What important lessons can be learned from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami?
In any disaster, there are valuable lessons to learn, and the Asia-Pacific and the world at-large learnt a lot from the tragedy of December 2004. Similarly, we will all learn from the Sichuan-Wenchuan earthquake of 12 May 2008. One very important lesson is that successful disaster recovery depends on community involvement and support – Recovery is as much psychological as it is physical, and hence victims being able to come to terms with their new reality, and to learn to cope with the changed situation is considerably enhanced if they “own” the recovery process. While this approach can often make the recovery process longer (as was discovered following the 2004 earthquake and tsunami), it results in more satisfaction—this was what was discovered following the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, which instituted a comprehensive community-based recovery program that turned out to be very successful; and which was picked up and applied following the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster. An important p
