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Georgia Earthquake Shakes Up Response Strategies
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Tbilisi, Georgia, September 2009-A powerful recent earthquake in northern Georgia, though causing no deaths and few injuries, helped provide key information that will help with preparing for future disasters. Two days after the 6.2 Richter scale earthquake, representatives from the Georgian government, United Nations, international organizations and NGOs met to discuss lessons learned during the on-going emergency response. The particpants convened as part of a United Nations Development Programme-facilitated think-tank organized to discuss the earthquake and assess preparedness and emergency responses. "The 8 September earthquake was a wake-up call for all of us,” Erik Kjaergaard, UNDP Disaster Risk Reduction advisor, said at the meeting. "It reminded us that Georgia is exposed to natural hazards and that we need to prepare ourselves accordingly." Georgia is vulnerable to a variety of hazards including earthquakes, floods, droughts, landslides, avalanches and technological disasters. The think-tank formed in March 2009 as part of an ongoing effort to share and coordinate information about preventive and proactive approaches to such disasters. Lessons learned from the discussion on the recent earthquake include: - Need for a better understanding of seismic events (such as the distinction between magnitude and intensity and the shaking pattern which caused relatively few casualties) - Need for a better distinction between number of affected /displaced population and between number of damaged /destroyed houses - Need for better and streamlined rapid assessment procedures All of this will better inform UNDP’s long-term efforts in disaster risk reduction. In Georgia, the information will also be shared with the government and international organizations to ensure humanitarian gaps and duplication of efforts are identified in advance. The Georgian government and the UN system have also put disaster risk reduction high on the agenda of the new UN Development Assistance Framework 2011-2015. In addition, UNDP presented two publications at the 10 September meeting that aim to assist the disaster risk reduction efforts in the country: the Georgian translation of the up-to-date disaster risk reduction terminology developed by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction; and the first edition of the directory "Who Does What Where in Disaster Risk Reduction in Georgia”. The directory is co-published by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Georgian National Committee of Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development, and UNDP, and is available at the UNDP Georgia website. Participants in the panel discussion included the Emergency Management Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Georgian Red Cross Society. |
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