Its been an absolute whirlwind since the 31st of last month when the latest 'Big One' hit. Poured out of the house within a minute of the earthquake announcing its arrival in now-familiar fashion ten minutes past 11 in the night: headboard banging against the wall, floors undulating beneath my feet as I grab the bag sitting by the bed containing passport, money, flashlight etc. and the house plunges into darkness. A glass shatters on the floor and I bang my knees off unfamiliar pieces of furniture herding J through the living-room and into the driveway. Note to self: proper grab-bag is a must. Water, military rations, candles, both cell phones, my Motorola GP340 and some clothes.
Outside the streets are filling with people racing for the local mosque. Children sobbing, the cemetery dogs baying and a curtain of dust rising from the street. The ancient trees that line the median are wobbling like a picket fence in a wind; you can taste the fear. The radio crackles to life and now the anxiety is broadcast for all to hear.
"Bravo Foxtrot Base. This is Bravo Foxtrot one-one-zero. Come in, over."
Within minutes the lack of preparedness is clear as day. Voices cracking with emotion, the oh-so slightly distorted sounds of people crying and yelling across the bandwidth.
"Bravo Oscar Base, there's been an earthquake!"
No shit.
Mercifully the lights come on fairly quickly, bringing with it a general calm.
Both my mobiles are buzzing impatiently with a dozen text-messages from journos in Jakarta. ABC News in the States is the first to get through but I blow them off saying I've got to keep the line open for the next few minutes.
Amidst it all, Anim and the boys who share the house, J and I are perfectly calm. I'm pleased I don't have to put out emotional fires, comfort or 'be there' so I can better concentrate on finding out exactly what has happened.
(I've now subscribed to an SMS service that is supposed to alert me in real time to all earthquakes in Southeast Asia greater than 6.0. It's a measure of how far we have come that I'm not remotely interested in a 5.5 for example, which can be a nasty piece of work all on its own, especially if its shallow.)
By 23:40 I know that first readings measure the quake at 8.3 somewhere off the west coast of Sumatra. Later it'll be upgraded to 8.7 and we'll know more precisely that its was centered just off the coast of the Banyak Islands, that it caused extensive damage to the neighboring islands of Simeulue and Nias, that 1,300+ people are believe to have died - through a mathematical formula the UN employs, if you can believe this - plotting the extend of damage to individual structures with the number of people living inside.
I will do a dozen+ interviews until 2.30 am. Fortunately there's a couple of coolies in the fridge and I've got plenty smokes.
The following morning I attend the emergency meeting of the heads of agencies at the offices of the UNFPA, the 'population control' people, which has a taste of irony I can't quite fathom. Only one topic of conversation of course.
Information is starting to dribble in from the affected islands. Masood Haider, the UN's deputy humanitarian aid coordinator for Sumatra (top guy on the ground), Michele Lipner, the head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) and the top managers from the seven of eight largest agencies are all their.
Given the dearth of information from the coast there's actually very little concrete to say except that the previous night was proof, as if further were needed, that if the earth split beneath our feet as I type, we're all screwed.
There really is no "plan" in the event of an emergency. Even if there were, the differing agencies would squabble for turf and media coverage. Best just to plan for individual survival and leave the big picture to others. Fact is, if things went south in Aceh right now you'd pretty much have to take me at gunpoint to an outbound plane or helicopter. The instinct to remain, to push past the curtain of flames is far too strong.
I'm reduced to a snickering puddle when the head of one of the agencies describes in dramatic terms how he bolted the gate of a staff home to prevent folks from fleeing the grounds (and if the house had collapsed?) Later he bootlicks to beat Wormtongue, detailing his enormous relief at hearing Massod's "calm and reassuring" voice on the radio 30 minutes after the earthquake, urging him to use the radio in all emergencies as a salve to the huddled, fearful masses of international staff yearning for direction. Even Masood has sufficient modesty to look embarrassed.
It'll be several frustrating days before I finally land in Nias. In the interim I've been at it from dawn till late, all of us have. Lost count of the number of interviews and meetings. It's amazing to watch the 'system' wake up. Umpteen hundred ton boats arrive in Banda Aceh, Calang and Meulaboh waiting to be filled with every aid item conceive of; the UN's air service kicks in with Mi8s, Bells, SuperPumas and other makes and models of helicopter, and points Beechcraft and deHavilands, c-160s and Fokkers at the ruined runway on Nias. All must be fueled and serviced.
Many warehouses are stocked up - in some cases over-supplied with items delivered in the wake of the tsunami - so there's a rush to find out who's got what, where. For all OCHA's attempts to 'coordinate' the most effective and rapid responses are those cobbled together on the side-lines of the daily emergency meetings:
"I've got a 400 metric ton ship in the harbour leaving in 36 hours."
"We've got 350 family-sized tents... there's 5,000 family packs and 5,000 hygiene kits over here... this woman's organization has four 16-foot, motorized dinghies that can carry a ton of supplies each, might be useful in Simeulue whose capitol's port was reduced to match-sticks by 4-meter waves following the earthquake... is there room for our solar-powered water purification unit? It can produce 6,000 liters of fresh water every hour.... WFP is hauling 300 MT of food; maybe the vessels can sail together. IOM has 30 10-wheelers in Banda Aceh so we can pick-up all your freight and deliver it to the port, 30 minutes from town."
A day-and-a-half later, while I'm cooling my heels in Medan for 24 hours waiting for a UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) flight to Nias, that ship slips out and south to the epicenter.
The Nias/Simeulue situation is almost a perfect confluence of events to test the international agency’s' ability to react. On the one hand, there are enormous logistical hurdles to overcome. Roads, bridges and ports are out, there's no power, running water, the phones don't work and the local administration is sleepy and rotten to the core, overwhelmed by events and fearful of a vengeful population steeled by their hunger. The affected areas are remote islands known for surf beaches so the sea is an issue, especially now as the Westerlies throw up five-meter swells. Many survivors refuse to come out of the mountains. If you'd survived a 20-meter tsunami only to watch your house collapse in the middle of the night 100 days later in the seventh largest earthquake in the past century AND your kids are crying 24/7 because there have been 136 aftershocks in the past eight days, would you come out of the mountains or sit pretty eating bananas and sipping spring water for a few weeks?
On the flip side, there are plenty of experienced people available to help. There are lots of boats, choppers and planes. There's food, water, shelter, generators, fuel, and medical help in spades. The TNI is (mostly) playing ball - they refused some agency flight privileges and continue to insist they are the primary agency through which aid will flow - so there are fewer hurdles. The N Sumatra governor is a moron - he refused to allow aid to be shipped through the provincial capital Medan if it was going to Simeulue (Aceh) instead of Nias (N Sumatra) - but at least he is on the ground in Nias. While 630 bodies have been recovered and the smell is pretty atrocious in places, and perhaps 3,500 require varying degrees of medical assistance, it is a manageable load if you frame it against the post-tsunami situation.
If one were to use a single barometer, say, the rapid deployment of the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination group, one might get some taste of how history might judge the response. This is pulled from the website:
"Upon request of a disaster-stricken country, the UNDAC team can be deployed within hours to carry out rapid assessment of priority needs and to support national Authorities and the United Nations Resident Coordinator to coordinate international relief on-site. Members of the UNDAC team are permanently on stand-by to deploy to relief missions following disasters and humanitarian emergencies anywhere in the world."
Today, nine days after the earthquake, was UNDAC's first day in Nias and no one can explain why.