Emergency Paper

Emergency Paper

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January 12, 2010, marked the biggest earthquake in the history of Haiti. It destroyed almost 200,000 of people lives and reduced the city to mere rubble ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"arRZabyP","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u8220{}Inside the Haiti Earthquake,\\uc0\\u8221{} n.d.)","plainCitation":"(“Inside the Haiti Earthquake,” n.d.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":77,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/CKNkWnK9/items/MEJMMMQH"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/CKNkWnK9/items/MEJMMMQH"],"itemData":{"id":77,"type":"webpage","title":"Inside the Haiti Earthquake","container-title":"MIT - Docubase","abstract":"Documentary game \"Inside the Haiti Earthquake\" invites web visitors to learn about disaster relief through the perspectives of journalists, aid workers, and survivors.","URL":"https://docubase.mit.edu/project/inside-the-haiti-earthquake/","language":"en-US","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,25]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“Inside the Haiti Earthquake,” n.d.) The impact of a disaster can be measured by walking through an online simulation that allows the user to experience the incidence from the perspective of a survivor, journalist, and an aid worker. For each situation, the user is allowed to make a critical decision that has both practical and ethical consequences. In this paper, I am going to give a response highlighting the challenges and experiences as a survivor and a journalist.

Response 1

Response 1 tells us about the needs of the Survivors and the Journalists.

Survivors

Watching everyone crying and desperately calling for help after coming to the senses in such situations is a lot to take for a survivor. The impact of loss, including family, belongings, community, and unwanted circumstances, create a sense of the overwhelming situation for a survivor. The immediate need for a survivor is a help. The help that serves in an effective way of getting people out that have been stuck under the rubble. In case of any injuries, the survivor needs immediate medical care, which can be provided by the Red Cross. Moreover, in an occurrence of such incidence, a survivor has lost all the belonging. He is thirsty, hungry, and has no one to protect him from the scorching sun. The situation depicts the survivor's need for food, water, and a place to stay and sleep tonight. They need trucks and gasoline to move to the areas where camps are set up to provide relief. In cases like these, dead bodies are mainly piled up at the end of the roads or pavements. Long-term needs include funeral arrangements for the family and psychological care to get over the trauma.

Journalists

In situations like these journalists first, need to immediately educate themselves on the impact of the particular disaster and its consequences. They should be well informed about the situation they are going to get themselves in. They are solely responsible for covering the disastrous impact with a proper angle of a story. Any contradictions in the theme of a story can lead to grave consequences. They mainly have to go to the site of an earthquake, so they need to ensure their safety first. They need transport and fuel to reach the areas of coverage. They need to be aware of the areas where relief camps are set up, in case the story is going to cover the efforts for minimizing the impact. They need clean food and water, although sources are limited. Journalism profession requires a proper set of equipment to film and report back to the newsroom. The proper communication between a journalist and a network is very important. They need to back up the collected information as it can be lost in situations like this. An earthquake can result in loss of telecommunication services. The situation dictates that all the necessary equipment needs to be protected as it can get lost or broken in case of a riot at the relief camps. In addition to that, journalists need to interview victims, survivors, eyewitnesses, and relief workers to get a bigger and better picture of the story he is going to narrate. In cases like these, survivors may be reluctant to tell their stories as a result of going through a major trauma. This might be quite a challenge for a journalist as working in these conditions could be stressful.

