Monday, May 25, 2015

Economic impact of Nepal earthquake & rebuliding efforts

Dear reader,

this blog entry will contain some key developments for the rebuilding effort in Nepal.
Since it's too early to report on completed projects it will first focus on damage assessment & planning and later also on examples of successful economic recovery. It will also show that prevention strategies to limit the impact of natural disasters can be also 'economical sense' besides preventing human suffering. So expect some updates in the next couple of months:






related reading:
The 'Big Picture' - Nepal quake in numbers (preliminary) [EZR compilation]
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Tuesday, May 12, 2015

new landslides reported in Nepal

















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"district administrator Krishna Gwayali said. He said the deaths were on a highway towards Tibet"
[DailyMail, May 12 2015]

note: watch this space for updates during May 12th & next couple of days 
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Monday, May 11, 2015

Earthquake knowledge


[USGS, pdf, 2 pages, as of May 13 2015]










please note: much more on that quake will be added in the next couple of days 
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How to improve communication during a calamity

Dear reader,

this blog entry is written in the immediate aftermath of the devastating Gorkha earthquake that stroke Nepal on Apr 25th 2015.
After following the most devastating events like several tropical storms , earthquakes  floodings and even the 'near miss' catastrophe of the Chelyabinsk meteor there is some knowledge obtained, some valuable insights gathered of how crisis response by local and foreign authorities went and how the public reacted on social media, such as Twitter or Facebook, to that response by the officials.

The latest major disaster was a powerful earthquake in a small mountainous state with many foreign visitors present at the time when the quake hit that country enclosed by big neighboring states China and India. Without any doubt having such big neighbors, in this case particularly India with its large military, helped to prevent the situation in Nepal to become much more dire than it is now. Without the logistical support offered by the Indian Army which deployed  two headquarters and a lot of military personnel and assets to Nepal almost immediately after the main quake, the Nepalese Army with their very limited resources wouldn't have any chance to cope with the situation. We must be thankful for their efforts for the Nepali people and foreign visitors in need, but we must also re-examine what went wrong regarding coordination of the search  & rescue effort in Nepal and abroad.

 Foreigners and their ministries
Nepal was hit by this quake during a time when its holiday peak season was just starting to begin. Many tourists located mostly in those parts of the country which were most severely affected by the quake. And its is important to comprehend that the epicenter is not confining the damage to a small area:

According to geologists' opinions the common use of the word 'epicenter' is correct for describing the place where the quake originated, but is wrong when it is pretended that this is the one location where the jolt has been strongest. In this particular earthquake the zone of highest intensity was not limited to Gorkha, but the 'shake map' published by USGS showed a much wider affected area within the inner circle of maximum strength. It's perhaps a bit primitive, but you can compare it when you carry a plate with wine glasses on it, and your hand holding that plate is shaking. Your hand becomes the 'epicenter' of that wobbling plate, but all the glasses on that plate are affected in the same way as the one positioned near your hand.

So after making clear that the area hit hardest wasn't confined to Gorkha and many different kind of tourists were affected: those who visited cultural heritage sites, those who were interested in trekking and those climbers who were in the Everest region. Altogether there were thousands of foreign tourists, but also some expatriates, present at that critical moment. The problem for all foreign ministries or their local embassies is that nobody, besides perhaps relatives and friends, keeps track of them and there whereabouts. Often it's not exactly known how many foreigners are in the country exactly.
So after such an event where those unknown large quantity of foreign visitors are almost immediately put into a crisis situation there is immediate action required to locate them, organize rescue, perhaps treatment and eventually to arrange their safe return to their motherland.

Since Nepal is just a small country, not all countries where those tourists originated from have an embassy in the nation's capitol Kathmandu, making such efforts of supporting fellow countrymen even harder. Many countries have their embassy for the region located in New Delhi and with the initial breakdown of most telephone lines created additional problems to reach Nepalese authorities and their own citizens in Nepal by phone.

So the suggestion is to keep not only in contact with foreign officials of that disaster stricken area, but also maintain contacts with groups as follows:


Social media
Following the events closely on Twitter since the earthquake happened, there was some frustration expressed by especially Dutch & British tweeps, but also many in Belgium, France and other countries were almost frantic and contacted their authorities quite often on Twitter, other social media and by phone. Many felt their foreign ministries did not enough to ensure the safety of their citizens which were stranded in Kathmandu and especially in some rural areas of Nepal. While accusations of Dutch nationals seemed to be unfounded, there have been some credible reports in UK media, where relatives expressed serious concern about how the FCO handled the search for and rescue of their relatives or friends. Some errors were made by officials, so it seems. Names have not been noted correctly and support given was not sufficient, or people couldn't reach the foreign office by phone.

