Earlier today we discussed the disaster in the Philippines. The most recent count has the dearth tool at 1,798. The relief effort seems to be moving all too slowly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/world/asia/anger-rising-over-conditions-in-tacloban-ravaged-philippine-city.html?ref=world&_r=0
While a storm like this is impossible to prepare for should the government have had some better type of emergency system in place? What about the rest of the world, how would the UN prepare for these tragedies or is the uncertainty to such a point that this is the best they could hope to do?
i think no matter how much governments prepare for the worst, natural calamities come at the expense of all precautionary plans. the cost of this disaster is equivalent to "more than $300" and that's a hefty price to pay for any government of any caliber.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is hard to prepare for something of this magnitude. I also think that it will become more important as time goes on to work on the root of the problem, climate change. There could be real action taken to curtail climate change but all countries have to be at the table.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely hard to prepare for something like this but there should be a emergency protocol that should be in place to help when this happens.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Glaze a lot here. No one can predict this and you can never be fully prepared. But a system and plan to execute if this happens should be in place in order to protect as many people as possible.
DeleteI agree with what's been said--it's extremely hard to preempt these sorts of events because of the large uncertainty. That said, if relief aid was viewed like an investment opportunity, it might offer a way out that wasn't simply "we have to pay to rebuild." What I mean by this is, it is in the best interest of governments and local businesses to rebuild areas hit because it could potentially lead to future growth and economic returns later down the road.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed sites like Facebook and Amazon have "Donate now to emergency relief in the Philippines" links. After the Ted Talk we watched last night, I wonder if these links are the doing of the private market alone or if the public sector had any influence in this.
ReplyDeleteAgreed that it's hard to predict such calamities, but it's wrong to point the finger totally at the govt. They can only do so much. They also suffer tremendously when these tragedies occur. The army and other divisions need a shoutout for the relief work they put in!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. It's hard to predict such calamities. Such large scale natural disasters cannot only be handled by government, specially if corruption is taken count off in third world countries.For instance, In Pakistan's 2005 earthquake, the earthquake victims were helped more by people's generous donations and NGOs than the government.
DeleteGift talked about this the other day, the only way we can more adequately prepare for disasters is learn from current and past disasters, sadly this means death can occur.
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