Challenges Faced by Humanitarian agency in Emergency Response in Urban areas: Lessons from Haiti and Chile
collapse of Port-au-Prince’s main prison left 4,000 convicts free to escape. The humanitaraian agencies couldn’t distributed relief many parts of the city due to security reason as the Haitian law and order force were totally diapperad few days. And frastrated Haitian people are involve with looting and criminals activities in almost everywhere. Even in Chile also having a difficult time maintaining law and order after the earthquake stroke . The curfew there has been extended as troops struggled to contain outbreaks of looting after the earthquake. Dozens of people were arrested after fighting over goods and setting fire to a department store. This prompted many law-abiding citizens to arm themselves and take to the streets, in order to protect their businesses and homes. On March 1, 2010, police resorted to firing tear gas into crowds of looters, and the governor of Conception province reported that 55 people were arrested in one night for violating the law.
6.1.3 Lack of water supply Before earthquake, most of the people of Haiti’s capital city of Port Au prince was mainly depended on water from a huge underground natural reservoir delivered by truckers. But many of the drivers became scared to deliver supplies after a number of them were attacked as they drove into the city after earthquake. The shortage of water remains the gravest problem. People have been walking the streets carrying empty plastic bottles gathering water from broken pipes and gutters. The city’s supplies dried up following the rupture of the municipal pipeline. Actually the urban areas has got big infrastructure for water supply facilities serving its hundreds of thousands of urban inhabitants. So when the system collapse due to disaster it becomes more difficult for the humanitarian agencies to supply this huge amount of potable water to the affected people of Haiti’s capital city of Port Au prince.
6.1.4 Fluidity The migrated population in Haitian capital city of Port au Prince was not stable in any time. The humanitarian agency workers who works under Oxfam said that “When we tried to identify ‘beneficiaries’ in shanty towns after flooding in a previous Haitian disaster, the faces were different the next time we went back to hand out emergency relief “.Thereby during emergency response phase the humanitarian agencies faced difficulties distributing the relief materials.
6.1.5 Good governance and public accountability The country was experiencing political stability in a fragile socio-political context. The President did not have a parliamentary majority. There were few legislative achievements. The Assembly and one third of the Senate were due to be renewed on February 28, 2010. Parties’ political bases were weak. The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) was considered by the majority of MPs and political parties to be aligned with the Executive. Civil society was fragmented and its impact on the political scene weak. The constitutional institutions of 1987 had never been fully implemented. As a result the other government institutions were not workable before the earthquake. The environmental laws are not formed up and implemented. They don’t have any disaster management plan to face the disaster by themselves. Because of absence of order relating to the land tenure system. The non-application of the provisions of the law of 29 May 1963 had led to uncontrolled urban growth and sprawl at the expense of agricultural land. Thereby the Haitian capital city of Port au Prince becomes an unplanned and uncontrolled urban area.
Chile Earthquake
6.2 On 27 February 2010, at approximately 3.35 a.m. local time, an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck the country of Chile. The epicenter was located 63 kilometers southeast of Cauquenes in the region of Maule (406 kilometers south from Santiago). As a consequence, the tsunami which was generated affected a coastal strip of more than 500 kilometers. There have been more than 128 aftershocks causing extensive damages throughout the region. Reports indicate over 700 deaths. Approximately 1.5 million people have been affected and thousands have lost their homes and livelihoods.
6.2.1 Earthquake exposed chasm in Chile Overall damage comparison to Magnitude and intensity the Chile has suffered less than Haiti. But considering the damage of Concepción, the 2nd largest city of Chile itself alone exposed the chasm in their urban areas. After the earthquake the Chilean Government was late to send the relief material in affected areas in time. Which lead the general mass to loot the essential items from the supermarkets and Which is being made by the Chilean media as a “looting” in Concepción and other cities. The speed with which the