I visited four countries to learn about disaster resilience, here's what I learnt
The media has a vital role to play in understanding and reporting disaster.
I have just wrapped up a visit to Fiji and Tonga, concluding a six-month study program with the Australian Institute of International Affairs and the Japan Foundation to study disaster resilience in the Indo-Pacific.
My first interaction with disaster as a media professional was back in 2004 when I was starting in journalism at the local radio station 2BS in my hometown of Bathurst, in Central Western NSW, Australia.
When the Boxing Day tsunami hit, I remember the town and country being overwhelmed with compassion for those devastated by the carnage that hit so many of Australia’s friends in the region.
The local talkback line was inundated with people wanting to help as well as discuss and process the horrible scenes playing out on television.
Fast forward twenty years and I sense a growing numbness to disasters, even though, or perhaps because they are intensifying in nature and frequency due to climate change. I applied to join this program to learn what I as a media professional could do to report on this topic with greater insight and understanding.
I also was interested in the nexus between national security resilience and disaster resilience. Nowhere was this more obvious than when we visited Fiji and Tonga in the Pacific where a geopolitical contest is underway between China and the West to supply tiny island nations on the frontlines of climate change with aid, infrastructure and loans in the hopes of shoring up mutual security interests.
We began our trip in Japan where I was truly blown away by how ingrained disaster resilience is at every level of society. Organised and always willing to improve, Japan’s preparations for disaster, which are taught from childhood, showed me how far behind countries in Europe and my native Australia are in teaching their public about how to respond to emergencies.
But as is always the case, the leadership came from the top. During our briefings, I was stunned and impressed by the permanent readiness of the Cabinet, Japan’s Self Defence Forces, municipalities and the media.
The country’s Self Defence Forces have 3900 people, 1100 vehicles and 40 aircraft on standby, deployable within an hour. Similarly, a cabinet minister is always available to attend, within 30 minutes, the emergency meeting that will be activated when disaster strikes. This was the same for major newsrooms.
Everyone can learn from Japan. Some already are. In the Pacific, we saw how Japan is helping fund Fiji and Tonga’s tsunami alert systems.
As we wrapped our weeks of briefings, meetings and field trips to sites of natural disasters, I truly grasped how little I had previously known and understood about disaster resilience, and I am extremely grateful to the AIIA and Japan Foundation for opening my eyes to this hugely fascinating and vital topic.
Similarly, I am also grateful to those who gave their time to share their insights with our network. We were all unanimous in how much we gained from the meetings and experiences. And as the only journalist in the group, I was particularly appreciative, given the briefings were provided to us on a non-attributable basis, to those who answered all my questions with the level of detail I was seeking.
It enriched my knowledge and understanding and nurtured a passion for this subject.
Below, is an expanded version of my final presentation and speech to the Indo-Pacific Cooperation Network. I focussed on how the media can serve communities affected by disasters through its reporting.
Disaster resilience: An enduring public conversation
‘Recently the Director of National Intelligence released the US Threat Assessment for 2024.
It shows that we live in an insecure world.
Geopolitically,
Environmentally…
and at home.
Conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine show no sign of abating …
and could widen or intensify in 2024.
Domestically, the threat of terrorism …
whether it comes from an Islamist or far-right inspiration remains high.
China’s decision to allow the COVID-19 virus to spread from Wuhan,
to the rest of the world exposed how vulnerable our personal health and health systems remain to foreign malpractice.
And, globally the costs of climate change and inaction are mounting.
Quoting the US Threat Assessment again,
It predicts that El Nino weather patterns alone will result in the loss of $3 trillion in GDP by the end of this decade.
That’s just six years.
Climate change will lead to a scarcity of resources, displacement of people and more extreme weather events.
These events are already being felt,
whether in London where summer temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius,
or in Australia where bushfires and floods seem to be on a permanent loop.
These threats are all interconnected …
And all will require a heightened understanding of the risks of disaster and shocks …
and preparedness.
It is instructive that the Fiji National Disaster Management Office is currently exploring bringing responses to political violence, such as a terror attack, under its banner.
Put simply, regardless of the nature of the threat …
societies need to be prepared to respond rapidly.
And the time to start a discussion about improving our resilience is now.
Countries in Europe and Australia are already playing catch-up.
Last year the UK government tested sending everyone emergency SMSes.
But how many would know what to do if that message were for real?
My belief is not many. And this could cost lives.
As one Australian official who lived through the Tongan tsunami told us, ‘When a crisis hits your brain doesn’t work.
You can’t be working it out at that point.’
And this is my key point…
Governments, in conjunction with the media …
need to open national conversations with the community …
about preparing for the particular disasters they are at risk of facing.
I remember as a child, being shown an animated video at school of what to do in a bushfire …
how to prioritise staying low…
to use wet blankets if available to guard against the flames
…and crawl to escape.