Response 2

In the first situation, neighbor Melinda seems to lose her consciousness sitting on the rubble under which her 3 children are buried alive. She is crying, but nobody seems to care. In scorching heat and without food and water, she is hopeless and tells me that no hope is going to come, and we must act on our own. We started clearing the rubble, but it was impossible to move such heavy weighted rocks. Relief camps are seemed to be overloaded with people asking for aid, and in the course of distributions, some survivors start looting, and the situation eventually results in a riot. This depicts the urgent need for food and necessities among the survivors. Moreover, the Red Cross seems to visit every camp in relief support areas to ensure the safety of the survivor's health. As a survivor, the best way to deal with such situations is to find help on your own. The survivor must accept the reality and nature of a situation, muster positive courage to find help for himself and others. Although the loss of family and belongings could be overwhelming, the area might still expect after-shocks. In that incidence, survivors have to move from the damaged infrastructure as quickly as possible. They don't have to hesitate to participate in efforts such as safety, rescue, and shelter, as it can cause a major influence. They will find themselves in situations to deal with the possibility of burying the dead, looking up for the wounded, or providing first aid. ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"b0XjtBNJ","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(COHEN, 2002)","plainCitation":"(COHEN, 2002)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":72,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/CKNkWnK9/items/GKWM2U2X"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/CKNkWnK9/items/GKWM2U2X"],"itemData":{"id":72,"type":"article-journal","title":"Mental health services for victims of disasters","container-title":"World Psychiatry","page":"149-152","volume":"1","issue":"3","source":"PubMed Central","ISSN":"1723-8617","note":"PMID: 16946836\nPMCID: PMC1489840","journalAbbreviation":"World Psychiatry","author":[{"family":"COHEN","given":"RAQUEL E"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2002",10]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (COHEN, 2002). They can take part by either visiting the US military or Red Cross and ask them to assign a job that can somehow minimize the effect of the consequences. They should realize that during the situation like these, relief and support services may not be organized and ideal, but the little effort from every individual counts.

In the case of a journalist, the producer keeps impressing upon the journalist to give a perfect story. It shows that the sole objective of a journalist would be to cover the incident by a certain point of view. Although his job dictates the efficient coverage of the story, he should ensure that by doing so, he doesn't interrupt the emergency relief activities. The riots and looting in the aid services may make his job a little difficult, but the purpose of coverage should be more than just giving a good story. The person should be to educate the audience about the impact of the incidence in terms of casualties, infrastructure, and rescue efforts. It is important to report the authentic set of events, so the blame of certain situations doesn't affect the people who are not responsible. Furthermore, they should also bring their food, water, fuel, and first aid kit, so they don't put a burden on the helping community in case of scarce resources ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"bVjp3e4O","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u8220{}Reporting on Disasters,\\uc0\\u8221{} n.d.)","plainCitation":"(“Reporting on Disasters,” n.d.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":75,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/CKNkWnK9/items/KJDDIYRM"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/CKNkWnK9/items/KJDDIYRM"],"itemData":{"id":75,"type":"webpage","title":"Reporting on Disasters","container-title":"Earth Journalism Network","abstract":"Disasters are rare but devastating events that often have an environment angle and can have impacts that last long into the future.","URL":"https://earthjournalism.net/resources/reporting-on-disasters","language":"en","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",10,25]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“Reporting on Disasters,” n.d.).

Response 3

My biggest takeaway as a survivor is watching my neighbor, who has just lost her 3 children as a consequence of this horrible disaster. It is quite overwhelming to see her crying as life might have ended for her too. She is hopeless that someone could be able to save her children. The most important thing that I can't forget is sitting and listening to songs from the group of survivors, which depicts that in situations like this, locals still might find a way to cheer themselves. It induces a sense of hope for a better future in the community.

As a Journalist, my biggest takeaway is watching people looting for the supplies when the aid workers arrived with the relief supplies. It makes me hurt to see that during such a process of unequal distribution, weak may still be deprived of necessities, whereas the stronger may get excess.

My experience as the aid worker has been the hardest, and my biggest takeaway was that some of the supplies provided by the UN were not beneficial to the health of the survivors such as dry milk. It was thought to be harmful to the babies. As an aid worker, I took an opportunity to visit the warehouses and removed such supplies. I believe it is my responsibility to ensure health and safety, along with providing relief services.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY COHEN, R. E. (2002). Mental health services for victims of disasters. World Psychiatry, 1(3), 149–152.

Inside the Haiti Earthquake. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2019, from MIT - Docubase website: https://docubase.mit.edu/project/inside-the-haiti-earthquake/

Reporting on Disasters. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2019, from Earth Journalism Network website: https://earthjournalism.net/resources/reporting-on-disasters