Some, if not most, accusations however stem from a lack of proper feedback by some of the EU officials, letting enough space for rumors to spread on social media like Twitter or Facebook. How about more openness of the authorities about the data they collect ? By asking relatives' permission to release some vital information of the missing person cases like name, photo and last known location, the relatives, but also the broader public are given a chance to verify the data put in the missing persons database and to correct false information in a timely fashion if needed. By publishing those lists it also becomes clear that there is a staff working and some 'progress reports' ("We contacted Nepal dept XYZ and instructed our embassy to XYZ") from time to time could also help to enhance acceptance by the public and to curb the spreading of rumors. And it could demonstrate to the public that there are lot more people reported missing than just those who are known by social networks and subsequently the efforts to locate and rescue them are much bigger than some members of the public might think.

It would also be a good idea to release guidelines of how to communicate with the proper authorities instead of getting 'bombarded' with repeated pleas either by social media or by telephone saying: "Please do something!", "Don't you know XYZ is missing?", etc.
Those guidelines of how to organize the community of relatives/friends of those who are missing in that foreign holiday destination could help to reduce the number of unnecessary calls/contacts significantly and some frequently updated 'FAQ' could also help to answer most asked questions, too.

According to my own observation, many people took to twitter in order to get some news about about their missing loved ones, after not using their account for many month, or after they just created a new Twitter account for this incident.
Those people often had no idea how to use social media in an efficient way, so some help of optimal use of this powerful tool is recommended.

Some suggestions for amateur tweeps could be found in this little list of what should be done and what should be avoided.

With some proper help & guidance by their national authorities the social media users can actually be formed into an effective crowd for information gathering, filtering & compilation of information, and spreading of correct & vital information.

Authorities in those disaster stricken areas can do more in order to combat the spread of rumors such as that there will follow another, even bigger (talk was about M8-9), quake right after the M7.8 jolt on April 25th, which of course scared many people and withheld them to go back into buildings for longer than necessary, or perhaps they even stopped searching for people trapped under the rubble. Rumors spread in absence of genuine information by the proper authorities ! People in general trust the authorities, but if those authorities  don't tweet or engage in Facebook discussions they are forced to seek other sources of information and 'authority' and tend to believe those.
If there aren't enough trained professionals, why not hire volunteers and get the authorized messages out ? If it is done by those, make sure they know exactly how to use Twitter, especially how not to start a public tweet with '@', but with '.@' or any other leading text, otherwise most people will never see such tweets in their timeline.

During the aftermath of the Gorkha earthquake some amateurs took the initiative and compiled a list of missing relatives/friends themselves and supported other groups busy in mapping known locations where foreign visitors of Nepal were known to be stranded. Others provided background as well as  official data to those groups and sometimes informed authorities when necessary.
If foreign ministries activate known, very helpful contacts for building such 'private - public social media partnership', better and faster results will be achieved and less mistakes will be made. Just working next to each other will result in the negative developments described above. (thus implementation of 'partnership for rescue' also results in less 'bad press' as a consequence of blunders by foreign ministry staff picked-up by national newspapers)
Ham radio
Nowadays we all use or at least know about the most advanced communication tools to our disposal which are smartphones, tablets and other devices which enable us to use service like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Google and many other useful applications for keeping in contact with other people. The 'only' problem is that often after a major disaster happens, the affected area doesn't offer those neat services anymore, because their communication networks like Internet and/or telephone lines aren't working anymore or at least are not coping anymore. So either there's no communication whatsoever or at least some serious restrictions do apply since a limited remaining capacity meets a sudden increase in communication demand (from domestic customers & from abroad)

This situation leaves only two possible alternatives:
either to use satellite based communication services, available in many places of the planet, but with a very limited number of locally available hardware necessary to use this wireless service and ham radio.

Ham radio often seems to be forgotten, since those modern communication networks dominate our daily lives, but there are still many ham radio operators around the globe who also use still use the lower frequencies with limited bandwidth for their hobby. Many of those OMs (operators) still have their very large antennas and their power amplifiers as well as their Morse gear and modems for using teletype and other coding methods to communicate.

Many of those who still use HF bands with wavelength such as 80m,40m,20m,10m are in daily contact with their counterparts in other countries, some of those located on other continents, to confirm established contacts made over the airwaves.
So depending on various conditions it's possible to establish radio contact over a few hundred kilometers up to several thousand kilometers. Although the bandwidth used is much smaller than for main stream communications, it's possible to transmit, voice, data, photos and even video over the airwaves using ham radio equipment. 