Much later, when floods struck my hometown of Bathurst
…. I distinctly remember my parents telling me that you never enter floodwaters …
because of the dangers of snakes, loose hazards and disease.
As an adult journalist, I watched news reports of people deliberately entering floodwaters ….
And wondered why people’s parents had not taught them the same lessons.
Or, that given that floods and bushfires have become a frequency of Australian life …
… why are these lessons not taught in school?
Like in Japan where we saw how earthquake drills were an everyday part of life for school children.
Japan’s experience shows us that these routines save lives.
Governments must make resilience a national priority …
either by an existing minister or a dedicated appointee.
Part of their job should be implementing disaster preparedness at school, civic and media level.
But based on personal responsibility.
The government cannot be our rescuer, responder and insurance policy.
The government must set the agenda …
… lead the conversation and fund programs to expand disaster resilience plans…
…but it must be made clear by both the government and the media …
that survival will ultimately be determined by an individual's ability to recognise danger and act accordingly.
In Japan, the official messaging runs in this order: ‘self-help,’ ‘mutual help’ then ‘public help.’
A primacy needs to be placed on critical thinking as part of this training.
The best example of this was the tragic case at Okawa Elementary School …
where we saw first-hand how the children who eventually disobeyed the official protocol and chose to run up the hill, just a matter of meters away survived …
Following the official protocol turned out to be a deadly instruction –
As they were wiped away by the incoming tsunami.
Community is key.
Japanese authorities constantly stress the need for people to be a bit of a busybody …
And acquaint themselves with their neighbours and their escape plans.
There were tears, certainly in my eyes …
as it was explained to us in Tonga …
how the closely-knit island community looked after each other during the tsunami.
An Australian official recounted how this extended to strangers …
and how when they drove their cars through the hailing pumice stone and ash …
the Tongans stood on the side of the road throwing water over the windscreens of cars so the wipers would work.
This community-led reaction is one of the many reasons attributed to the fact that so few lives were lost in the Tongan tsunami.
During our visit to Fiji … a British business owner who had lived in Nadi for two decades…
told me how during that week’s flash floods, the locals stood on the road to mark for drivers the deepest, and most dangerous parts of the roads covered in water.
Applying an island, family-orientated way of life …
to disaster response will be alien in major cities.
Can any of you say that as a result of our research in Japan …
you have approached your neighbours and asked them about preparing a neighbourhood evacuation plan?
I will confess I have not.
Part of the problem is that I know if I hit my WhatsApp groups with a …
‘Hey guys, we should work out an evacuation plan’ …
I’d sound like a loony prepper from a rust belt state.
This is where government-led messaging could make a difference in normalising this sort of conversation.
High-profile survivalists like Bear Grylls or the Irwin family in Australia could be co-opted into fronting public campaigns.
Survival needs to be made sexy.
When disaster strikes my profession is key.
As demonstrated during Covid …
the floods and bushfires …
the media will automatically swing into gear …
with live broadcasts of press conferences by political leaders and emergency responders.
Live blogs will dominate news sites …
…. more often than not, taken from social media …
where authorities will also connect with the public directly.
But from our visits to Japan, Tonga and Fiji and the Australian National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) in Canberra …
there are ways I believe coverage could be improved.
Firstly, it would benefit NEMA, a relatively new agency …
to embed some journalists with it for simulation exercises …
if not in the first few days of a rolling disaster.
This would give journalists insight into how the Australian states and federal agencies are coordinating, (or not) …
as well as the role of the business sector in responding to the effects of disaster ….
… like delivering food or essential medicines shortages or coping with an outage in mobile networks.
The media itself needs to get serious about the way it thinks about and reports on disasters.
It should press governments for community preparedness plans …
And platform foreign voices …
particularly from Japan ….
about what Europe and Australia could learn from the way it has handled disasters.
On a visit to NHK World’s studios, we watched their teams rehearse breaking news of an earthquake and warning of a possible tsunami.
These practice drills are carried out every week. At NHK’s terrestrial channel, presenters and producers run through the emergency broadcasting procedures every day.
The media is often, fairly, accused of being too short-term.
That it appears for disaster porn …
… when the skies are still glowing an angry orange, people are emotional …
and the destruction can be beamed around the world.
If the media is to be trusted to lead a national conversation about resilience …
…it too needs to think about disaster coverage as a permanent and always-evolving round.
This should involve building upon the training for journalists …
such as the already existing bushfire training and hostility courses …
And considering assigning specially dedicated reporters to cover disasters.
This is something many Japanese newsrooms do.
These reporters don’t just turn up to document the carnage but follow through the subsequent issues of ….
trauma
recovery
insurance
rebuilding sustainably …
providing a constructive platform to discuss lessons learned and if appropriate …
considering leading a debate on how to preserve memory and pass on lessons learned
In some cases, this may be no more than a plague or statue.
