Tsunami: Immediate Impact and Response

The immediate impact of the tsunami was unprecedented. The death toll is estimated at over 36,000 (30,957 people listed as dead with an additional 5644 listed as missing) according to the latest figures available (DCS, 2005). The majority of victims were women and children. An estimated total of 800,000 people were displaced. In terms of the dead and missing numbers, Sri Lanka’s toll was second only to Indonesia (126,804, missing 93,458, displaced 474,619), and greater than India (10,749; missing: 5,640; injured: 6,913), and Thailand (over 5,000 dead and 3,000 missing).⁴ Tens of thousands of houses were damaged or destroyed (including large numbers of fishermen’s houses). Twenty-five beach hotels were severely damaged, and another 6 were completely washed away. More than 240 schools were destroyed or sustained serious damage. Several hospitals, telecommunication networks, coastal railway network, etc., were also damaged.

The geographic impact of the tsunami was uneven. Much of the coastal belt of the Northern, Eastern and Southern Provinces and some parts of the Western Province were severely damaged. The Northern and Eastern Provinces were particularly hard hit accounting for two-thirds of deaths and almost 60 per cent of the displacement (Figure 1 [ PDF 248.1KB | 1 pages ]). The severity of the tsunami disaster in the Northern and Eastern Provinces compounded problems arising from the two decades of conflict: the majority of the 360,000 internally displaced people live in these two provinces.⁵

The tsunami hit on a public holiday – a Sunday after the Christmas day, which also happened to be a Full Moon day (a day of religious observance for the majority Buddhist community). Most government offices were shut or had only a skeleton staff. The initial and immediate response came from community groups. This was soon followed by government initiatives organized by the Prime Minister—whose own constituency, Hambantota, suffered significant damage. The President, who was in London on holidays, soon returned to Sri Lanka and assumed overall leadership of the government’s tsunami response. Subsequently, other Ministers in charge of key sectors hit by the tsunami (fisheries, tourism) also returned from overseas visits and took charge of their respective ministerial responsibilities.

In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, the Ministry of Public Security, Law and Order set up an operations centre, Centre for National Operations (CNO), to handle the response, and the Secretary to the Ministry was appointed as the Commissioner General of Essential Services to oversee coordination of government agencies involved in rescue and relief. Three Task Forces were set up—Task Force for Rescue and Relief (TAFRER), Task Force for Logistics, Law and Order (TAFLOL), and Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN) to address specific aspects of the relief effort. From the very early stages there were concerns about how assistance could be channelled to LTTE controlled areas. However, it appears that basic relief supplies did manage to get through to affected people during the early phases of the relief effort.

3.1 Immediate Relief Effort: A Success

While there were hiccups and some amount of confusion in organizing relief, for a country that had not previously experienced such a disaster, Sri Lankan institutions responded reasonably well. Essential medical aid, emergency food and other relief supplies were mobilized within a day. Temporary shelter was provided to the displaced in schools, other public and religious buildings, and tents. Communities and groups cooperated across barriers that had divided them for decades. Public and private sector organizations cooperated and organized relief efforts at many levels. Sri Lanka’s past investments in public health paid off in this emergency: the broad-based public health system and community awareness of basic sanitary and hygienic practices ensured that there were no disease outbreaks.

Once the immediate relief and rehabilitation measures for provision of food, shelter, clothing, clean water, and sanitary and medical facilities to affected families had been provided, it was necessary to address community needs to cope with the trauma and start rebuilding their lives. A high priority was to restore at least basic education facilities to affected children. By mid-year 85 per cent of the children in tsunami – affected areas were back in school. Relief efforts included provision of finances to meets immediate needs. Compensation of Rs.15,000 (US$150) was offered for victims towards funeral expenses; livelihood support schemes included payment of Rs.375 (US$3.75) in cash and rations for each member of a family unit per week, a payment of Rs.2,500 (US$25) towards kitchen utensils. These initial measures were largely successful, though there were some problems with lack of coordination.⁶

In the circumstances, the following assessment of the initial response to the tsunami, presented to the donor meetings held in Sri Lanka in May 2005, seems an accurate description of the situation:

"In the months following the disaster, much has been accomplished. The general consensus is that emergency relief was singularly successful in meeting the immediate needs of the affected people. The unprecedented outpouring of private and institutional generosity meant that families were provided with a place to stay, food was distributed, medical assistance was made available, orphaned children were taken into care. Basic public services such as education, electricity and security were soon restored to close to pre–tsunami levels.

As a result, the epidemics and deaths that many feared following the disaster never happened. This rapid stabilization of a traumatized population has allowed attention to thus quickly be turned towards the, in many ways, more difficult and complex challenge of assisting the affected areas to return to normalcy and the affected families to begin to rebuild their lives." ⁷

However, tackling the next phase of reconstruction and recovery is likely to be both more complex and difficult. These challenges are discussed in the following sections.

The views expressed in this paper are the views of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank Institute nor the Asian Development Bank. Names of countries or economies mentioned are chosen by the author/s, in the exercise of his/her/their academic freedom, and the Institute is in no way responsible for such usage.

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