In some countries like the USA it's possible for some operators to directly link their transmitting gear with their telephone land line. (not permitted in other countries). All this communication equipment is in daily use by some, if not most, of the ham radio operators and can be used immediately as emergency communication tool. They know it and many countries have some OMs organized in emergency comms groups. They know what is needed and often they establish radio contact with other OMs in the disaster stricken area without any government asking them to do so. It's in their nature not only to help their OM friends in other areas, but to support local search & rescue efforts as well. They have been used in the past as a link between local law enforcement/ disaster response officials and the outside world to enable authorities to get a picture what is needed and to coordinate the rescue & relief effort.

It would be a good idea to establish permanent contacts between national radio amateur emergency operator organizations and departments of foreign ministries in order to have an immediate communication back-up, if all other means of communication with the disaster stricken areas fail. The national amateur radio emergency communication centers will have also a map of OMs known to be in that area, either already transmitting or busy establishing contact with the 'outside world'.

Military/NATO
As described in the blog entry on how to optimize the damage assessment process prior to search & rescue operations, how to 'bundle' operations instead of every nation trying to rescue their own citizens. it's very useful for national foreign offices to stay in constant contact with their MoD & NATO HQ in charge of such a operation during the mass casualty event.
Preliminary assessments can take place immediately after consulting the common multi-national database to determine how many citizens are missing (to get a first picture about the full scale of the event) and what's their likely location. By using the mobile phone numbers of those reported missing in the disaster zone they could ask local Telecoms (or to be more precise: their government) in that area to provide location data of their GSM phones still connected to their network. If the network is down those numbers could be used by IMSI-catchers to locate the phones of the missing during a fly over.

Some recommendations also based on the aftermath of the Gorkha earthquake (& other events)

 Open database
As it is often the case, the quake hitting Nepal affected citizens of several EU countries, Canada, USA , Australia, etc. In order to have a complete picture of how many people are reported missing from all countries to determine the scale of the tragedy, it might be a good idea to collect such data in a central database, where relatives can determine what kind of information will be also shared with the public. In order to gather information from other people on vacation in that area it's of course useful to know the names of those reported missing and to have one or more photos. Contact info such as home address, phone numbers or e-mail shouldn't be public , but a instead the contact data of search coordinator/s should be released. When relatives provide passport/ID card numbers authorities should also check the correct spelling of names and verifay other given data as well and enable governments of the disaster zone to gain at access to that database, too. What happened in Nepal is that local police compiled names themselves and there have been some spelling faults and also people were still on the missing persons list who have reportedly returned safely to e.g. the United States.

'private list' compiled by Caroline Heldman, sister of one of those missing in Langtang area, used Google docs to compile and maintain list, which contained more than 400 names: (now offline/protected)
After initially also using Google docs for their missing persons list, Nepal Police started in May to use a database based system to publish their tables of those still missing:


 Open phone lines , free Internet access 
Just minutes, hours after the quake hit, some journalists in Kathmandu started announcing, that even though they still had at least 3G network connection on their mobile phone, their providers were about to cut them off, because their roaming costs had reached a certain limit.

This is unacceptable during a calamity situation where not only the life of that individual is at risk, and perhaps in need of assistance from 'outside', but where suddenly many foreign visitors have to organize their rescue and risk being cutting off by overspending. Some Indian Telecoms have reacted almost immediately and started to offer free calls from India to landlines and mobile phone numbers located in Nepal, or at least lowered the costs to local Indian call fees.

European, but also Canadian, US governments must make sure that their citizens are being protected from being cut off for billing reasons by their own GSM network companies. Instead, all calls and data traffic in that affected area should be free of charge for the duration of that crisis, enabling those who still have equipment, connection and battery power also to help others who aren't that lucky.
If necessary a compensation for those telecom operators must be found afterwards.

 Special apps for vacation
Some apps for smartphones could be offered to those who are about to go on vacation. Useful for providing specific disaster related information provided by their governments, such as address and contact info of nearest embassies and police stations, which could automatically transmit back cell data of the network they are connected to and/or GPS location data. Could also serve for storing voice messages, compressing photos and using burst transmissions in order to save battery power and limited network bandwidth after a major disaster (if those networks aren't completely down) .As todays smartphones often have high resolution cameras those apps could also be used for scanning fingerprints/IDs of people who are in the survivor group. Many smartphones also offer so called tethering which enables other users in the direct vicinity of that 'relay station' use the Internet connection of that phone, so this app could either activate that function or ate least explain how to do it manually. 
This 'vacation app' could also have stored maps (for pedestrians) of the area the tourist intended to visit and he/she can consult those offline IE without having a network connection.

