Bangladesh: look on the bright side

When I first heard that Cyclone Sidr was shaping up to be a category four or five monster, these lyrics came to mind:

“I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour; and when I die, I expect to find him laughing.” — Depeche Mode, Blasphemous Rumours (1984)

That night, I said to a friend: “I wonder if God sits there going, ‘Ooh, nastiness. Now where can I send this thing? Honduras? Madagascar? No wait, I know, Bangladesh! Muhahaha.’”

Having thought about it, I must admit I was wrong, on a number of grounds — not counting any metaphysical objections of blasphemy.

Major storms tend to appear worse in poor regions, because they are so badly equipped to deal with them. Infrastructure is bad, so communication and early warning is difficult, evacuation is slow, and structures that in a rich country would offer considerable shelter are little more than lethal debris in a poor place. The phenomenon is often well-illustrated in the Caribbean, where the very same storm sometimes hits both a poor island country and the rich USA. Death tolls in such cases often differ by several orders of magnitude.

So what about Sidr? True, it’s a tragedy. Of course it is. Thousands of people died. Current figures stand at well over 3,000, and estimates are that the final death toll may reach 15,000. Yet in 1991, an equally vicious storm, Cyclone Gorky, hit Bangladesh. The five- or six-metre tidal surge, so devastating in low-lying coastal belts, was comparable. Wind strengths of up to 250km/h were the same. But in 1991, Gorky killed 150 000 people. Ten times as many as Sidr killed this past weekend.

Rewind another couple of decades, to 1970s, and we meet the Bhola Cyclone. A category three cyclone, it wasn’t even as strong as Gorky or Sidr. Wind speeds peaked around 200km/h. Yet it killed near half a million people in Bangladesh (then called East Pakistan) and the West Bengal region of India.

Why this difference? The dinner party set in fashionable suburbs feigns concern over the impact of climate change on poor countries. Storms will get worse, they say, and millions of people will die. Politicians and bureaucrats raze forests for thousands of pages of gumpf that support their claims to ever-more power and money. But what has Bangladesh been doing?

When Bhola hit, it took most locals by surprise, according to contemporary reports. What early warning system they had was not used properly, and the vast majority of people failed to take refuge in suitably fortified structures. After Bhola, cyclone shelters were built. When Gorky hit, early warning was still inadequate, and many people didn’t know where to find the shelters. Still, an estimated two million people evacuated the most exposed areas. This probably reduced the death toll considerably. Since Gorky, in 1991, Bangladesh has continued to spend its meagre resources on early warning systems and emergency evacuation plans. Over half a million people were evacuated to shelters in advance of Cyclone Sidr. Ports were closed. Tens of thousands of emergency officials were on standby to help with the evacuation.

Note the impact of having spent available resources on improved preparation and better infrastructure:

Cyclone   Year   Strength        Death toll
Bhola     1970   up to 205km/h   up to 500,000
Gorky     1991   up to 260km/h   up to 150,000
Sidr      2007   up to 250km/h   up to 15,000

Over the centuries, as we’ve become more prosperous and more technologically advanced, we’ve been getting better at adapting to and defending against the threats of nature. In fact, a core argument of people who do not believe major investments in combating global warming are justified — even if they, like Bjørn Lomborg, do believe global warming is a problem — is that such costly measures sap the economic growth and prosperity that poor countries need to withstand natural disasters. Even if… no, especially if such disasters are going to be more frequent or more severe, it is simply a bad investment to spend available resources on highly speculative attempts to influence future climate — measures that even their proponents admit are unlikely to have much impact.

The deaths and damage caused by Cyclone Sidr are tragic, most certainly. But the fact that even a very poor country like Bangladesh is proving itself to be increasingly able to defend against the ravages of a capricious environment illustrates that investing resources in disaster defence and adaptation is a sensible strategy.