Bright future for Banda Aceh post tsunami

ROOM WITH A VIEW: Watching the sunset from our balcony was stunning.

ACTUAL SIZE: This statue is the same height as the wave was when it hit the area, 5km inland.

POWER OF THE WAVES: This massive ship crossed the city in the tsunami and now sits as a memorial site inland.

For many people across the globe, the name Banda Aceh would have only been heard for the first time following the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004.
Broadcast around the world as a place of mass destruction with casualties in the tens of thousands, Banda Aceh has probably never crossed the minds of many as a place of paradise, a place of culture or even a place to holiday.
In late 2013, after finishing up my job in Kuala Lumpur working for an NGO providing free education to the poor, I decided to travel back to a country which I once lived in, but to a place even I knew very little about other than the traumatic graphic photos online from the tsunami.
For me, it was only one hour away on a 'cheap as chips' AirAsia flight to the city of Banda Aceh, which is located at the northern point of Sumatra, Indonesia.
Ten years on from the Boxing Day tsunami and it was quite impressive to see how a city could rebuild itself. Although not so sure at first how destroyed the city was, our driver took us to some memorial sites; the first being a gallery of photos from the event, conveniently located in an ex-house which still has a ship beached on the roof.
This gallery of horrific photos was not for the faint-hearted. I got about halfway through before my stomach started to turn, and my eyes began to water.
The images were not shy to show the victims, or parts of the victims as they laid scattered across a flattened city. 
You couldn't help but look around and see the people who lived there and realise that they were here on that day, they ran from the surging water, they themselves lost most of their family that day and you couldn't help but think how haunted their dreams/nightmares must be.
I have experienced my share of horrific experiences in my lifetime, such as the 2008 earthquake in China and the 2010/11 earthquakes in Christchurch, but I couldn't imagine experiencing anything as terrifying as these people did.

 

 

Next we moved on to the biggest memorial which was a massive ship. It must have been about 100m long, yet it stood upright on land, about 5km in land from the harbor.
This massive construction of metal had been lifted out of the sea and travelled over top of, or perhaps straight through, people's homes, shopping malls and whatever else stood in its way. It was there that I started to understand that this wave the Japanese call a tsunami is truly powerful.
They have built a statue of the wave in that same location. It is the same height as the wave was when it hit that area, 5km inland!! I stood beside it and looked straight up. No way could I touch the top, even if I jumped, and I'm not a short guy.
Banda Aceh, like many areas of Indonesia, is Muslim and everyone we met had so much faith because the main mosque was not flattened by the wall of water. I couldn't help but question the fact that they, as a community, invested a lot more money into the construction of the mosque(s) therefore it wasn't washed away like the thousands of fragile homes.
People took this as a sign that Allah was present, and that Allah was reminding them of their purpose. It was a bit hard to hear again and again, as the feeling of propaganda was too evident, but this is no place to debate others lifestyles or religions. It is what it is.
If I am to be honest now, my trip there was not so much to visit Banda Aceh but more to go to an island that can simply be described as paradise, the island Pulau Weh - a 40 minute boat ride from Banda Aceh.
Just before boarding our boat, we were met by Freddie, the owner of the hotel/villas we were going to stay at, and I must say this guy was amazing, friendly, helpful and a down to earth great guy.
As we got closer, we could see why Freddie had made the big move to this island in 2006 to start Freddie's Santai Sumurtiga. The clear blue waters were full of tropical fish as we got off the boat and into our van to drive to the other side of the island.
Life on the island was very chilled, people said hello to strangers and smiled just for the sake of smiling. 
The roads were typical of Indonesia, with plenty of potholes and wild animals walking across as if there were no crazy drivers around the next corner. It was clean, green and there were coconut palm trees everywhere.
We arrived at our villa which no words can truly describe. It was completely made from local materials such as wood from the palm trees and leaves from them too. It stood on the steep bank with the most amazing view of the ocean. Just a few metres below us was the long, clean, white sandy beach which was our home for the next few days.
Our villa had the best balcony, which overlooked the ocean and the coconut trees; sunset was spectacular.
Freddie can also cook, and by cook I mean he could easily win Masterchef. Every night, he put on a buffet spread for his guests, with a different theme each night. The thought and the time put into every meal was truly amazing, and he did it all for his guests, bringing them all together for a great meal to talk about their day and give others ideas about what to see on the island.
Did I mention he knew every guest's name, and it didn't matter where or when you saw him, he would address anybody by their name; he made every guest feel like family instantly.
We truly enjoyed our time here. The days were filled with relaxing times on the beach, working on our tans, swimming with millions of fish, socialising with other guests, visiting the natural beauty of the island and best of all, meeting the locals. For once this was a place that had it all, except the invasion of tourists.
Both Banda Aceh and Pulau Weh have rebuilt themselves since the Boxing Day tsunami and now look to a bright future.
This is a place that has a unique charm and a presence that makes you really appreciate your home and your safety, but reminds you that change is inevitable so have faith, enjoy each and every moment and remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
 By KYN DRAKE

