has put in place 79 warning towers in coastal provinces and launched a US-funded deep-sea buoy in the Indian Ocean to detect tidal waves.
Even given these achievements, the NDWC’s effectiveness has been diminished somewhat in the wake of domestic political developments.
In the aftermath of the September 2006 coup in which Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was forced from power by the military, and an interim government took over, some confusion has emerged regarding oversight of the NDWC. It was initially under the authority of the Prime Minister’s office and subsequently put under the Meteorological Department of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, but without clear lines of authority.
“Unfortunately we are still under the power of [different agencies of] the government and don't have enough power to do anything,” Smith Dharmmasaroj, head of the NDWC, told IRIN. “We will wait for the next government to come. Hopefully they will pay more attention to us, or lives could be at risk.”
Thailand held general elections on 23 December, and a new government is expected to take power early next year.
In the haste to set up the agency after the tsunami, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra formed the NDWC on the understanding that it would be turned into an independent agency later on. The centre borrowed bureaucrats and specialists from other government agencies to set up the warning system.
But before a law could be passed that would give the centre its own budget and independent legal status, Thaksin was overthrown. The military-appointed government then transferred the NDWC to the Meteorological Department, a move that Smith said added another layer of bureaucratic red tape.
Legal limbo
Ray Shirkhodai, executive director of the Hawaii-based Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), which helped Thailand set up the NDWC, wrote a letter to interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont earlier in 2007 asking him to reconsider the move in order to “continue rapid enhancement of the country's disaster warning capabilities”.
The government responded by giving Smith the sole authority to issue disaster warnings, but he (Smith) said that it was not proper and unsustainable to have the centre’s operations hinge on one person.
“I’m 73, and plan to retire soon,” he said. “The government needs to legally set up the centre and take care of it, make it sustainable.”
It is the centre’s legal limbo that has led to the internal brain drain as the borrowed bureaucrats who are now experts on the system are starting to return to their home agencies, Smith said. Staying at the NDWC means they are cut off from normal civil service promotions, so they have no incentive to stay, he said.
“To get quality people, you must pay more than the civil service,” Smith said. “We need technicians, engineers, meteorologists and specialists with earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis.” Smith believes the NDWC should be better funded.
Under fire
Additional funding for the NDWC would enable it to better coordinate drills every six-months with local communities, he told IRIN. Despite setting up the deep-sea buoys and warning towers, community action plans still need to be developed and expensive drills conducted so that villagers can stay calm and move efficiently when the sirens go off.
The NDWC has come under fire in the local press following several false alarms and tests that revealed some warning towers produced sounds that were barely audible. Government officials counter that the drills were useful in ironing out kinks in the alert system.
Despite the birth pangs, however, experts say Thailand has been at the forefront of efforts to coordinate regional information-sharing on disaster warnings.
Regional leadership
“The Thais have been one of the stalwarts of the regional tsunami warning system and pushed it forward,” said Oliver Fall, executive coordinator of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC), a nonprofit organisation set up in 1986 to reduce the impact of disasters. “They led the commitments in 2005 after the tsunami and have been a key supporter since then.”
The ADPC is working with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) - Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) to set up a system that connects all of Asia’s national disaster warning centres. Efforts to get the proper technology in place and share information may hit some snags along the way, but overall the region has made big strides.
“The Pacific tsunami warning centre in Hawaii took approximately 10 years to set up with far fewer countries,” Fall said. “Here you’ve got a lot more people involved. The progress that has been made is actually very good considering it’s been just three years since the tsunami.”
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions