this blog entry is written while rescue & relief efforts are still underway in Nepal. EZRnews channel has been following events in the Himalayan regions since the automated warning from USGS appeared on the Twitter feed and not only the magnitude of 7.8 was horrifying, also the fact that large parts of the area severely affected by this big earthquake is mountainous terrain and therefore prone to avalanches, landslides and the destruction of dams, besides of 'usual' dangers of collapsing buildings. Some say or even anticipated it could have been much stronger and even more powerful with e.g. the potential of liquefaction of soil beneath the tarmac of Kathmandu airport.
While the full extend of the catastrophe isn't yet fully known and there are some 6800 dead and more than 10,000 people wounded. It is a stark reminder that not only the Nations prone to those natural disasters face heavy losses of life, property,infrastructure and major damage to their economy, but in case of popular tourist destinations other nations' tourists or expats face the same lethal threat.
One has to face the fact that those terrible disasters happen once in a century and they can be ignored as long as they don't happen, but when disaster strikes the Western nations are not only faced with a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, but also have to deal with mass casualties among their own population being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
And let's not fool ourselves, those calamities of same level or even higher as the one just happened in Nepal can happen in Northern America or Europe as well and can wipe out not only parts of countries, but several countries at once. Just to comprehend what potential dangers there are, it's a good idea to take a look into the history books of recent and ancient history where often evidence is given by those facing annihilation at the time. Either some writers published a story about it, or we could also find some indications in logbooks of ships describing extraordinary events. Probably not using today's scientific language to describe the calamity, but often giving enough clues of what most likely did happen. Just now we are connecting the dots of some historic events like famines, revolutions and we recognize that behind many of those turning points of history there was a natural disaster which caused those events either directly or indirectly, often even thousands of miles away.
So those calamities can happen within the area of the Transatlantic alliance or NATO or outside our territory, but in both cases could harm or kill thousands of our citizens. And we do have to think about different 'serious natural threat levels' perhaps ranging from 1 to 5 , where 5 is the extinction of all life on our planet known as K-T event, which is no doubt a very rare but real risk. If such a category 5 event happens we either have some time to prepare for it when the 'galactic missile' is detected month or years in advance, or it's just over 'out of the blue sky' as it happened when the Chelyabinsk meteor hit that Russian area around the City of Chelyabinsk in 2013 without any warning whatsoever.(some more examples of catastrophic events in the 'related reading section')
We should at least be prepared for levels 1-4, where 1 and 2 can be caused by earthquakes and tropical storms, 3 by tsunamis, 3-4 by smaller asteroid or meteor hits and gigantic volcano eruptions. We are talking about fatal casualties ranging from about 5000 at low level 1 to a (few) billion at high level 4 and all mankind at level 5.
It would require some historic research to define exactly what criteria have to be met in order to categorize one event, but like the Fujita scale, which determines the damage inflicted by wind speed, not the wind speed itself, a damage scale will do. For the time being it is only to show the different threat levels we are facing and how we have to respond to them appropriately. There are also differences in preparation time before the event happens or no time to prepare because currently it's just impossible to predict the exact time and location of such an event.
Speaking of response it is of course necessary to detect the whole scale of the catastrophic event immediately after it affected an area.So immediate reconnaissance missions by low flying fixed wing aircraft, helicopters or drones are necessary to obtain data on damage scale including blocked or destroyed bridges, roads, railroads , loss of life et. Immediate efforts by US government and other governments of the alliance to ask the government of the area struck by disaster permission to commence with phase 1 and 2 of response scale assessment which would require aerial reconnaissance as well as providing advanced emergency communication equipment.
Since drones became a standard tool of advanced armies and can hover constantly for some hours above the designated area, they might be the asset of choice. After initial damage assessment the acquired visual,infrared, possible ground focused radar images could be send back to an assessment center at home base, where the scale of the whole catastrophic event can be evaluated within a matter of hours.