Indonesian girl swept away by 2004 tsunami reunited with family

Mother says Raudhatul Jannah was rescued from sea and taken in by islanders until an uncle spotted her in street

 

A child who went missing in the 2004 tsunami has been reunited with her family in Indonesia, nearly 10 years after they assumed she had been killed. Raudhatul Jannah, now 14, was carried out to sea with her brother, only to be rescued by fishermen. She was raised by the fisherman’s mother, Raudhatul’s mother said. More than 170,000 people were killed in Aceh province by the Boxing Day disaster

Raudhatul Jannah with her mother, Jamaliah, and grandmother. Jamaliah says her daughter was cared for by the mother of the fisherman who rescued her. Photographs: Achwa Nussa/AAP/Sijori

Raudhatul, now 14, is kissed by her mother. The girl was swept out to sea along with her brother

An aerial view of a devastated village in Aceh, Sumatra, after the 2004 tsunami. More than 170,000 people were killed in the province

Raudhatul with her family after being reunited

Jamaliah holds up a picture of her daughter and missing son, taken before the Boxing Day tsunami tore the family apart

Reports said Raudhatul was spotted walking home from school by her uncle

 

An Indonesian family claims to have found their missing daughter a full decade after she was swept away as a toddler by the 2004 tsunami and presumed dead.

“It’s a miracle from God,” mother Jamaliah, 42, told the Jakarta Globe. “When I saw her, my heart was beating really fast … We couldn’t hold back our tears.”
Fleeing huge waves as the tsunami pummelled their village in West Aceh on 26 December 2004, Jamaliah said she and her husband, Septi Rangkuti, 52, ran for safety but couldn’t escape the water. Her husband found a large wooden board and put the two youngest children on top of it — daughter Raudhatul Jannah, then 4, and her brother Arif Pratama Rangkuti, 7.
Septi was separated from his children in the mayhem and the parents spent a month looking for them after the tsunami receded, with no leads and, eventually, no hope.
More than 170,000 people in Aceh, and tens of thousands of others in other countries around the Indian Ocean, were killed by the Boxing Day tragedy.
The couple moved house with their one surviving son and carried on with their lives, expecting to never find their missing children — until in June Jamaliah’s brother spotted a girl who looked like missing daughter Raudhatul.
He asked local villagers about the girl and discovered that she had been orphaned by the tsunami. Swept from Aceh all the way out to a remote island south-west of the province, she was rescued by a local fisherman and taken back to the fisherman’s house, where he spent the last decade raising her as “Wenni” with his ageing mother.
“It’s a miracle from God,” Jamaliah told the paper, describing how she and her husband visited the girl in late June to confirm the rumour.
“The girl’s face resembles mine,” she added, claiming that she was willing to take a DNA test to confirm the girl’s identity. “Maybe because there was a strong connection, when I hugged her, she hugged me back and felt very comfortable in my embrace.”
Daughter Raudhatul returned home to live in West Aceh with her parents on Wednesday. After 10 years living apart, mother Jamaliah said she is building a strong relationship with the girl’s foster parents, who are very happy that she found her “supposed birth parents”.
But the arrival of Raudhatul may bring even more good news. The girl, now 14, says that she and her older brother Arif, who is still missing, both survived the tsunami and ended up together on Banyak Island. But the girl was taken away by one fisherman, and the brother by another man, leading the parents to believe their son – also presumed dead for the past decade – may be out there too.
“My instinct tells me he’s still alive,” she says of her son. “We’ll go there soon to find [him].”

The impact of blogs 1.25 million hits.

Today I posted on Facebook and Twitter that my blog has received 1.25 million page views. As I write it shows me that it is now 1,251,942, so another 1942 page views in the last 8 hours. 

