Gaps in the Evacuation of People with Special Needs During Coastal Disasters in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Coastal hazards taken place all over the world have ended up with major devastations such as loss of life, property damage and environmental degradation more often. Sri Lanka, being an island in the Indian ocean is much vulnerable to coastal hazards; the unprecedented human disaster that caused by the Asian Tsunami was one of the worst examples. Present studies show that there are lot of programs carried out by the government and non-government organizations to drag down the adversity towards the coastal communities in the country who are much vulnerable to coastal disasters, focusing all the segments of basically social, economic and environmental aspects. Evacuation of coastal communities safely in disastrous situations is one of the main requirements within the disaster recovery framework. Having effective multi-hazard early warning (MHEW) systems and procedures in place in the coastal regions of the country helps to reduce the disaster risk. Although there are policies and practices for the evacuation of coastal communities including MHEW systems, the present study shows that the attention and preparedness towards the evacuation of people with special needs in the coastal communities is more or less omitted by the responsible parties. Moreover, when disasters strike, people with special needs meet various discriminations in terms of evacuation to a shelter or relief points and more often are overlooked from the emergency preparedness, response and recovery stages. Therefore, the present research focuses on determining the gaps in the evacuation of people with special needs in the context of MHEW systems during coastal hazards in Sri Lanka. Open interviews and telephone interviews were conducted in few major coastal cities and understood the likelihood of the obstacles, issues and the perception towards the evacuation of people with special needs. A questionnaire was developed according to the open interviews and fine-tuned in three sandpit events employing various local and foreign professionals in academics. The questionnaires were distributed online and the responses were analyzed. Eventually, a substantial number of gaps were identified in supporting the prevailing systems in Sri Lanka and was arrived at conclusions to impact the government through the findings in order to make the evacuation of people with special needs during coastal disasters more efficient.