After this initial assessment phase NATO could report to governments of member states either that 'usual civilian response' e.g. local consular assistance is sufficient, or NATO command center deems this event as serious enough to deploy communication equipment like satellite phones to well known gathering places of its citizens. The affected people on the ground could give their local situation reports immediately to command center with automatically adding their GPS position and personal data. Those personal details by either using NFC technology, built-in in their identification 'papers' (mostly plastic cards, nowadays), or by pulling their ID cards through an attached reading device. Some states have already introduced biometric data like fingerprints into their citizens' passports, so the fingerprint of the survivor can be scanned for identification purposes. (Might also work to immediate ID the deceased people). Using those automated methods will rule out misinterpretations, spelling errors, misunderstandings and it takes only seconds to gather and transmit all necessary data back to base. If a group of people is near the 'ground communicator' all of them could have their IDs scanned and transmitted to operations center. [more details in the commercial version of this report, since author has some knowledge of communication & logistics]
After reports from the ground have come in to operation center, phase 3 can get started by giving the airborne delivery systems the specific logistics needs for the designated target area. So if there are materials like shelter and/or medicine requested they could be added to the standard packages containing MREs. Besides the obvious advantage of a fast assessment and initial deployment phase, the usual problem of getting supplies in via a few or, in case of Nepal just one national airport, is circumvented. The initial supplies will ensure the survival of those affected on the ground for a few days, which will enable the resupply of those later by the conventional (probably slower) logistics chain. The disaster zone would be divided into drop zone squares, which would enable individual supply aircraft to deliver their individual packages for each group before returning to base.
One lesson of Kathmandu airport (TIA) after the initial big jolt of magnitude 7.8 hit Nepal's capital is, that many commercial airliners had to return to their airfields of departure after cycling above Kathmandu, because they couldn't get clearance for landing. Reports from that initial day of the catastrophe suggest that the whole airport building, including tower, was evacuated due to aftershocks occurring only a few hours after the initial big quake. Besides preventing approaching planes to land, it also created some confusion, whether or not the airport was open or closed, because it was opened and closed again. Unlike the Philippines, where the National Aviation Authority CAAP was able to provide accurate and timely information about the status of Tacloban airport during Cyclone Hayan disaster of 2013, Nepal to the knowledge of the author here has not provided such information neither has a Twitter handle to do so. (Also no information on their website at the time)
This resulted in some chaos during April 25th, and for a few days thereafter there was a pile up of aid waiting to be cleared by customs before getting finally distributed to those rural areas of Nepal.
There might be some tolerance for such initial chaos occurring during disaster events, which are characterized to be smaller than those fitting into the 1-4 catagory, but if a whole country or at least millions of people need to be fed and get medical attention it will most likely contribute to unnecessary loss of life, because of bureaucratic obstruction and over-reliance on one single point of entry. Another quite foreseeable problem was the limited number of helicopters available to transport aid in while have to perform search & rescue operations as well. All this bi-directional traffic from one central point, KTM airport, to the rural areas inevitably hampering the one or the other task. Another critical development for the usability of Katmandu's airport is that the tarmac has cracked and the Nepalese authorities decided to ban aircraft weighing more than 196 tons from landing. It can't be ruled out that further restrictions have to be imposed, making even a stronger point for a diversification of air traffic landing zones / airstrips in order to avoid a sudden collapse in the supply chain.
The extraction process of our citizens from a 3rd country could deliver the survivors to large scale safe areas like football stadiums or any other fields, or open spaces, to serve as helicopter base and shelter area for evacuees. From this point on, in contrast to common procedure today, the locally present embassy staff of various nations could provide their consular assistance for their own citizens.This way no survivor is left behind in the disaster zone and all operations up to this point are being managed by one central military command post, instead of (at least) 28 member states' probably overwhelmed diplomatic staff.
A few days have past and we're now at day 11 after disaster struck Nepal, and it becomes clearer that although many foreigners have survived and have been evacuated to Kathmandu or even repatriated home, many others have either been found dead or not yet all. Many of survivors who made it back to Kathmandu are traumatized and just now the details of the almost completely cut-off valleys are being shared by those who made it back.
Some have reported that they were forced to walk back from Langtang to Dhunche (see attached eyewitness account of German hiker & blog entry: survivor stories), because roads were either gone or littered with boulders, electricity poles and other obstacles like smashed cars and they were not spared to see squashed, deceased people either. Another argument for using rapid airlift, instead of subjecting those already traumatized people to hours of walking to other places while constantly at risk of being hit also by rocks, or being in the middle of a landslide. Another danger they faced was walking out of such a valley (mostly next a to a river) and being at risk to get caught by a wall of water when a landslide upstream temporarily blocked the river by forming a natural dam, which at some could also burst and release all water at once. Some survivors reported that they witnessed that from their stranded group some individuals from e.g. Israel and Japan have been evacuated by helicopter and they were forced to stay behind, while being forced to believe e.g. their British embassy's staff instructing them to "stay put", not for hours, but in some cases for more than a day as it turned out. This is unacceptable, and again:rescue efforts should not be undertaken for one nation's citizens alone, but in a joint effort to evacuate all individuals to a save area from where embassy staff could take over.
It's still too early to know even the final dead toll, but it's certain that many Americans, Canadians, Britons and other NATO citizens are among the victims. On that scale from 1-5 this Nepal Gorkha earthquake disaster would range somewhere between 1 and 2, and it's clear that more severe earthquakes in the M8-M9 range could have even more devastating effects, especially when hitting densely populated areas like big cities with millions of inhabitants. Contingency plans have to be worked out now, because disasters will happen for sure, it's just unclear when and where. It can't be wrong to evaluate the effects of known dangers from existing fault lines, volcanoes, tectonic plates, areas prone to severe tropical storms and to assume that such a disaster happens in the main tourism season of that area.
Hotels fully booked, and only a handful of ambassadors and staff present to handle ten or hundred thousand casualties from different nations. National airports destroyed, ports heavily damaged, all other infrastructure also heavily damaged, if not completely unusable. A poor nation with not that many soldiers and policemen, and even less airlift capacities or modern helicopters at their disposal for search & rescue missions. A telephone & Internet infrastructure also prone to go offline completely, leaving the shattered country isolated from the rest of the world. Phones in embassies also don't work in such circumstances, which will in complete chaos.
This has to be avoided with clever prevention strategies to have at least some spare capacities for communication and power supply as well as a 'ready to implement' plan to activate an immediate NATO response as described above. If there's no such preparation the loss of life and suffering will be immense and those who initially survived such a major disaster may die days later of dehydration, infected wounds, gang violence of a looting, ransacking crowd of thugs and other hazards after a complete breakdown of civilization.
So it couldn't harm to study the history of such places with inherent dangers and what kind of worst case scenarios happened in recent, but also in ancient past. To use that known scenario with a maximum of our citizens exposed to it and some fair estimate of how resilient that state or that area affecting several countries is to withstand such a disaster. Then the kind of maximum response should be determined ready to get assembled and deployed from preplanned positions. Actual scale of deployment after initial assessment phases I and II. In the past there was a severe shortage of European heavy airlift capacity, which has now somewhat improved by forming SAC, but it must be reviewed if this also meets requirements of a mass casualty event . It could be harmful if not enough resources are instantly available outside Northern America when the disaster strikes a place on the globe which is far away from the USA, if the U.S. Air Force is the main contributor to such airlift operations. The naval and other ways of delivery relief goods and technical material into such an area must be planned as thoroughly as the extraction process of the citizens. The implications of leaving the established process of uncoordinated, small scale patchwork response, consisting of civilian authorities and private transport & storage firms, plus some handful of NGO's, unchanged are far too grave. It's hard to explain to the public, why a fully equipped and theoretically sufficient force of the mightiest military organization on this planet stood idly by, while a mass casualty event took place in front of our eyes. Not to add those assets available to the NATO alliance would put many lives at risk and threaten not our national security, but at least our nationals' security. (If those catastrophic events happen outside our area)
Although there was a conference on planetary defense in Frascati/Italy recently, and just today there have been reports about the 'green light' by the Obama administration for a asteroid defense mission, it's even more important to focus our attention to those 1-4 levels which can also caused by the known hazards here on Earth.