A former colleague and friend Mukesh Kapila wrote on twitter today in response to my claim " i clicked 10 times to make it 1.230,010. Congrats but In what way have u brought impact ? keen to learn." 

That is why I respect Mukesh because he is always the scientist,  analyzer and the advocate, and  challenges peers. Here is an answer Mukesh.

I started my blog in June 2007 while running the biggest ever disaster recovery operation, the Indian Ocean tsunami. I was seeing so many outstanding practices and models, and as many bad ones, in Indonesia, that I felt it a duty to share them and my lessons learned publicly. Sadly, international organisations in those days, were not responsive to personal and instantaneous feedback from their practitioners in the field. 

Blogging is a powerful tool for informing, promoting and persuading, and by persuading, it often means changing a person's life. In 2008 I had total knee replacements in both knees and scores of people thanked me as my personal testimony on my blog persuaded them to get their knees replaced and all feedback was positive. I thought at the time if you can persuade people to have two of their old knees carved out and replaced, what effect can blogging have upon 'changing minds?' 

Mukesh Kapila, in writing the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent's Strategy 2020 (S2020), alludes to the weakness of our generation, a lack of leadership.

S2020 says, 

Our Leadership: We show leadership and strive for excellence in our work, drawing attention to the rights, needs 

and vulnerabilities of communities and the factors that 

underlie them. It goes on to list how to do it. 

ENABLING ACTION TO PURSUE HUMANITARIAN

DIPLOMACY TO PREVENT AND REDUCE

VULNERABILITY IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

Our humanitarian diplomacy is concerned with persuading decision-makers and opinion leaders to act, at 

all times, in the interests of vulnerable people, and with 

full respect for our Fundamental Principles.

In a nutshell, my blog was set up in 2007 to share experience and lessons learned over four decades of humanitarian work. Yes, I wanted to positively influence people.

I love my humanitarian work at all levels, and I have an equal love for people, the mountains, the polar regions, books, rugby, experiential learning, family, travel, climate change and story telling. I write about every day life and share a lot. One of my early posting is about leaving New Zealand at the tender age of 19 for South America by sea - and falling in love in Tahiti with disastrous consequences - caused some censure from family members. http://bobmckerrow.blogspot.co.nz/2008/05/beginnings-part-2.html  But I did not care about the critics for I set out to write the truth, and constructively influence people to change the world. 

So to Mukesh and my friends, " In what way have I brought impact." People give you feedback through the comments section on the blog.

I have put up 975 posts, received 19,033 comments and I am able to see the most popular stories. But more importantly, if people have a life changing experience because of your influence, they seldom comment on it publicly, but contact you personally to share and discuss further. I have kept a record of such people that are in excess of 200. Companies such as Stryker, who make high tech artificial knees, have written to me saying how I have had a strong influence on persuading people to have total knee replacements.

When I arrived in Sri lanka in 2010, we had 20,000 Swiss Francs for our IDP programme. Today we have in excess of 90 million all up. In 2010 I started a targeted campaign on my blog begging for funding and can measure the feedback I received and the influence my blog had on fundraising.

Mukesh Kapila, by running on my blog the review written by Bill Nicol on your book ' Against A Tide of Evil' I know that for 2 weeks over 60 people were viewing it daily, but it has since dropped off.

I am also able to see that the majority of followers are from the US, France, UK, NZ, Australia, India, Japan, Canada, Poland, Romania, Indonesia, China, Russia, Germany, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Pakistan and Italy. Small in number, but some of my most passionate followers are from the West Indies including Poet Laureate Patricia Hargreaves. 

Lyse Doucet and many of her colleagues from the BBC respond to comments I make and occasionally Helen Clarke, Head of UNDP give feedback. Writers such as Weston \DeWalt visit my blog and give comments, and many leading diplomats do also.  

I receive a lot of joy from the young people who visit, comment and write to me. Many are Red Cross volunteers who are inspired as are young mountaineers, explorers and wayfarers who seek guidance or advice. Way out front in popular postings is one on a 15 year old girl climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with 1749 hits and 134 comments on 14 Oct 2011.  Sarah is the daughter of my friend Rob Hall, who tragically died on the summit of Mt. Everest in 1995, one month before she was born.

An interview with Sandra D'Urzo from the IFRC shelter department in Geneva was also very popular with 199 people visiting and leaving 49 comments. She spoke on PASSA, and settlement planning.