In others, it may be appropriate for the media to explore campaigning for creating museums and disaster-educational venues …
like the Kobe Earthquake Memorial Museum that we visited.
Given the absence of government leadership on how to record and remember disaster …
the media should take the lead …
as part of the follow-up conversation around mental health.
Different cultures will cope and process trauma differently.
Japan has worked for decades to create an environment for these sorts of conversations to take place.
Australia and Tonga share a ‘she’ll be right’ mentality.
This may be the path these countries choose.
But certainly from what I know in Australia, not many other choices have been provided.
And if disaster is to be a permanent feature in our lives …
We the media, guided by mental health experts … should be asking ourselves if there are other ways to cope.
One of the vital points made to us by survivors of tsunamis was the need to rest once the immediate danger has subsided.
But often the external …
… however well-meaning demands …
such as visiting ministers from foreign governments, simply added to the cumulative stress.
This applies to rescuers, governments and of course, the media itself.
Specialist disaster reporters would focus on this theme, providing space for this conversation.
Media also has a critical role to play in helping harness community goodwill constructively.
For example, from our experience in Tonga …
it was clear that they received many well-intentioned donations …
including in one case … high heels.
Containers of unwanted donations clog up ports in affected countries and cost money to process.
The media should discourage unwanted charitable donations …
and guide the public on how to channel their goodwill …
in line with what the affected country or party needs and has requested.
This too applies to humanitarian aid which, if done right can leave a lasting, positive legacy.
This was the case in Japan at the Minamisanriku 311 Memorial …
where we saw the Australian flags prominently displayed …
and the reverent preservation of a helmet belonging to an Australian rescuer.
But if done wrong, humanitarian aid can be painfully paternalistic and underline the distance between countries as opposed to bridging that gap.
Here the media can play a role in scrutinising the quality of its national aid.
In one instance, we learned of aid kits given to Tongan families from one Western country whose babies wore clothes far smaller than Tongan babies.
Given the already existing public hostility to foreign aid, it is in no one’s interest that humanitarian aid and charity go wrong.
But it is just as critical that media conveys when aid has been welcomed and contributed to the local response and recovery, both in the immediate and long-term.
Disaster reporting doesn’t stop when the waters recede, the tremors have stopped or the flames put out.
Recording what went well and what went wrong should be a key long-term beat for the media.
Alongside a focus on institutional knowledge should be recording traditional knowledge.
Documenting elders should also be a key part of the media’s role.
It was fascinating to learn how the Tonga Meteorological Service is in a race against time to complete their research …
to match the memories of island elders
… with the science of natural disasters.
For example, we were told about how the day before the volcanic eruption in 2022
… the smell of sulphur hung in the air.
It was only later when elders from another island told them of their memory …
That the scent meant the volcano had opened …
... that they realised more warning could have been given.
Similarly, they spoke of knowing when drought and El Nino were approaching …
… because stressed trees would bear greater quantities of fruit.
This would provide a prime opportunity …
To elevate indigenous Australia’s knowledge of and management of the land.
Finally, the media has a role to play in discussing relocation.
In all the countries we visited this was one of the most sensitive topics that arises after disasters.
Minamisanriku town that we visited has never been rebuilt after the 2011 tsunami.
Nor have the resorts that sustained livelihoods in Western Tonga.
Sometimes these decisions will be inevitable.
Other times, communities may resist leaving.
All of us were touched by our visit to the village of Galoa between Suva and Nadi.
68-year-old Setariki Alusio told us how the shoreline had come in …
by around 30 metres …
just in his lifetime.
He has lobbied various Fijian governments four times …
as well as asked the Asian Development Bank for the $100,000 or so …
that would be required to build a sea wall.
But they are below sea level and no funding has been granted.
These conversations will be some of the most difficult and complex but necessary to have out loud.
There are existing and excellent examples of the Australian media covering this issue,
specifically in Grantham, Queensland, where floods in 2011 wiped away the Lockyer Valley town.
I know first-hand how media responders work day and night, often without a day off for weeks …
And take home their emotional trauma …
and look out for the communities they saw devastated for the rest of their lives.
These recommendations are intended to recognise the immense responsibility and toll of this work.
Given the volatile and unstable world we face, the media must adapt to the challenges threats pose.
And could do so by bringing a structure to the way it reports disaster.
Because what was made abundantly clear in every jurisdiction that we visited …
if we want to save lives, we have no time to wait.
Great piece! I had no idea about Japan’s preparedness. I totally agree that we need to learn more about resilience and it is important to acknowledge personal responsibility and community. Although I feel like society (I’m speaking of reflections of Australia here) seem to be moving further away from personal responsibility and having greater expectations of the government (and constant blaming that they are falling short) whilst also losing the fabric of community, hence the increase in loneliness. However, let’s not be deterred! Sounds like it was a really worthwhile initiative you were part of!