There are those catastrophes which can even be predicted with ample forewarning time, such as tropical storms or other weather related hazards like e.g. flooding, which enable a mass evacuation prior to the arrival of this hazardous weather condition. Recent approaches by Indian government and the government of the Philippines show, that even the strongest tropical storms called super typhoons don't necessarily have to create a devastating blow to human life, although the impact on local housing and infrastructure remains a challenge. Above all is the recognition, that we humans just can't withstand certain forces of nature, so we better try to avoid them by timely evacuation to some save areas deemed safe enough.
Far more serious are those events we can't predict, neither presently nor in the near future, but even when we can't predict the time and exact location we can map certain areas where a big earthquake is likely to happen some day and we can try to asses the possible impact on inhabitants of that area as well as for local buildings and infrastructure. As far as NATO citizens are concerned it's sufficient to map those areas where mass tourism is likely to be affected in such 'danger zones' and planning should be made for both preemptive mass evacuation measures as well as post disaster evacuations, medical care, search and rescue, emergency infrastructure repair or substitution, etc.
We currently have many tools to our disposal, from forecasting some potentially disastrous events to search and rescue, and engineering skills to overcome problems of destroyed infrastructure. NATO can deliver the 'hardware' required to meet the challenges of a calamity by ground/air/sea based delivery systems,unlike civilian vessels, designed to be used in areas with no existing infrastructure.It also has equipment and skilled personnel to set up emergency communications,electricity and water supply and sanitation.
Only problem is that we don't plan to deploy all tools in a proper way to meet the specific obligations ahead of us to achieve the utmost in DRR or Disaster Risk Reduction, thus sparing human lives of local population and our citizens alike and to ensure that after the immediate impact of a disaster there will be no further unnecessary suffering.
After quick, but thorough initial assessment phase, there must be in involvement of NATO from the beginning, not after realizing days or even weeks later that ongoing operation was a failure, in order to help the needy and to avert a slow learning process by people on the ground finally reaching the core of the disaster zone. People's lives are being saved hours or days after a catastrophe, not after weeks.
In order to enhance acceptance by foreign governments to rely on the assistance offered by NATO and its vast resources to its disposal for immediate disaster response, it's recommended that NATO's envoys stay in constant contact with the military leadership of those countries known to be prone to disaster. This would also enable NATO to stay informed about the capabilities of those nations to cope with such an event.
[Please note: Due to a copy & paste mistake, a wrong,unedited version of this text was published prematurely earlier today.
Apologies for that to all readers of that draft.]