One comment that floored me recently was from Jeff Blumenfeld who runs a leading New York PR company and is editor of  the veru popular Expedition News who wrote to me saying " I get more referrals from your blog to Expedition News than any other." Neither of us could believe it but the facts are there.

In two weeks time my local mountaineering club in Otago, New Zealand is celebrating 90 years and the article I wrote some months ago is running hot.

Mukesh and friends, I could go on until daybreak which is 2 hours away, but feel this is enough. Blogs, like well-written books, are hugely influential. Their readers are sharp and unforgiving at times, and that is why total openness and honesty is essential because readers quickly pick up insincerity and will drift away at a whiff of it.

Tsunami Chronicles - A must for every disaster or recovery manager.

Few natural disasters come bigger than the 2004 tsunami. It left a trail of destruction from one side of the Indian Ocean to the other. Hardest hit was Aceh in Indonesia’s west where the tsunami killed almost a quarter of a million people and left half a million homeless as it smashed into a strip of coastline 800 kilometres long and several kilometres wide. The global community rallied to help in the largest military deployment since World War II, then spent billions rebuilding in one of the most challenging reconstruction programs of its kind. Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management tells the inside story of recovery. To order a copy, click here.
It lays bare the tectonic political and managerial forces that swept the rebuilding program along with no less force than the tsunami itself, forces that continue to dominate and debilitate other international recovery efforts. This is a powerful, first-hand narrative from a highly experienced journalist, author and consultant who played a pivotal role overseeing Aceh’s recovery then embarked on a global excursion to examine similar recovery efforts in places like Haiti. A series of six books in one,Tsunami Chronicles offers rare and refreshing insights into global disaster recovery that will annoy some, anger a few, excite others and inspire many. A study of management like no other, it will have special appeal to anyone who wants to know how things really work, or fail to work, in a multi-billion-dollar industry riven by the politics of power.

Bill Nicol left, in Geneva last year for my farewell party at IFRC and promoting his book Tsunami Chronicles to Bekele Gelata SG and Jagan Chapagain, head of Asia Pacific. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Six Books in one

Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management is a series of six books published in a single volume comprising... 



Foreword: A Left Little Toe—introduces Chronicles as a study of the December 2004 tsunami while also establishing the author’s key role as senior adviser to the Indonesian Government for tsunami recovery and explaining how and why it was written



Book 1: God’s Punishment—constructs the platform of disaster recovery by describing the tsunami’s impact on Aceh and explaining the wider perspective of how the Indonesian Government responded to both the tsunami and the ongoing war in Aceh



Book 2: Rise of the War Lords—looks inside the purpose-built Aceh Reconstruction Agency, BRR, to see how it overcame the many political, military and operational challenges that distorted the recovery program

Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management is a series of six books published in a single volume comprising... 





Joy Ching Muller with Bill Nicol last week in Geneva.



Book 3: Consulting in Catastrophe—gets more personal as the author explore the role of technical advisors generally and my own in particular; it provides a bridge between the internal operations of BRR to which technical advisors contributed and the external role of international community from which most advisors came



Book 4: Cultures of Care and Contempt—opens the door on the international community's pivotal contribution to the reconstruction of Aceh while also explaining the bump and grind of working with the global players



Book 5: End Games—discusses the many great fights at the end as the massive reconstruction program was brought to an end in the grip of "victory disease"



Book 6: The Residuals of Recovery—steps back from the detail of Aceh’s recovery to take a broader view that explores lessons, looks beyond to subsequent missteps in Haiti and other places, and projects forward to speculate on the future



Book 3: Consulting in Catastrophe—gets more personal as the author explore the role of technical advisors generally and my own in particular; it provides a bridge between the internal operations of BRR to which technical advisors contributed and the external role of international community from which most advisors came



Book 4: Cultures of Care and Contempt—opens the door on the international community's pivotal contribution to the reconstruction of Aceh while also explaining the bump and grind of working with the global players



Book 5: End Games—discusses the many great fights at the end as the massive reconstruction program was brought to an end in the grip of "victory disease"



Book 6: The Residuals of Recovery—steps back from the detail of Aceh’s recovery to take a broader view that explores lessons, looks beyond to subsequent missteps in Haiti and other places, and projects forward to speculate on the future

