Reader Anil Nauriya, an advocate at the Supreme Court of India, writes to this blog that recent humanitarian efforts follow a  disturbing new model of “rehabilitation” of  the area rather than the old one of rescuing victims.

Taken together with military involvement in disasters and drills that forecast yet do not avert disasters, the implications of the model are nothing short of sinister:

Rescue versus Relief and Rehabilitation?

In recent years there is a new trend noticeable with international disaster-related work.
This is that within a few days of rescue work, the agencies involved say that there is now no hope of finding survivors and that attention must now shift to rehabilitation work.
Thus they quickly create an “either-or” between rescue and rehabilitation.
In the case of Nepal it was reported 7 days after the disaster that the international norm for rescue operations is only seven days and the rescue operations in Nepal were accordingly being wound down.
The fact is that human beings, especially in the Third World, evidently have greater endurance and stamina.
This is why it has been found in quakes in Turkey, Iraq and Iran – and I have definite memories of this — that survivors, including old women, have been rescued alive from under the debris even after 40+ and even 50+ days. In addition, some people under the debris still manage to find a source of water (say some leak somewhere) or something edible.
It is therefore of the utmost importance that attempts at rescue must not be abandoned in a hurry, especially in a Third World country like Nepal. Imagine the plight of someone who may be lying somewhere hoping one day to be rescued but the search for whom may have been abandoned only because the international norm does not provide for it.
Unfortunately, Western norms for Rescue missions do not factor in these aspects. This is also because Rescue is more expensive, requiring drilling machinery and highly trained experts and engineers. Relief and Rehabilitation, are, by comparison, less burdensome tasks [ though still major ones] and with varied time horizons, some immediate and some spread over a period. The cost-benefit approach and outlook have no doubt influenced international norms on disaster response. In the process, Rescue operations get boxed into an unduly short window of time.
So I hope the word will spread in Nepal and wherever such disasters occur: “Don’t give up on Rescue!”

Anil Nauriya