S. Asia’s resilience in face of calamity: A tale of two disasters
By Salil Panchal
MUMBAI: In New Orleans there was shooting and looting when the floods came last week. When a similiar inundation struck India’s financial capital Mumbai a month earlier, there was no violence, just free wada-pav bread.
Residents say street vendors passed out the “wada-pav”, potato-filled bread, to their fellow citizens wading through waist-high water in a sign that the disaster, which killed more than 400, brought the city together rather than tearing it apart as appeared to happen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck the US southern Gulf coast one week ago.
The street vendors’ response seems to symbolize what South Asians say is the region’s familiarity with, and resilience in the face of, numerous natural calamities.
“What we are seeing in USA is complete chaos,” said Farida Lambe, vice president of the Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work which helped in relief and rehabilitation work during the Mumbai floods.
“My assessment is that many of the problems arose as the people are not used to facing calamities. They expect complete efficiency and find it difficult to cope if it does not come about.”
US newspapers have criticized the slow response by the administration of President George W. Bush to the hurricane, many of whose victims are poor blacks.
“We do not go about looting like we saw in the TV reports from the US. Despite being poor people, I think we are far more responsible and humane,” said Mrinmoye Nath, a nurse at a local hospital in western Assam.
The northeastern Indian state is home to a separatist insurgency and also sees annual floods that wash away villages, destroy crops and lead to a huge loss of life.
More than 400 people died in late July and early August when days of heavy rain turned the streets of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, into rivers.
Mumbai police commissioner A.N. Roy confirmed there were no cases of looting, arson or violence when the floods hit.
“Even stray cases of robbery were not heard or reported,” he said.
Mumbai has nearly 20 million residents. New Orleans had about 500,000.
In the Indian city, political parties provided guards at relief camps to help keep valuables and money safe. But in New Orleans, looting and other crimes prompted authorities to eventually send in thousands of US troops.
“Mumbai and the country as a whole are more resilient and hands-on. Though we had trouble initially, considering the number of people staying in Mumbai, we did a fair job,” Lambe said.
India and South Asian nations including Bangladesh, home to more than a combined one billion people, have regularly faced natural disasters from earthquakes, storms and floods during annual monsoon rains.
As a result, the countries have developed rapid responses for shelter and relief that while not always wholly successful for long-term rehabilitation, have enabled them to handle immediate needs quickly.
India declined immediate disaster relief after more than 5,000 people were killed during last December’s tsunamis which swept across Asia.
It sent naval ships to neighbouring Sri Lanka where nearly 31,000 people were killed and one million left homeless by the tsunamis.
Now, India is giving five million dollars to the American Red Cross for relief activities in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, India’s ambassador to the US said on Sunday.
Sri Lanka has donated 25,000 dollars to the United States, its foreign ministry said.
In Bangladesh, an impoverished delta nation regularly hit by floods and cyclones that kill thousands, the conservative daily newspaper, Inquilab, said the government should share its expertise in disaster relief.
“Bangladesh has faced hurricanes, more or less as powerful than Katrina, and floods are a daily event here. The government should send its troops to hurricane-affected American states as our troops are praised abroad for their roles in tackling natural disasters.”
Between 300,000 and 500,000 people were killed when a cyclone slammed into the country’s coastline in November 1970. A similar disaster in 1991 killed about 140,000.
“After the 1970 cyclone, Bangladesh trained as many as 33,000 volunteers and developed its own cyclone preparedness programme to face any such disaster,” said Saidur Rahman, head of the Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness Center.
Having experienced such disasters themselves, some Mumbai residents offered prayers for the US victims, and said this is not the time to blame government.