 More authorities need to join social networks
In the USA and also across Europe there is hardly an authority left which is not on at least Twitter and Facebook.
It's different in other regions of the world, but during calamities such social networks can be either a useful addition to the existing, more 'old fashioned' tools of communication such as e.g. telephone, or in times when the phone network is down it's perhaps the only way of communication left as long as the Internet is still working.

A social network like Twitter or Facebook also enables its users to share links to websites with additional information and it can be used to transfer information back and forth.
In the early hours of the Gorkha earthquake there was for instance a lot of uncertainty regarding whether the central international airport of Nepal was 'open' or 'closed' for approaching aircraft. This country lacked, and to the knowledge of this author still does, a Twitter account for their civil aviation authority. Unlike the Philippines where such a Twitter handle for their aviation authority was working at the time when a devastating Cyclone hit the City of Tacloban and its airport, Nepal wasn't able to provide timely and accurate info on their airfield vital for the influx of international aid & search & rescue personnel immediately after the big M7.8 quake hit that area.

Unlike the Indian Army or the Indian ministry of defense, again to the knowledge of this author, Nepal didn't have a reliable Twitter source regarding their army's disaster response. A task later taken over by the new Twitter account: @NEoCOfficial , which proved to be a relaible source of all kind of disaster related information, including of what the Nepal Army was planning to do at that day and quantity of goods delivered to those in need, number of wounded persons flown to a hospital, etc. 
Nepalese police and the armed police force had a Twitter account as well as their 'National Society for Earthquake Technology': @NSETNepal1
which also tweeted some decision taken by the government of Nepal.
  
Twitter lists
One advantage of covering major catastrophes and assisting people during the search , rescue and relief phase is, that by collecting Twitter handles of various important and reliable sources of information, those regional lists can be used again later, immediately the next disaster happened to gather news and instructions about that disaster stricken area.

It's recommended for foreign ministries to also have their list of contacts and update it from time to time, so they are able to use it ideally from the moment another disaster hits that particular area.
Admittedly there was not a single handle from Nepal available (on a list) immediately after the main quake occurred, but there were already many important ones from India and their previous Cyclone emergencies available. It does take some time to figure out additional useful Twitter handles, but it's easier from a 'starting point' of similar agencies in that area.

Some examples of Twitter lists:
Experts information & opinion on a subject:
https://twitter.com/EZR_news/lists/quakeinfo
'Raw' news:, news papers, TV station, journalists, officials, NGOs, military, etc (disaster area specific,but needs 'human filter')
https://twitter.com/EZR_news/lists/current-emergency2

 People detected on the Twitter network who needed/provided information on missing persons:
https://twitter.com/EZR_news/lists/disaster-ppl-search
Global calamity warnings:
https://twitter.com/EZR_news/lists/calamity-warnings

 A small guide of how to create/use Twitter lists

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Saturday, May 9, 2015

Appropriate response to calamities with mass casualties

Dear reader,

 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]

Nepali Army Chief Quizzed Over Indian Rescue Helicopters Entering Sensitive Areas
No 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

>>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.<<
          source: Typhoon Haiyan [Wikipedia] tropical cyclone threat

problems occurred during recent Gorkha earthquake/Nepal:


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
[last update: May 8th 2015, 1545 CET, some errors corrected, NATO capabilities added]
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Friday, May 8, 2015

Nepal earthquake: survivors tell their story

Survivor stories
France 

 Maureen
Séisme au Népal: une Française réfugiée une semaine en montagne sans pouvoir donner de nouvelles

 UK 
Holly Cowie
Quake survivor: 'the ground turned to water under us' (Telegraph, May 1 2015]

Hayley Saul & Emma Waterton (Australia)
British archeologist 'terrified' after narrowly escaping death in Nepalese earthquake  [Telegraph, Apr 26 2015]

Joanne Hinds
Safe: Brit girl plucked from quake horror [Daily Star, May 5 th 2015]
Cheshire teenager safe after avalanche on Everest  [ITV, May 7 2015]

Jonathan Blott 
Quake survivors plea for support  [The Gazette, May 7 2015]



 USA
Corey Ascolani


US trekker describes earthquake

hitting Nepal village, posted by

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