Connected through tragedy: communications are critical in an emergency. The tsunami disaster was no different, but this time it was the bloggers who stepped forward to break news and link needy communities with donors. Meanwhile, the debate continues about how to set up tsunami warning systems

Telecom Asia, Feb, 2005 by Robert Clark

When disaster strikes, telecoms matters. In normal times, voice, data and mobile services are the electronic bindings of a society. In time of emergency, they become critical; not as critical as water, shelter and medical care, but indispensable for helping rescue and relief operations and for reconstruction.

The scale of the December 26 tsunami shocked the world. Despite warnings that an Indian Ocean quake was inevitable, there was no organized warning system (see story, "Warning signals", opposite page).

The impact on telecom systems was relatively mild, except in Aceh where as much as 60% of Telkom's infrastructure was damaged but just six of Indosat's base stations were affected. India's Tamil Nadu state repaired its mobile networks within four days. One subsea cable, the South-Africa-Far-East (SAFE) recorded a break on its northern leg to Malaysia. Traffic on the three-year-old system has been re-routed by VSNL. Other major international links, such as FLAG, i2i and SeaMeWe3, reported no problems.

While telecom companies quickly volunteered cash, equipment and expertise to the stricken areas, the biggest role played by the sector was in keeping the Internet running.

In particular it was the occasion when the blogging community came into its own. It was the blogosphere where the enormity of the tragedy first dawned. While major media organizations treated it as just another Third World disaster story, it was on the blog postings within hours of the event that the scale of the tragedy became apparent.

Net postings

The mass media also discovered that the digital revolution has turned everyone today into a reporter. Tourists were texting accounts from the field, or sending in stunning photos and videos. The families of victims used the Net to try to find missing loved ones, white authorities posted digital photos of bodies found on computers or online.

A blog, Tsunamihelp, set up on the morning of the tragedy, received 20,000 hits within two hours. Along with other blogs such as the Tsunami HelpWiki, it connected volunteers, donors, relief agencies and communities in need. The group behind Tsunamihelp also set up an ARC (Alert Retrieval Cache) to automatically forward SMS to the Web to allow quick response to information coming in from the field.

DigitialDivideNetwork.org reported the case of Mr. Vijaykumar, a former telecenter volunteer from Nallavadu, India, now living in Singapore. After learning of the tsunami, he called his family in Nallavadu, and then the telecenter. Using the telecenter's public address system, local volunteers alerted fellow villagers. Among the 500 families in Nallavadu, 150 of their houses were destroyed, but no one died.

As well as bringing out the best in human nature, the Internet and the mobile phone also brought out some of the worst.

Fraudulent emails purporting to seek donations for tsunami relief began circulating as early as December 27, according to tech news site silicon.com. In Hong Kong and Australia emails soliciting donations to fake Oxfam Web sites appeared. In the UK, police arrested a man who had sent emails to families of missing relatives, falsely advising them their loved ones had died.

Warning signals

The question on many people's mind was, could technology have prevented the enormous loss of life from the Boxing Day tsunami? Certainly, that's the contention of people like Sam Pitroda, a prominent Indian government IT adviser and former head of the Indian Telecom Commission, among many others. "Governments cannot manage disasters," the outspoken Pitroda said at a session on Indian disaster management in early January. "Technology and management skills were required," he said.

The massive waves hit seaside communities with no official warning. Yet the quake was monitored by seismic laboratories around the world, including the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Center staff revealed later they had no contact information for any of the countries in the tsunami's path.

Huge waves are rare in the Indian Ocean, but international seismic experts have issued warnings in recent years that one was inevitable. No action was taken by the region's governments. Samith Dhamasaroj, former director general of the Thai Meteorological Department, warned seven years ago of a tsunami threat and was banned from the kingdom's tourist resort areas.

The lack of a warning system is thus a political, not technical failure. That will be rectified, with world leaders at the January 6 summit in Jakarta agreeing to set up a $20 million system of sensors that would track seismic and wave movements.

But how to get the message out to the mostly rural and fishing communities that live at the edge of the Indian Ocean? The first requirement will be to ensure future generations are educated about the nature of seismic activity and the huge waves they generate, and to build a mass evacuation plan in response.

Then governments must act to link the "last mile." Prih Harjadi of the Indonesian Meteorological & Geophysical Agency told the Associated Press: "We could produce information, but we would just send it to local governments. It is up to the authorities there to evacuate the people. Right now, there is nothing."