related reading:
Civil – military relations in natural disasters: a case study of the 2010 Pakistan floods [ICRC, Dec 2011, pdf, 21 pages]
Joint Task Force Katrina [Wikipedia]
@NoradNorthcom to practice responding to major #quake during exercise
http://t.co/TeOUxZpqJx
#eathquake pic.twitter.com/uIvbcG3f4T
— Sun Times (@Fairfield_MT) May 6, 2015
Nepali Army Chief Quizzed Over Indian Rescue Helicopters Entering Sensitive AreasNo easy way out [ekanthipur.com, May 10 2015]
Survivors battle for helicopters near Nepal village that vanished [Reuters, May 7 2015]
Watch the next 50 years of asteroid near-misses with Earth: Interactive map reveals how THOUSANDS of rocks will skim planet [Daily Mail, May 8 2015]
Cyclone Phailin: Mass evacuations in eastern India [BBC, Oct 12 2013]
Cyclone Hudhud: 500,000 evacuated as storm bears down on India's east coast [ABC Australia, Oct 11 2014]
U.S. sends ships, aircraft carrier to aid Philippines [Navy Times, Nov 11 2013]
NASA plan could lead to ‘Armageddon’-style mission to save planet [The Hill, May 5 2015]
Nepal quake: Airport customs holding up aid relief - UN [BBC, May 3 2015]
Nepal’s Bureaucracy Is Blamed as Earthquake Relief Supplies Pile Up [NYTimes, May 3 2015]
Hundreds more U.S. troops expected in the Philippines by week's end [LA Times, Nov 13 2013]
http:/Typhoon Haiyan Update: U.S. Military Says Access to Tacloban Is Improving [weather.com, Nov 14 2013]
some available NATO assets:
The Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) [heavyairliftwing.org]
Lockheed C-5 Galaxy [Wikipedia]
Landing Craft Air Cushion [Wikipedia]
List of aircraft carriers in service [Wikipedia, NATO allies & other states]
General Atomics MQ-1 Predator [Wikipedia]
Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion [Wikipedia]
M104 Wolverine [Wikipedia]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-135_Stratotanker [Wikipedia]
Known potential for mass casualties within NATO territory
Mount Vesuvius [Wikipedia] Italy
Yellowstone Caldera [Wikipedia] USA
List of volcanoes in Germany [Germany]
Katla volcano [Wikipedia] Iceland
Minoan eruption [Wikipedia] Aegean Sea
1906 San Francisco earthquake [Wikipedia] USA
Deadliest earthquakes on record [Wikipedia]
>>It had an estimated volcanic explosivity index of 8 (described as "apocalyptic"), or a magnitude ≥ M8;<<source: Toba catastrophe theory [Wikipedia] Volcano threat
>>Estimates of the energy of the blast range from as low as three to as high as 30 megatons of TNT ..It is estimated that the Tunguska explosion knocked down some 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi), and that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area,[11] but due to the remoteness of the location, no fatalities were documented. This event has helped to spark discussion of asteroid impact avoidance.<<source: Tunguska event [Wikipedia] Asteroid/Meteor threat
>> With a magnitude of Mw 9.1–9.3, it is the third-largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. The undersea megathrust earthquake was caused when the Indian Plate was subducted by the Burma Plate and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people in 14 countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 metres (100 ft) high. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Indonesia was the hardest-hit country, followed by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.<<source: 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami [Wikipedia] earthquake/tsunami threat
source: Typhoon Haiyan [Wikipedia] tropical cyclone threat
>>Typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Yolanda, was one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, devastating portions of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, in early-November 2013. It is the deadliest Philippine typhoon recorded in modern history, killing at least 6,300 people in that country alone. Haiyan is also the strongest storm recorded at landfall, and the strongest typhoon ever recorded in terms of one-minute sustained wind speed. As of January 2014, bodies were still being found.<<
problems occurred during recent Gorkha earthquake/Nepal:
TIA landing ban on heavy cargo planes http://t.co/Lnn2uwMKdX pic.twitter.com/0vhOBC4oBg
— The Kathmandu Post (@kathmandupost) May 3, 2015
Nepal trekker Laurie Gerhardt
criticises UK rescue response,
posted by TooLateToDebate
, May 5 2015
German language, Tim Petry,
Telefoninterview aus Nepal,
posted by Neues Ruhr-Wort
, May 3 2015
#NepalEarthquake #Spanish rescue team trying to get connectivity on satellite phone during SAR ops in #Langtang area. pic.twitter.com/3RiVYPQrsQ
— Sitanshu Kar (@SpokespersonMoD) May 6, 2015
Coordination, joint efforts and a common response will always be more effective than any country acting on its own -- ECHO DG. #EUCivPro
— EU Humanitarian Aid (@eu_echo) May 6, 2015
[last update: May 8th 2015, 1545 CET, some errors corrected, NATO capabilities added] 
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