Financial and Economic Tsunami Warning System Rebuilding Broken Political Bridges

Financial Markets and Economic Impacts

“The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday it was impossible to estimate the economic costs of Sunday's deadly earthquake and tsunami but cautioned the toll to individual countries will be enormous.” (World Bank and Reuters)

Soon after news broke of this devastating event, business news shows reported drops in value of affected nations' currencies. A global markets expert interviewed on BBC (December 30, 2004) described investors and the general financial system as being “callous” at such times, as nervous investors naturally think about their own investments first and move money away from such areas.

The irony for poor countries especially, is that this would perhaps be the time that they really need stable financial systems to help in rebuilding.

Tsunami Warning System. Could impact have been minimized?

Many are asking why there wasn't a warning system in place or if anything could have been done to warn people.

Scientists knew the earthquake had occurred very soon after the event, but because no international warning system had been put in place in the Indian ocean, they didn't know who to contact. The rich countries in the Pacific (such as Australia, Japan and the United States), who also suffer far more from tsunamis, do have such a system in place amongst them.

As a cruel irony, just a month or so before this disaster struck, nations around the Indian ocean had agreed that they did not need a warning system. The costs for poor countries for such a system are considerable, and the likelihood of a tsunami is very small. Time has provided cruel hindsight, and now affected nations in the Indian Ocean will be installing a warning system in the region.

Rebuilding Broken Political Bridges

At such a devastating time, it is hard to see anything positive coming from this, but perhaps this tragedy will bring together different groups of people.

IPS reports, for example, how this disaster is creating temporary rapprochement between ethnic groups in Sri Lanka that stayed away from each other despite a three-year ceasefire between the government and Tamil separatist rebels.

During this relief effort, there seems to be cooperation between United Nations and US-led efforts. Various nations are helping each other, some who may in the past have not been as friendly.

At the individual level, moving stories abound of how local people and tourists have helped each other in this crisis.

These and many other examples not mentioned here shows that in the face of real devastation, peoples of the world can work together for common goals and help each other. Whether this can last beyond the immediate aftermath, is something we can only hope for.