Opinion Disaster reserves By Scott T. Hards	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
サンダーバード、出動せよ！ 大災害が発生した場合、何よりも素早い対応が大切だ。 まず国内のボランティアの人々を組織し、緊急時に出動できるようにしてはどうだろう。

A few hours before I heard the first reports about the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster I was sitting at home watching last year's cute "Thunderbirds" movie on DVD. After learning just how massive the devastation caused by those waves was, the notion of an instant-response team of rescuers sitting around waiting for something bad to happen, and then quickly flying to the rescue when it does, seemed like a really, really good idea.

After a major natural disaster like that, the international community jumps to life and begins sending aid and supplies and medical teams, but things always seem to take too long. Even as I write these words, 7 weeks after the tragedy, the Japanese military is just now deciding to send some helicopters to assist in recovery efforts.

While we're seeing an unprecedented amount of international support due to the scale of the loss, it all still feels like too little too late to me. Disasters like this are part of life, and they will always happen. So why can't the response be better prepared? Why is there no "manual" for responding to disasters nationally or internationally? Why can't the Thunderbirds always be standing by, with medicines and search dogs, and heavy equipment for moving debris? The same things are always needed every time.

This doesn't have to be a coordinated international effort, either. A country like Japan has plenty of domestic disasters, like the earthquakes in Niigata last fall, that require a predictable response. So where's the disaster response team?

As we saw last fall, these days many Japanese are now feeling the need to contribute when a crisis hits their neighbors. Thousands of volunteers showed up in Niigata to offer their services. While that's superb, it still takes a lot of effort to manage these volunteers' work. Why not have them sign up beforehand in a national database? There are some small-scale NGO efforts; let's coordinate those into a huge national one! Volunteers can list their special skills, or the types of work they want to do, and save valuable time when the need actually comes. And like military reserves, there could be drills once or twice a year for volunteers to practice rescue and recovery techniques, first aid and more.

Japan is currently working to downsize its military and restructure its armaments to make more sense for the threats that Japan actually faces. As we know all too well, natural disasters are one of the biggest threats there are. How about taking some of the savings from having less tanks, and putting it into having more rapid-deployment steam shovels and medicines for the next tsunami or earthquake. It's only a matter of time.

Shukan ST: Jan. 28, 2005

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