Few natural disasters come bigger than the 2004 tsunami. It left a trail of destruction from one side of the Indian Ocean to the other. Hardest hit was Aceh in Indonesia’s west where the tsunami killed almost a quarter of a million people and left half a million homeless as it smashed into a strip of coastline 800 kilometres long and several kilometres wide. The global community rallied to help in the largest military deployment since World War II, then spent billions rebuilding in one of the most challenging reconstruction programs of its kind. Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management tells the inside story of recovery. To order a copy, click here.
It lays bare the tectonic political and managerial forces that swept the rebuilding program along with no less force than the tsunami itself, forces that continue to dominate and debilitate other international recovery efforts. This is a powerful, first-hand narrative from a highly experienced journalist, author and consultant who played a pivotal role overseeing Aceh’s recovery then embarked on a global excursion to examine similar recovery efforts in places like Haiti. A series of six books in one,Tsunami Chronicles offers rare and refreshing insights into global disaster recovery that will annoy some, anger a few, excite others and inspire many. A study of management like no other, it will have special appeal to anyone who wants to know how things really work, or fail to work, in a multi-billion-dollar industry riven by the politics of power.

Bill Nicol left, in Geneva for my farewell party at IFRC and promoting his book Tsunami Chronicles to Bekele Gelata SG and Jagan Chapagain, head of Asia Pacific. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Six Books in one

Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management is a series of six books published in a single volume comprising... 



Foreword: A Left Little Toe—introduces Chronicles as a study of the December 2004 tsunami while also establishing the author’s key role as senior adviser to the Indonesian Government for tsunami recovery and explaining how and why it was written



Book 1: God’s Punishment—constructs the platform of disaster recovery by describing the tsunami’s impact on Aceh and explaining the wider perspective of how the Indonesian Government responded to both the tsunami and the ongoing war in Aceh



Book 2: Rise of the War Lords—looks inside the purpose-built Aceh Reconstruction Agency, BRR, to see how it overcame the many political, military and operational challenges that distorted the recovery program

Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management is a series of six books published in a single volume comprising... 





Joy Ching Muller with Bill Nicol last week in Geneva.



Book 3: Consulting in Catastrophe—gets more personal as the author explore the role of technical advisors generally and my own in particular; it provides a bridge between the internal operations of BRR to which technical advisors contributed and the external role of international community from which most advisors came



Book 4: Cultures of Care and Contempt—opens the door on the international community's pivotal contribution to the reconstruction of Aceh while also explaining the bump and grind of working with the global players



Book 5: End Games—discusses the many great fights at the end as the massive reconstruction program was brought to an end in the grip of "victory disease"



Book 6: The Residuals of Recovery—steps back from the detail of Aceh’s recovery to take a broader view that explores lessons, looks beyond to subsequent missteps in Haiti and other places, and projects forward to speculate on the future



Book 3: Consulting in Catastrophe—gets more personal as the author explore the role of technical advisors generally and my own in particular; it provides a bridge between the internal operations of BRR to which technical advisors contributed and the external role of international community from which most advisors came



Book 4: Cultures of Care and Contempt—opens the door on the international community's pivotal contribution to the reconstruction of Aceh while also explaining the bump and grind of working with the global players



Book 5: End Games—discusses the many great fights at the end as the massive reconstruction program was brought to an end in the grip of "victory disease"



Book 6: The Residuals of Recovery—steps back from the detail of Aceh’s recovery to take a broader view that explores lessons, looks beyond to subsequent missteps in Haiti and other places, and projects forward to speculate on the future

Bill Nicol right, with  fellow author Mukesh Kapila.
 Mukesh Kapila lanched his book recently named 'Against a Tide of Evil" which highlights the atrocities perpetrated in Dafur, Sudan.Last week I had the pleasure of spending time with Mukesh Kapila and Bill Nicol, two writers who have recorded vital parts of world history that deserves to be accurately captured.

Seven years since Indian Ocean tsunami struck.

What are the Lesson's Learned?

It has been seven traumatic years for those families and friends who lost loved ones in the tsunami. which struck so quickly and silently on 26 December 2004. The grieving goes on, and for many there is no closure as thousands of bodies were never found. But life goes on and if you travel today to the worst affected countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Thailand, life in those affected coastal areas can be described as normal. But the recovery goes on in some countries, mainly Sri Lanka, as the 30 years long civil war, only finished in mid 2009. The conflict delayed many housing and community projects that were promised to the affected people.

