H I N D U STA N T I M E S , K O L K ATA
S AT U R DAY, J U N E 4 , 2 0 1 1

02 |metro()

quotemartial

My way of conducting the show has nothing to do with Shah Rukh,
Amitabh Bachchan or Shatrughan Sinha. I can’t be like them
SOURAV GANGULY Cricketer and game show anchor

How safe is your city?
RED ALERT The soft sediment of Ganga basin makes Kolkata quake-prone, but it’s ill-equipped to tackle a disaster
Manasij Bhattacharjee
Manasij.Bhattacharjee@hindustantimes.com

reen revolution. Dada bats for
the Pune Warriors. Traffic jams.
Old buildings. Rabindrasangeet.
Adda. That’s Kolkata for you.
Life goes on. This coastal city has been
lucky. Natural disasters of gigantic proportions have not hit the city for thepast 300 years. There have been a few
cyclones, Aila being one, but that’s
nothing compared to what nature
unleashed in Japan.
The tsunami in Japan has raised several questions. Could more have been
done to anticipate it and lessen its impact?
Or, what would have been its impact if
it had struck the coast of West Bengal?
Or is it even possible to prepare for anatural disaster of this magnitude?
These are the questions that concern Rajib Shaw, 42, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Global
Environmental Studies in Kyoto
University. He specialises in disasterand environmental management.
Shaw was born in Belur and raisedin Durgapur. He studied in Allahabad
and at Jadavpur University before moving to Japan more than 18 years ago.
His mother still stays in Belur.
Shaw currently leads a team of 20
professors and graduate students who
help communities in 17 Asian andAfrican countries prepare for natural disasters and the consequences ofclimate change through education andcommunity-based planning.
In an exclusive interview withHindustan Times, Shaw warned thatan earthquake of a similar magnitudein West Bengal would spell disasterseveral times over.
“Kolkata is earthquake-prone. Thecity sits on the soft sediment of theGanga basin and a quake may cause asignificant liquefaction problem. The
damage will be high, since most of thebuildings are made of brick, with someas old as 200 years. In the northern partof the city, because of the narrow lanes,
earthquake damage may be especiallyhigh. The risk of a tsunami is higher incoastal areas, especially in rural Bengal,
where the buildings aren’t designed tocope with tsunami after effects,” he said.
Not far from, Bengal, an earthquake
measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale rocked
the areas between Mangan in West
Sikkim and Mechinagar in Nepal around
6.23am on Friday. Darjeeling, which issandwiched in between, felt the tremors.
Asked how prepared Kolkata wasin terms of its disaster-control mechanisms, Shaw said, “Every city has different levels of disaster-management
plans. Therefore, it’s difficult for me
to judge how well Kolkata is preparedto tackle a post-disaster scenario.”
Shaw’s fear that the city could suffer
major damage because of a tremor is
corroborated in the report Seismic hazard in mega-city Kolkata written by
William K Mohanty and M Yanger Walling.
According to them, the damage causedby recent earthquakes in India has beena wake-up call for people to take proper mitigation measures, especially in themajor cities that lie in the high seismic
hazard zones. “Kolkata, with thick sediment deposits, is an area of great concern because it lies over the Bengal Basinand at the boundary of seismic zones
III and IV of the zonation map of India.
In the past, Kolkata was affected by
the 1897 Shillong earthquake, the 1906
Calcutta earthquake, and the 1964
Calcutta earthquake,” the report says.
“After the Indian Ocean Tsunami of2004, the early warning system has
improved in the coastal areas. However,
the early warning system is not theonly thing that matters. People’s awareness and education need to be increased,
as does infrastructure, local government policy-making and funding.
Disaster risk reduction is a long-term
process and continuous efforts need
to be made,” Shaw said.
The associate professor had a wordof advice for Bengal’s politicians too.
“Whoever comes to power should invest

G>> JAPAN TSUNAMI brought to light the need for a balance of infrastructure
measures and disaster education

DISASTER CONTROL
Ways to minimise damage in caseof a tsunami
Effective early warning system for giving evacuation order
Proper shelter for evacuation
Sea wall or coastal mangroves orgreen belt for reducing the impacts
Better building structures inQ&A
R A J I B S H AW

more tsunami prone areas

Basic items one should have athome to survive in the event atsunami or earthquake
Torchlight, radio, bottles of water,some emergency food and documents(both legal and other important
documents such as bank papers)>> INDIAN OCEAN TSUNAMI of 2004 underlined the need to increase awareness among people.

