Tribal Wisdom Valuable
Against Earthquakes
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK , Oct 13 (IPS) - As the death toll mounts in the earthquake that
struck the Himalayan territory of Kashmir on the weekend, fresh light is being
shed on the remarkable escape of an Indonesian community from another natural
disaster -- last December's devastating tsunami.
On Wednesday, the leaders of Simeulue community received a prestigious U.N.
award here for the tens of thousands of lives saved during the Dec. 26 tsunami
by placing faith on their observations of how the sea behaves and also the
reaction of buffaloes.
Thanks to faith in their own knowledge, this community of some 80,500 people
fled the shore for nearby hills on that fateful Sunday morning in December.
Consequently, only seven people died from the tsunami in this island community,
as against the staggering 163,795 people that died across the rest of
Indonesia's northern Aceh province, which Simeulue is part of.
''The story of what happens to the sea before a tsunami and how the buffaloes
rush towards the hills has been shared by families for years along with other
stories about our ancestors,'' a soft-spoken Mohamed Ridwan, a leader of the
Simeulue community, said soon after receiving the award.
This oral narrative had been shaped by the destruction that shook this community
of farmers, fishermen and traders when an earthquake followed by a tsunami hit
the islanders in 1907, killing thousands.
''Since then we have learnt how to escape, and last December it took about 30
minutes to get to the higher ground,'' Ridwan, 53, secretary of the Simeuleu
district region, explained during an interview.
The flight and the thousands of lives saved as a result are all the more
remarkable given that Simeulue people were located close to the epicentre of the
powerful Indian Ocean earthquake that triggered the tsunami.
''What happened in Simeuleu was a unique achievement in the midst of all the
death in Aceh due to the tsunami,'' Nannie Hudawati, a senior official at
Indonesia's national disaster management office, told IPS. ''It was the one
community that had its own traditional way of avoiding the impact of a
tsunami.''
The recognition of this Indonesian community as one of the winners of the United
Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction has also brought to the fore the
relevance of indigenous knowledge to save lives during natural disasters.
Two other communities also stood out in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami for
relying on traditional knowledge and fleeing to safety -- the sea gypsies along
Thailand's southern coast and the tribal communities living on India's remote
Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Sensing the change in their natural surroundings minutes before the deadly ocean
waves struck, these tribal people fled the shore for higher ground, resulting in
thousands of lives saved.
Last year's tsunami was the world's worst natural disaster, decimating
populations on the coastlines in 11 countries across the Indian Ocean, resulting
in 224,495 deaths and leaving millions homeless.
Indonesia's Aceh province was the worst hit, with 163,795 deaths, followed by
Sri Lanka, with 35,399 deaths, India, with 16,389 deaths, and Thailand, with
8,345 death, among the other affected nations.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies (IFRC), Asia accounts for the most number of people killed during
natural disasters over the past decade--an estimated 702, 775 people.
Asia is also the where the most number of disasters have struck since 1995 -
2,459 and these range from landslides, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods,
volcanic eruptions to windstorms says the IFRC's annual 'World Disasters Report
2005,' released earlier this month.
The powerful earthquake that hit the mountainous terrain that Pakistan and India
share comes as one more reminder of how vulnerable Asian communities are to
natural disasters.
The toll from the weekend's disaster was inching towards the 100,000 mark with
many more injured going by figures given out by Pakistani officials.
''There is no denying that indigenous knowledge and local traditions are vital
to saving lives during natural disasters,'' says Rene Jinon, acting head of
IFRC's South-east Asia disaster management unit. ''Instead of negating it we
have to build on it, and such knowledge is quite extensive in this region.''
Communities in Cambodia, the Philippines, East Timor, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos
and Vietnam are among the few that place faith in the insights of their
ancestors to escape the ravages of floods, landslides, typhoons and volcanic
eruptions.
Nevertheless, the bias among governments is still towards satellite mappings and
''high-tech gizmos,'' Jinon added during an interview. ''Within communities also
this generates a debate, about whose advice they should follow: the warnings of
the scientific community or what flows from local knowledge.''
In the wake of disasters like the tsunami, the U.N. has been prompted to enter
this debate by taking a closer and more sympathetic look at the unique
traditions of people like the Simeulue.
''We are putting together a report that looks at the successful lessons
communities using traditional knowledge offer us,'' says Joseph Chung, senior
regional officer for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N. International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction. ''It will include accounts of communities that build houses
to withstand earthquakes.''
According to Chung, the remarkable achievement of the Simeulue should resonate
in other forms, too, such as local communities being empowered to develop their
own contemporary methods to escape disasters.
''You can have all the technology in the world but if the community doesn't
respond in time, it is useless,'' he explained. ''And governments are often slow
to respond, because they are far away and removed from the affected
communities.'' (END/2005)
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