I started this article in Christchurch New Zealand early yesterday, 23 December. During the day,  four major earthquakes struck. The headlines in the paper merely say:

5.8  5.3  6.0  5.0

My good friend Robin Judkins who we visisted in his severely damaged house  perched on a hill side in Sumner only the day before, dislocated his shoulder when the first quake struck yesterday  and he dived under a table for safety.

But the story in this morning paper about the Indonesian tsunami seven years on, really moved:

Wati, second right, poses for a photograph with her father Yusuf, right, mother Yusniar, left, and younger brother Aris

A girl who was swept away in the Indian Ocean tsunami seven years ago told today how she broke down in tears after tracking down her parents, who had long lost hope of finding her alive.


The 15-year-old showed up in Aceh province's hard-hit town of Meulaboh earlier this week, saying that not long after the wave hit she was "adopted" by a woman who called her Wati and forced her to beg, sometimes beating her and keeping her in the streets until 1am.


When the teenager stopped bringing in money, she was told, "Go ahead, leave ... go find your parents then, they're in Meulaboh."


With only patchy memories about her past - she was only eight when the tsunami hit, an age where most children do not know their relatives' full names - Wati began her search, telling people she thought her grandfather was "Ibrahim."


She met a pedicab driver in Meulaboh, who brought her to a man by that name. Though she did not look familiar, he, in turn, quickly summoned her parents.

The Red Cross tsunami recovery is about to draw to a close. Just last Monday Kristina Kumpala, secretary general of the Finnish Red Cross opened a hospital in Chavakatcheri in Jaffna, Sri Lanka.. With the war finishing in May 2009, the Finnish Red Cross funded hospital could not be started until June 2009. This a was a fine effort by the Finns working with the Sri Lanka Red Cross to finish a large base hospital in just over two years. As I write the American Red Cross are completing a 22 km water pipleline in Galle, in southern Sri Lanka.

Ten days ago when John Ekelund from the Finnish Red Cross visited Sri Lanka, I knew he had worked in Sri Lanka for almost four years on the tsunami recovery operation so I took the opportunity to get  his opinion on a number of issues as I respect him immensely for the work he had done.
" It was the commitment of Red Cross volunteers and staff that gave us the edge," he said. "We also displayed vision, we thought ahead when planning for schools or hospitals and tried to visualise the expanding needs in ten years. So we built for the present and the future and this approach has really paid off."

John was somewhat scornful of organisations that came in and with poor planning, and little liaison with community or local authorities, rushed through construction, took photographs and left, often leaning many liabilities and defects for other to manage.

" The Red Cross built quality houses, hospitals,water systems, schools and clinics and took a holistic approach and when working with communities, we built not only houses but toilets, clean water to each house, livelihoods and even playgrounds for the children." he said.

Since the tsunami struck seven years ago, I have been working on the tsunami recovery operations in India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia where I spent four years.

For each of the six solemn  years I have been at a commemoration ceremonies in India, Indonesia, Thailand and last year on 26 December, in  southern Sri Lanka. .I can recall the grief, emotions, wailing, the blank look on faces as famiies floated candles out to sea on rafts, or tied minature lanterns to kites and sent into the night sky in Phuket

I can repeat what I have said and written hundreds of times in praising the Red Cross volunteers, staff, engineers, day labourers, the affected communities in displaying unpreceedented solidarity and commitment in responding and building back better.

But I want pause for a moments and catergorically say that the most important single thing we can do is to capture the lessons learned so we minimise the effects of future earthquakes and tsunamis. Coincidentally as I write this, I am in Christchurch which was severely damaged in September last year and agaiun in February this year. Yesterday I had a look at progress made in the recovery operation and the challenges ahead. I visited a friend who was badly affected, and saw his house tettering on a cliff top in Sumner.


Lessons were captured from the tsunami and the best publication by far is the Tsunami Legacy, and another cracker, A Ripple In Development. Although good, these two publications did not drill in deep enough to where recovery really goes off the rails, and that is in  the poor or weak governance at local, regional and national level.

In the Christchurch Press on Monday 19 December 2011, there is an attack on the 'darling' of  Canterbury's Earthquake Recovery Agency, Roger Sutton the CEO.

