The tsunami of December 26 2004 shocked us all by the devastation it caused and by the enormous loss of life which was felt globally. The shock was doubly felt, I believe, by many earth scientists when we reflect on the number of lives which were lost needlessly. We were shocked by the totally inappropriate behaviour of people whose final actions were recorded by countless video cameras. We saw parents standing with their children gazing seaward as the tsunami broke on coastal reefs. We watched people running down to the water’s edge to explore the seabed as the down-going phase of the wave drained the near shore area before being swept away as the wave inevitably returned.

To many of us these images, and the certainty that these actions were reproduced in thousands of unrecorded beaches and coastal communities, illustrated clearly that the fruits of our knowledge of the nature of the threat from tsunamis was withheld from the coastal communities of the Indian Ocean. For many, the disaster was not a failure of science, it was simply a failure of education, our failure to properly disseminate our science.

Now it is interesting to hear the stories of how a British school girl saved a hundred people by recalling a geography lesson in which she had been told of tsunamis and of how the sea often retreated before inundation or of how a geophysicist was able to do the same on another beach in another country. But these minor triumphs of education were the exceptions rather than the rule. They serve only to place the actions of many who died in to sharp focus. When we consider that over 30,000 people lost their lives on coasts with wave travel times of more than 2 hours, we see that this failure of education is compounded by the systematic withholding of the warning technology from the coastal communities of the Indian Ocean which protects the more fortunate communities of the affluent Pacific rim.

For me the tsunami was only the start of an on-going examination of how scientists – and probably particularly earth scientists– cannot wash our hands of some responsibility for this. We argue that we cannot predict earthquakes and that, therefore, we have little to say which is important in protecting people against them. But whereas the people of California are fully familiar with hazard maps and the uncertainties associated with probabilistic forecasting, it seems that most of this is absent from people in developing countries. I travelled recently to India where I was lucky enough to talk to students at the Indian Institute of Technology about earthquake and tsunami threats in western Sumatra.

I have, among others, argued recently, that, while we cannot predict earthquakes, we know enough about them to identify western Sumatra as being a particular risk from a large earthquake. This event might generate another tsunami which has the potential to be even more destructive than the 2004 event. After my talk a group of student surrounded me and asked me about the risk of large earthquakes in northern India. I told them that while I was not a specialist in this area, I was aware of the tectonic situation and was further aware that earth scientists rated the chances of a great earthquake there as being very high. I discovered that, while they lived in houses which were extremely vulnerable to earthquake collapse, none of them had taken any precautions to give them a chance of surviving such a collapse. Children attending school in Greece, for example, are routinely educated as to the earthquake risk and to the simple things that can be done to increase your chances of surviving.

It is clear that every dollar spent on preparation for a future landslide saves many dollars on clearing up afterwards yet preparedness always come at the bottom of the list when aid dollars are being allocated. It seems to me, that of the three stages of disaster reduction, preparedness, response and reconstruction, preparedness always takes up the rear.

It is disturbing to note, as an earth scientist, that it is only in preparedness that earth science has much to offer. The other areas are dominated by logistics and engineering. We are failing in a big way to have our voices heard and while the situation may not be so stark in the developed world, in the developing world millions will suffer from our lack of activity.

Now I am not writing this to criticise any one person or any group of people. I have simply come to the view that, as a group, earth scientists should be more proactive in interfacing with government, for example, to ensure that our work, even in its unfinished and imperfect state, should be made available to the public. It seems to me that we have a lot to learn from our colleagues in the climate sciences. Their science is just as full of uncertainty as earthquake or tsunami scientists. They have, however, been more active in making sure that their concerns are voiced in the right places and at the right volume.

Comments

http://www.geophys.bas.bg Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-04-17 15:14:19 The guiltiness does not consist in "our lack of activity" ("our" = who I have in mind, these are the scientists); it does not exist at all. The governments are rather guilty; they do not appreciate the human acquaintance with the natural risks; they do not believe in the mankind's possibility of disaster forcasting.    Rumiana Glavcheva  Head of Seismological Department  Geophysical Institute  Sofia  BULGARIA

Written by Carmen de Jong (Mountain Inst on 2007-04-17 18:43:13 I completely agree with John McCloskey. We have a responsibility towards our stakeholders to share scientific results on climate change and human impacts on the cryosphere, especially the mountains. We will only succeed if we cooperate in an interdisciplinary way with other scientists. This was the main message of my talk yesterday: ‘Cryosphere – a cry for our sphere?’ We need to suggest adaptation strategies, especially towards young people.

Written by Gerhard Wörner, University of on 2007-04-18 09:42:29 (…) On the issue of geological hazards, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods are the “normal” way our earth works. These events, however, often become catastrophes only because humans live in potentially dangerous areas, for example at the slope of volcanoes. Even though we as scientists are aware of all the uncertainties involved in predictions, we should not hesitate to communicate our findings to the general public and government officials.   On the other side, the public and decision makers need to realize that scientific debate and uncertainty does not indicate that scientists don’t know what they are talking about. Gerhard Wörner, University of Göttingen

Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-04-18 10:02:57 this is a fine article and illustrates the need for an improvement in communication skills amongst earth sciences. The IUGS commission "Geosciences for Environmental Management" has established a working group to address exactly these issues, and we'd be interested in hearing from anyone interested in contributing- see web page above or e-mail me. We're also contributing to the natural hazards session friday morning     Dave Liverman "Communicating Environmental Geoscience" working group leader"

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