On the morning of December 26, 2004, an earthquake of rare intensity occurred off the island of Sumatra. The shock wave causes a tsunami of unprecedented force which devastates South-East Asia and causes damage up to the east coast of Africa. The results of this catastrophe: 230,000 dead in 14 countries, millions injured and homeless. So many destinies interrupted, hanging by a thread while waiting for a long return to normal life. The humanitarian response will also be unprecedented. A three-part look at one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the modern era.
“Every time I think of the tsunami, I remember the smell: the smell of death. »
Almost 20 years after being deployed to Indonesia, Lina Holguin's memories are still vivid.
Arriving on site ten days after the disaster, the person who was then working within Oxfam-Québec found herself in the epicenter of the disaster, the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh, which was hit by a wall of water 10 meters high.
“When I arrived, the emergency teams were still out [des décombres] people who died, remembers Lina Holguin. There were dead people everywhere, debris and more debris. Local Oxfam workers were still searching for their family and unsure whether they were still alive or dead. »
Similar scenes are being reproduced all around the shock wave, in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Myanmar and as far as Somalia.
Indonesia, and the province of Aceh in particular, paid the highest price in human lives: almost 170,000 dead, dozens of towns and villages completely razed. Local authorities are overwhelmed, the army and police are inefficient.
In the first days, emergency teams flocked from all over the world. We are busy pulling victims out of the rubble, treating the injured, providing survivors with the minimum: drinking water, food, and when possible, a roof over their heads.
Hundreds of kilometers away, far from the damage caused by the 9.1 magnitude earthquake, on the island of Batam, Jean-Pierre Taschereau is fulfilling an equally important mission.
For the Red Cross, he coordinates the arrival of dozens of planes loaded with emergency equipment and medical supplies. An air bridge which will ensure a vital link between Indonesia and the rest of the planet for weeks.
When he arrived, 17 planes converged from all over the world towards the scene of the tragedy.
“We didn't know where they were going to land,” says today the man who, 20 years later, is still employed by the Red Cross.
“We couldn't land in Banda Aceh because the local airport couldn't handle the big intercontinental planes. And anyway, there was no fuel for the return flight. »
The Indonesian island of Batam, which faces Singapore, therefore becomes a “transit station” for aid flowing in from around the world, 24 hours a day.
“You could say that I had the keys to the airport at that moment,” remembers Jean-Pierre Taschereau with a smile.
Two decades later, the humanitarian veteran, who also served in Haiti and Sierra Leone, is still marked by “this moment of grace” where “everyone wanted to do their part, so that the aid would reach as quickly as possible” to the victims.
“We did things we thought were impossible,” he says with emotion. I managed to bring a plane from Singapore and get a license to fly it within the country within 48 hours, when normally it takes months. »
This “honeymoon” only lasted a few weeks before the bureaucracy took over, but it made it possible to direct thousands of tons of essential equipment from the four corners of the globe to the scene of the tragedy.
A global momentum
At a time when the Internet and social networks are not yet omnipresent, it takes a few days after the tidal wave to understand the scale of the drama playing out in Southeast Asia. But when the severity of the disaster is known on a global scale, an unprecedented outpouring of generosity unfolds. In just a few months, nearly $14 billion was raised to help disaster victims and rebuild their homes.
In Canada alone, the Red Cross Society raised a record $360 million in donations, the highest amount ever raised by a charitable organization in the country. Donations from ordinary Canadian citizens alone (190 million) exceed those offered by the federal government via the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), provincial governments and businesses.
“It is a crisis that has arrived at a time of year when the West is on vacation and has its eyes glued to its television. And obviously, it’s a disaster of historic proportions,” says François Audet, director general of the Canadian Observatory on Crises and Humanitarian Aid, to explain the deluge of donations directed to humanitarian organizations.
The 2004 tsunami and the earthquake in Port-au-Prince six years later are rare examples of disasters where international donations meet or even exceed needs. In the case of the tsunami, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), overwhelmed by donations, even went so far as to refuse new donations.
Conversely, in 80% of cases, humanitarian crises are underfunded, recalls François Audet, who worked to help tsunami victims for CARE Canada and then for the Red Cross.
“I did this for 20 years, in Canada and internationally, and it was one of the only times where I felt that money was not a constraint,” remembers Jean-Pierre Taschereau. If you could do something, you did it. Our constraints at this time were not financial, but logistical. »
The surpluses collected will make it possible to finance a regional tidal wave warning system, and above all a long reconstruction which took place over several years.
Build back better
When she visited the district of Ampara, Sri Lanka, in 2007, on behalf of Oxfam-Québec, Julie McHugh could still see traces left by the giant wave three years earlier: boats of fishing moved hundreds of meters from the coast, buildings in ruins. She may not have seen the tsunami, but she was able to see the damage, both physical and psychological, left by the disaster.
“All the people we approached were extremely marked, it was touching to hear their story. We saw families who had rebuilt themselves, women who had become heads of households. It was still very present three years later,” she emphasizes.
After the first weeks of urgent need to provide the necessary care to the survivors, reconstruction, with its hopes and failures, got underway in the first months of 2005.
For humanitarian agencies, the watchword is Build Back Betterbuild back better.
“We didn't want people to return to the same conditions as before the tsunami and we succeeded on several points,” said Julie McHugh, who carried out two missions to Sri Lanka for Oxfam, with the aim of strengthening the means of livelihood of the victims, in particular through the improvement of agricultural methods and better access to drinking water.
“The fact of being in a reconstruction project, of seeing the improvements and the benefits that we could bring” made things much more positive on the ground, explains the woman who is now employed by Médecins du monde. .
“People had a lot of hope for the future, their incomes were increasing, and so were their living conditions. »
The reconstruction was not free of errors and embezzlement, but it still fulfilled the majority of its promises, adds François Audet, director of the Montreal Institute of International Studies.
“Humanitarian aid is the expression of international solidarity between peoples,” he recalls.
In this sense, the 2004 tsunami, however horrible it was, can therefore evoke something positive for those involved in the humanitarian sector.
“It’s an opportunity to remember that we have already been good at humanitarian responses,” argues Lina Holguin. People were generous, they answered the call. If we return to 2024, the humanitarian needs are enormous and have not all been met. [Penser au tsunami]it reminds us of the importance of giving, to save lives, and allow people to get back on their feet. »
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