On June 11 2011, The Press featured an illustration of Roger Sutton (left) in full armour, riding a horse and brandishing a sword, presumably at all those who stood in the way of Canterbury's earthquake recovery.
In hindsight, the metaphor seems a little over-cooked.
Sutton walked into the job as Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority chief executive with a strong public profile, built on his time in the top job at Christchurch lines company Orion. Since June, he has been co-ordinating the quake recovery, including deciding what land will have to be abandoned and which buildings will be demolished. If Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee is the recovery chairman, and effectively the entire board, Sutton is responsible for the nitty-gritty of shaking hands and fronting up to public meetings. After the February 22 quake, the Canterbury public regularly saw Sutton gesticulating at large diagrams on butcher's paper, describing how Orion's power lines had been munted and how they would be fixed.
The lines were repaired with minimal fuss and many people were suitably impressed.


But his performance since taking over at CERA has received a mixed review, with people in broken homes struggling to find answers often targeting him personally. While Sutton still has many defenders, Cera's Facebook page is littered with criticism of his performance, many mocking his much-lauded communication skills.

One post commenting on Sutton's regular newsletters likened him to being wheeled out like "some sort of old aunty at a wedding" before vanishing again.

Other posts expressed disappointment that he had failed to live up to his reputation as grand communicator.


Sitting in his 11th-storey Christchurch office overlooking the battered central city, Sutton was philosophical about his popularity dip. "I knew from the very beginning it was only going to go downhill," he said.


"By definition, in a role like this you're not going to keep all the people happy all the time. There is huge hurt out there. Some people's lives are really pretty crap."
Making these lives better had been harder than expected. Rogers Sutton goes on to outline his challenges.

The biggest challenge had been making clear decisions about what land can be rebuilt on. Sutton said the complexity of classifying land had been a surprise and had taken far longer than expected.


"When I took the job, there was a view by some that some of those land decisions would be made pretty quickly, and they just haven't."


Knights in shining armour such as CERA's Roger Sutton are only as good as the politician's making the decisions and the space and powers CEO are given to run recovery operations.

But where do world leaders learn about earthquake or disaster recovery operations?


World leaders/politicians need look no further than Bill Clinton or Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto.

Kuntoro Mangkusubroto (left) with Bob McKerrow on a joint trip to Simeulue Island in 2007. Photo: Aroha McKerrow

Clinton was special envoy for Tsunami to Koffe Annan and the later to Ban ki Moon, SG of the UN. Dr. Kuntoro was the remarkable Minister for Tsunami.who led a brilliant team of practicioners to complete a massive recovery operation within four years. Did the NZ Government look overseas to see where the could get the best expert advice ? If they had of enticed Dr. Kuntoro and his operations manager Eddy Puwanto, I am sure the Christchurch earthquake recovery operation would have been much speedier. Bill Clinton together with Dr. Kuntoro coined the phrases, 'build back better' and 'breakthrough initatives.' Breakthrough initiatives are 'out of the box thinking' that accelerates recovery, something both the Japanese tsunami and New Zealand's Christchurch earthquake sorely need.

Thanks  goodness that the special adviser to Dr. Kuntoro, was Bill Nicol, who was at the minister's side for 4 years. The former journalist, TV front man, management consultant who has written controversial, yet highly accurate books on East Timor and malpractice in the Australian medical profession, has just completed a book called Tsunami Chronicles. Having worked with Bill and Dr. Kuntoro for 4 years during the Indonesian tsunami, Bill honoured me by letting me look at the first draft. What an amazing book which is written in a style that will guide Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ministers, other politicians, CEO and in fact anyone that works in a huge disasters. Bill leaves no stone unturned and visited Haiti to see if any of the tsunami lessons learned were applied.. Sadly little was and the book shows that organisations are superb at capturing lessons learned, but weak in applying them.

Yesterday when four major earthquakes hit Christchurch, I saw Mayor Bob Parker on TV, and also Roger Sutton. Parker communicates clearly and you feel you trust this man. Sutton, on the other hand, came across as being sound techically, but not a man that embues confidence, noe a sound communicator.

I feel it not too late for the Mayor of Christchurch, the CEO of CERA, and the Minister for the Canterbury Earthquake, to seek foreign advice on breakthrough initiatives, that would accelerate recovery. In addition, the Government could look at the number of New Zealanders working overseas with vast experience in earthquake and disaster recovery, to come back and lend a hand. It's not too late. This recovery operation in Christchurch will take 10 to 15 years to complete.