Where do we run to?

4.53 pm on the 12th day of January 2010 must have been the darkest hour for inhabitants of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and its outskirts. Property of unknown worth reduced to shambles, deaths and casualties with numbers rising, owing to a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Thousands still remain trapped in the rubble with more not knowing where else to call home save for the already packed streets. International aid agencies and governments world over are now ganging up humanitarian help in a bid to respond to this emergency situation.

Yet this huge catastrophe could have been avoided. According to the Miami Herald, geologists had long warned about seismic pressures building up along the Enriquillo Fault Line that runs from Jamaica through Port-au-Prince and into the Enriquillo Valley in the Dominican Republic. They had predicted a 7.2 magnitude earthquake or even more; they just didn’t know when it would happen.

A little back home, Kenya, and similar situations though not as grim leave the same bitter taste in our mouths. January 9th 2010 saw the death of three people, four others injured and 40 households left homeless as a result of a collapsed building in the country’s Central province. 21st October 2009, 17 people lost their lives working in a construction site, whose works had been flagged as disastrous by a local court three days before the incident.

In the month of December 2009 alone, at least 24 people as well as 6000 livestock died while 70,000 men, women and children were left in dire need of humanitarian aid as a result of floods prompted by the El-Nino rains. They too had been earlier advised by the Meteorological department to prepare themselves enough for the coming disaster. Some heeded, most stayed back with a part of them threatening to take legal action on the weather body due to their erred predictions as the rains had delayed. Before they knew it, their houses and property went away with the roaring waters. And just like Haiti as well as other many disaster prone countries, well let’s just say things could have been better.

Disasters are increasingly becoming part of our daily routine with experts alluding to climate change and other environmental related issues. Nonetheless, as long as we remain gravely unprepared for looming risks and disasters, tremendous death and loss of property will be inevitable when they (disasters) strike. Despite prior warnings by experts Port-au-Prince still remained overly congested with sprouted buildings everywhere, even on its hill slopes.

So then the hardest question begs, “Where do we run to?”

Though long overdue, governments especially of developing countries need to take a second and more serious look into investing in disaster preparedness and mitigation as opposed to emergency response. We need not have lost hundreds of people in an oil tanker tragedy to see the importance of teaching populace how to keep safe in such scenarios. Should Haiti have put a few stringent measures relating to disaster mitigation and reduction, maybe the impact and effects wouldn’t have been as immense.

It is imperative for us to know what disasters we are likely to face, what to do to keep us safer in such situations and how we prevent future occurrences of the same. Let us build our homes and other structures on higher grounds to protect us from floods. Avoid the hill slopes, stay a safe distance away from the beds or shores of huge water bodies or plant more trees on hills or mountains that will slow down torrents flowing downwards. Most importantly, invest in young children’s knowledge and education on disaster reduction and bring up a more disaster resilient generation. Teach them to cut huge bushes that harbor dangerous animals like the snake instead of how to kill it after its bitten their ankles. Use the locally made sand bags instead of over relying on the fire department’s carbon dioxide to put out the inferno.

It is time we took responsibility of our safety first and then marvel at the greater levels of development we shall be propelled to soon after.