Nation: Disaster response shameful
Post
Editorial 01/25/2006 - Disaster response shameful
The incident where a building under construction came down in Nairobi painfully reminds us, once again, of the woeful inadequacy of our emergency response service.
Lives were needlessly lost due to the twin crimes of developers taking short cuts in construction and the various city and central government agencies turning a blind eye.
A casual walk around Nairobi will reveal dozens, maybe hundreds, of projects that clearly violate the building safety codes. So we must assume that there are many more such accidents waiting to happen. Another crime is that we are completely unprepared to deal with such disasters when they do visit us.
The chaos that was evident with the rescue operation reveals that lives may have been lost simply because we do not have the capacity to respond promptly and efficiently to any disaster.
We know that, in the Office of the President, there is an entire department charged specifically with disaster response. But from the accident on Monday and previous disasters down the years, it is clear that those supposed to lead and coordinate rescue efforts have long been sleeping on the job. We witnessed total lack of coordination, lack of expertise, lack of equipment and utter chaos.
The officials who responded and took charge did their best. But clearly they were not experts in that kind of operation. Members of the public who turned up in droves to help, removing rubble with their bare hands, displayed a commitment that is laudable. But their presence also added to the chaos and interfered with the rescue operation.
It was not until well after nightfall that a semblance of order was restored when the scene was cordoned off. And it was not until the next day that there were signs of an organised effort with the arrival of foreign experts.
We certainly value help from Israel, the US and other countries. We must appreciate their intervention in men and equipment every time we have such disasters. But it remains a big shame that we must always rely on foreign help from hundreds of miles away when we should by now have developed our own capacity to handle what are relatively minor disasters.
Minor in the sense that we are not dealing with a tsunami, a hurricane or an earthquake that devastates an entire region. We are dealing with a single collapsed building!
With proper coordination, we should be able to find in this country the resources to handle such disasters. Leadership and organisation missing Between the police, the armed forces, the fire brigade, other security and emergency services, hospitals and volunteer groups, we could easily find in this country almost all that is required in terms of expertise, manpower and equipment.
That is certainly not lacking. To put it squarely, what is lacking is leadership and organisation. We have yet to see evidence that the disaster response and coordination unit at the Office of the President actually exists. But we do know that there are officers there who are earning salaries for supposedly being in charge of the unit. They are sleeping on the job and, obviously, they ought to be whipped into work or replaced.
Meanwhile, there is another element highlighted by the Monday tragedy that we must deal with urgently. We can presume that the architects, engineers, contractors, proprietors and others behind the construction of that building will be brought to look. We also expect that there will be a long hard look at City Hall to establish how such a building was allowed to come up.
We must go further than that. There is an urgent need for a census of all buildings in Nairobi - and in other towns - that may be unsafe. Such buildings must either be demolished or modified under close supervision in such a manner that structural integrity is assured.
There may well be complaints that such an exercise is draconian and expensive. Unfortunately, there is no other remedy - not, unless we want to sit back and wait for another disaster and needless loss of life.
The incident where a building under construction came down in Nairobi painfully reminds us, once again, of the woeful inadequacy of our emergency response service.
Lives were needlessly lost due to the twin crimes of developers taking short cuts in construction and the various city and central government agencies turning a blind eye.
A casual walk around Nairobi will reveal dozens, maybe hundreds, of projects that clearly violate the building safety codes. So we must assume that there are many more such accidents waiting to happen. Another crime is that we are completely unprepared to deal with such disasters when they do visit us.
The chaos that was evident with the rescue operation reveals that lives may have been lost simply because we do not have the capacity to respond promptly and efficiently to any disaster.
We know that, in the Office of the President, there is an entire department charged specifically with disaster response. But from the accident on Monday and previous disasters down the years, it is clear that those supposed to lead and coordinate rescue efforts have long been sleeping on the job. We witnessed total lack of coordination, lack of expertise, lack of equipment and utter chaos.
The officials who responded and took charge did their best. But clearly they were not experts in that kind of operation. Members of the public who turned up in droves to help, removing rubble with their bare hands, displayed a commitment that is laudable. But their presence also added to the chaos and interfered with the rescue operation.
It was not until well after nightfall that a semblance of order was restored when the scene was cordoned off. And it was not until the next day that there were signs of an organised effort with the arrival of foreign experts.
We certainly value help from Israel, the US and other countries. We must appreciate their intervention in men and equipment every time we have such disasters. But it remains a big shame that we must always rely on foreign help from hundreds of miles away when we should by now have developed our own capacity to handle what are relatively minor disasters.
Minor in the sense that we are not dealing with a tsunami, a hurricane or an earthquake that devastates an entire region. We are dealing with a single collapsed building!
With proper coordination, we should be able to find in this country the resources to handle such disasters. Leadership and organisation missing Between the police, the armed forces, the fire brigade, other security and emergency services, hospitals and volunteer groups, we could easily find in this country almost all that is required in terms of expertise, manpower and equipment.
That is certainly not lacking. To put it squarely, what is lacking is leadership and organisation. We have yet to see evidence that the disaster response and coordination unit at the Office of the President actually exists. But we do know that there are officers there who are earning salaries for supposedly being in charge of the unit. They are sleeping on the job and, obviously, they ought to be whipped into work or replaced.
Meanwhile, there is another element highlighted by the Monday tragedy that we must deal with urgently. We can presume that the architects, engineers, contractors, proprietors and others behind the construction of that building will be brought to look. We also expect that there will be a long hard look at City Hall to establish how such a building was allowed to come up.
We must go further than that. There is an urgent need for a census of all buildings in Nairobi - and in other towns - that may be unsafe. Such buildings must either be demolished or modified under close supervision in such a manner that structural integrity is assured.
There may well be complaints that such an exercise is draconian and expensive. Unfortunately, there is no other remedy - not, unless we want to sit back and wait for another disaster and needless loss of life.
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