>> CYCLONE AILA laid bare the city’s lack of preparedness

QUAKE SCAPE>> MUMBAI FLOODS
dealt a lesson in the significant roleof community-level help.

more in education, health, agriculture
and energy. To me, these are essential
for the state’s development,” he said.
Shaw’s students are working in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad andPuri. Shaw, whose team worked in
Mumbai after the 2005 floods, drewsome interesting conclusions. He said
that even in the slums, people’s response
to disaster was very fast because they
had a very good Advanced Locality
Management (ALM), aimed at improving waste management of the area.
“The key learning from the Mumbai
floods is that daily environmental activities at the community level help in disaster resilience. We’ve also worked inChennai and other areas of South India
after the 2004 tsunami. We discussed
some issues related to relocation ofpeople after the tsunami and found thataccess to livelihood and attachment to
the original land area are keys to sustainable relocation. In Chennai, we also
worked on climate-related disasters
and got strong support from the mayorof Chennai and the University of Madras.
One of the biggest findings is that theinvolvement of government and local
academic institutions is essential tosustain disaster risk reduction activities. Hope the University of Calcutta
and Jadavpur University have begun
working closely with the civic body to
improve Bengal’s ALM, which becomes
extremely necessary after a naturaldisaster,” Shaw said.

Kolkata’s earthquake history
An earthquake in 1737 claimed 3,00,000 lives, thus rendering it one of the threemost disastrous earthquakes in history. Yet, evidence for a severe earthquake isweak, consisting of anonymous reports conveyed to Europe six months later bymerchant ships returning from Bengal. Official accounts of the disaster submitted tothe East India Company headquarters in London list 3,000 fatalities and omit
mention of an earthquake

Key points for Kolkata
Strengthening the building stocks,
especially the old buildings, and makeproper inspection in the new buildings
Start disaster education in schools
Allocate proper funds for disaster risk
reduction measures
Remember that earthquake or tsunami
does not happen every year, but when it
happens, the impacts are higher. Therefore,
we call these as low probability, highconsequence event

KOLKATA

Elsewhere...
October 8, 2005 Kashmir (India) andpart of Pakistan Fatalities more than80,000 Magnitude 7.6
December 26, 2004: Indian Ocean off
west coast of northern Sumatra India Sri Lanka Maldives Fatalities 2,83,000
Magnitude 9.0 to 9.3
January 26, 2001: Kutch Fatalities 20.000 Magnitude 7.6/7.7
September 29, 1993: Latur 9,700 Magnitude 6.2
October 20, 1991: Uttarkashi Uttarakhand More than 1,000 Magnitude 6.6
August 15, 1950: Tibetan plateau (Arunachal Pradesh China border More than
1,500 Magnitude 8.5
January 15, 1934: Bihar 8,100 Magnitude 8.7
June 12, 1897: Shillong 1,500 Magnitude 8.7
December 31, 1881: Andaman and Nicobar Islands none Magnitude 7.9

Education & evacuation drill play key roles
Rajib Shaw, 42, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Global
Environmental Studies in Kyoto
University, is also the board chair ofa Japanese NGO based in Kobe (Kobewitnessed a major earthquake in 1995).
The NGO is starting some projects toprovide information to the local communities using community radio andmaking some cash for work programmes to support immediate livelihood issues. Shaw speaks to Manasij
Bhattacharjee
What is your current role in Japan?

In the post-disaster recovery, we are
documenting the recovery process andplanning to work with the local governments to provide inputs, especially from the experiences of Indian Ocean

Tsunami of 2004. We will continue thisfor next three to four years.
Post-tsunami, what is the biggest hurdle Japanis facing?

Two key points: number of evacuees
and the land area for the temporary
shelter. Due to the nuclear issue, it isuncertain when the problem will besettled, and this poses a significant
problem in identifying the locations toshelter the homeless. This calamity
has caused an unprecedented numberof evacuees, who need to stay in shelter longer. Another key hurdle is thatthe affected area is spread over almost
500 km. Japan always has land problems. The Tohoku area (especially theIwate prefecture) has very narrowcoastal (the rest is mountain) belt,

which is affected by the tsunami. To
make the temporary shelter we needspace, and this has to be away fromthe affected region. So, people need tolive far away from their original place.
To find suitable land for the temporary shelter is a major problem.
What is the biggest lesson to be learnt fromthis tsunami?

The affected area experienced tsunami
several times, in 1896, 1933, 1960 (due toearthquake in Chile) and also in 2010 (dueto earthquake in Chile). People and government have taken different infrastructure
measures (like sea dyke), and education
programmes (school education, evacuation drill etc). This disaster is once in
1,000 years event (similar magnitude
earthquake happened in the same fault

zone in 869 AD). The biggest lesson isthat we need a balance of infrastructure
measures and disaster education. People
take their own decision of evacuation,even if there is a warning. And, education and evacuation drill and awarenessplay the key role for this. There is nothing called the final word in disaster risk
reduction. We need to work continuously.

late afternoon, and driving through
Maidan in the early morning.
Are you in touch with disaster management
experts in Kolkata?

Unfortunately not
Do you like Bengali films?

Yes, love them. Recently saw Japanese
Wife!

How often do you visit here?

I visit India at least two to three times
a year with my students and other colleagues. I do not find time to go to myhome every time, but try to make itonce in a year.
What is your favourite place in Kolkata?

I have two favourite places — on thebank of Ganga near Belur Math in theDo Japanese and Bengalis have similar food
habits?

Both eat rice and fish (the variety isdifferent). In Japan, we eat more sea
fish, in West Bengal, mostly fresh water
fish. Of course, the preparation is different though! I also find a strong similarity in the grammar of Japanese andBengali (which is different from English).