“I was only thinking of how to get to the hills that time,” remembered Leni, a young mother of a three year old daughter. “I kept remembering the Aceh tsunami while we were running away. The Aceh tsunami taught us a lot. It raised our awareness on earthquakes and tsunamis.” On the night of 13 September 2007, when an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra triggered tsunami warnings around the Indian Ocean, people knew what to do.
A version of this article was published in The Independent (UK) on Monday 24 December, 2007.

This week, representatives from governments, the UN and aid agencies will meet in Geneva to talk about disaster risk reduction, about what needs to be done to minimize the impact of natural hazards like earthquakes, landslides and hurricanes on disaster prone communities.

A crisis always provides opportunity for change. Natural calamities are no different. When countries or communities are struck by disasters, their social, political and institutional weaknesses are mercilessly disclosed and revealed. What did not work, where there was no preparedness and no warning, where men, women and children died avoidable deaths - all of this gets exposed.

It is now 18 months since the tsunami crashed onto shores around the Indian Ocean, the most dramatic natural disaster in modern times. Attention has moved elsewhere, but for the people affected, the tsunami is not over. What is happening to the devastated communities, are people getting back on their feet? After a slow first year, there is now real and visible progress in the Herculean recovery effort.

This has been a year of natural disasters. Starting as the full and horrific impact of the tsunami sunk in, it draws to a close as we struggle to assist the survivors of the earthquake in India and Pakistan. And in-between, hurricanes, storms, floods and landslides, all taking their highest toll among the poorest and least protected communities. Even if the aid community can be satisfied in parts with its response, it must continuously improve to help save lives and rebuild shattered livelihoods. The trend seems clear – natural disasters are on the increase. So what is there to learn from this year?

The unique response to the tsunami triggers questions. A very large proportion of resources are in the hands of NGOs and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and its members. Did private donors really intend money to be used beyond immediate emergency relief? Has not more money than is needed been collected and pledged? When the response to other crises suffers from lack of resources, do organisations compromise the principle of proportionality when reserving funds for tsunami recovery?

Hurricane Katrina has already been called the United States’ tsunami. There are similarities but obviously also differences between the hurricane on the US Gulf Coast and the Indian Ocean tsunami.
What is the same is the endless grief of those who have lost their loved ones, whose hopes and dreams have gone with the receding water, and the courage of the rescue workers and the selfless generosity of strangers who open their homes and give of themselves to help those in need.