Global Capitalism responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 in the Indian Ocean.

international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Thursday December 30, 2004 20:32 by SP member - Socialist Party CWI

The island of Diego Garcia, apparently as vulnerable as many other islands in the Indian Ocean escaped without any casualties. It just happens to have a US Air Force base on it, which is directly linked to the US Pacific Command in Hawaii which knew about the earthquake hours before the tsunamis hit the islands shores. Even half an hour’s warning gives enough time to get away from the wave. As An expert on hazard research wrote in the Independent: “Forethought and practical action can make the difference between a natural event and a natural disaster”.

Everyone with access to some form of media is shocked and bewildered by what happened on the shores of the Indian Ocean on the morning of 26 December.
Around the world, a huge amount of sympathy is being expresses and a desire to do something to help. People feel that something must be done, not only to assist the grieving and the survivors but also to prevent any repetition of such widespread death and destruction. They are asking: “Why were casualties so large? Why no warning systems? What is the future for the millions affected? How can their lives not only be rebuilt but dramatically improved?” In a special programme on BBC television on 29 December, John Simpson described the area of the world as one where the wealthy (and we would say, not so wealthy) come to holiday and the poor cling to a precarious existence at the best of times.
Although no early warning system can predict the timing of an earthquake, a tsunami is predictable. An earthquake below the ocean floor sets up waves of water that move at speeds of 500-700 kilometres/hour. Their height may be as little as a centimetre, but when these waves reach shallow water they slow down and grow in height and destructive power.
When an earthquake occurs it is detectable with seismographic recorders, even thousands of miles away. The epicentre can be identified quickly and an estimate made of the likely risk of tsunami waves. Other equipment can measure the presence of such waves when they are still small in height and far out to sea.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) was set up in 1949, based in Hawaii. Despite its existence, destructive tsunamis have continued. But technological improvements in recent years have enormously improved the ability of scientists to detect them and issue warnings to coastal areas of their approach.
Since 1995 the Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) system has been developed in the Pacific. Six communication buoys are linked to anchored bottom pressure recorders, sending by satellite a real-time record of changes. In 2001 there was an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale southwest of Kodiak City, Alaska. The data was reported on the DART website within four minutes.
Indian Ocean Scientists have been urging countries in the Indian Ocean region to protect their high population densities by being prepared. At a meeting of the UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission in June, specialists concluded that the "Indian Ocean has a significant threat from both local and distant tsunamis" and should have a warning network - but no action was agreed.
On the 24th December 2004 a warning was issued after the biggest earthquake of the year (8.1 Richter scale), 1000 miles southwest of New Zealand. The PTWC website warned of “widely destructive” tsunamis possible. However, the earthquake turned out to be caused by tectonic plates moving sideways against each other, rather than up and down, lessening the effects on the ocean above
“There's no reason for a single individual to get killed in a tsunami," Tad Murty, a Canadian tsunami specialist said. "The waves are totally predictable. We have travel-time charts for the whole of the Indian Ocean. From where this earthquake hit, the travel time for waves to hit the tip of India was four hours. That's enough time for a warning." (Independent 28.12. 04)
The Hawaii PTWC had detected the 9.0 Richter earthquake and likelihood of tsunamis. Incredibly, they issued warnings to Pacific countries but not to those around the Indian Ocean. “We tried to do what we could. We don't have any contacts in our address book for anybody in that particular part of the world," said Charles McCreery, director of the centre. (Independent 28.12.04)
Why has an Indian Ocean version of the DART system not been set up? “The instruments are very expensive and we don’t have the money to buy them,” said Budi Waluyo of the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (Houston Chronicle 28.12.04). Yet DART’s annual running cost was under $2million in 2002. Such sums are spent in a few minutes of high technology warfare. How much has the Indonesian government spent fighting in East Timor and Aceh, the Sri Lankan government against the Tamil Tigers, the Indian government in Kashmir or the Somali government fighting Eritrea?
How much interest on debt is sucked out of the region each year by the major capitalist nations? These same governments that now take days to put together relief missions of a few million dollars take far more out year after year. How much will they put back into reconstructing the homes, boats, bridges and roads that have been destroyed? After the Bam earthquake in Iran, exactly one year earlier, $1 billion aid was promised. Only $17million has been paid so far.
Without an immediate massive mobilisation of resources many more will die from disease and starvation than were swept away by the waves. Capitalism has failed to protect the people of the Indian Ocean coastal areas from preventable death. It is unable to respond with the urgency and planning needed to save the survivors and help them rebuild. The resources of the world need to be owned and democratically planned by the working class and poor peasants to ensure that natural events, like earthquakes and tsunamis, are minimised and those affected helped to recover.
There is another warning, too, from these terrible events. If global warming continues and ocean levels keep rising, low-lying areas such as the Maldives and Andaman Islands will be subjected to further floods and destruction, not from rare events like tsunamis, but storms which occur frequently. The most effective natural defences, like mangrove swamps and coral reefs, are the most vulnerable to capitalism’s destructive developments.