Run for dem hills!

Earthquakes and tremors – these are words we hear and read about almost every month lately. Human lives remain the main casualties whenever and wherever such events happen. Malaysia has been rather fortunate thus far, its casualties in the 2004 Asian tsunami were much lower than neighbouring nations such as Indonesia and Thailand.

More than 2 years have passed. Are we prepared to react and cope should worse disasters come knocking on our doors? Are our emergency response for rescue and medical support up to scratch?

Rescuing people from massive floods and then housing them in ad-hoc relief centres is different than coping with a major earthquake or tidal wave. Injury and death will be horrendously higher in the latter scenarios. We have been very lucky that such disasters that befell our neighbours have left us relatively unscathed. This run of good luck may not hold; so let's not get complacent. We should get cracking to prepare well for when such disasters really occur, not if.

Can our fire and rescue services cope with casualties running into the thousands if major highrise buildings in urban centres collapsed in an earthquake? Victims need to be extricated quickly and sent to medical centres for treatment. Road traffic will be choked to a standstill; can enough helicopters be mobilised to shuttle victims swiftly to hospitals? How are personnel from elsewhere in the country to be deployed quickly to affected areas?

In a major earthquake, landline and mobile telephone services will no doubt be disrupted. Will mobile radio communications be adequate in providing efficient information exchange between the disaster agencies involved? Surely we are not going to use semaphore or smoke signals.

Government hospitals will no doubt be inundated with casualties; thereby having to rope in the private medical centres as well. Has any prior arrangements been made with these private centres for requisition of their facilites? Do we have sufficient ambulances? Do we have field hospitals similar to that used by armed forces that can be speedily set up in disaster zones? Have we procured sufficient equipment such as rescue baskets and stretchers? What about medications and dressings?

I really dread when the writing is on the wall - a major disaster strikes our fine land and we can't cope. Then what? Wait for foreign relief agencies or volunteers to come and assist? To do what? Collect dead bodies?

Get cracking, no more pussy footing, wake up!