Abstract
A preponderance of the world’s population is expected to live in urban environments by 2050 (ADB, Asia 2050: realizing the Asian century. ADB, Manila, 2011). Cities as sites of vulnerability for disasters originating from both natural and man-made causes are attracting considerable research on understanding the cross-cultural and governance dynamics associated with large-scale mortalities (Paton and Jang, Disaster resilience: exploring all-hazards and cross-cultural perspectives. In: Miller D, Rivera J (eds) Community disaster recovery ad resiliency: exploring global opportunities and challenges (pp 81–100). Taylor and Francis, Oxford, 2011; Paton and Violanti, Working in high risk environments: developing sustained resilience. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 2012; Pelling, Vulnerability of cities: natural disasters and social resilience. Earthscan, London, 2003, Adaptation to climate change: from resilience to transformation. Routledge, London/New York, 2011). Disaster risk reduction policies of various Asian regional governments are currently exploring pragmatic approaches to recover and reconstruct lives, families and livelihoods of those affected. Examination of adaptation to trauma arising from large-scale losses in various cross-cultural contexts and different governance regimes presents the possibility of deriving new insights into practical disaster reconstruction models and policies. As such, this paper highlights the fundamental contributions of specific sociocultural and governance frameworks in disaster reconstruction policy. In so doing, the chapter investigates various urban disaster sites—namely, Bam and Tabriz (Iran), Pyapon, Bogale and Labutta (Myanmar) and Beichuan and Yingxue (People’s Republic of China, PRC)—where large-scale mortalities arising from earthquakes and a cyclone warrant attention by those researching on disaster resilience, recovery and reconstruction. Based on the fieldwork in the aforementioned disaster sites, this chapter suggests that while the physical reconstruction of a livable habitat is important, the sociocultural factors in enabling disaster-impacted communities to reconstruct peoples’ daily lives are of greater importance in the long-term recovery. Through the lens of civil society, difficulties in adapting to new realities around an engaged future are highlighted.
Field work was done in the PRC and Iran in October 2012, while in Myanmar it took place in June and November 2012 and November 2013.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, in the Tohoku case, the events struck an area with primary ageing characteristics, thus reducing the survivors’ willingness to relocate and increasing their need for governmental assistance to recover.
- 2.
Each FGD had about 40–50 people.
- 3.
UNISDR (2005) defines resilience as: “The capacity of a system, community or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure. This is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable of organising itself to increase this capacity for learning from past disasters for better future protection and to improve risk reduction measures” (p. 4).
- 4.
Personal communication with mayor of Beichuan, October 2012
- 5.
The Tripartite Core Group (2008, pp. 1–4) provides these figures as of July 2008 based on the Village Tract Assessment conducted one month after the Cyclone. Out of an estimated population in the affected areas of 7.35 million, around 2.4 million people were severely affected by the Cyclone. An informant from a local NGO told me in November 2012 that the Bogale River was “choked with bodies”; many washed up weeks later in Sri Lanka, India and on the eastern beaches of Myanmar. The exact death toll may never be known
- 6.
Myanmar is hazard prone. Some 11 cyclones have impacted Myanmar in the past 60 years, but only two made landfall in the Delta, the country’s major rice growing area. Floods, urban fires, major windstorms (14 since 1910) and six earthquakes have struck the country. Further, about 11 tsunamis over the past 250 years have impacted the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea regions. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed 60 people in Myanmar and left some 2,500 homeless in Myanmar’s coastal areas
- 7.
TCG consisted of ASEAN, the Myanmar Government and the UN agencies.
- 8.
All health facilities in Bam were destroyed and half of the medical staff lost their lives in the initial earthquake.
- 9.
Personal communication with mayor of Beichuan and colleagues from the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, October 2012
- 10.
Personal communication with Deputy Governor of Kerman province, Bam, October 2012
- 11.
Ardalan et al. (2011) note that at the time of the study, two elder-care centres were operative in Bam, serving around 100 people.
- 12.
Fishing is a major occupation, especially in the coastal towns of Pyapon, Bogale and Labutta
- 13.
Following the 25 May 2008 ASEAN-UN International Pledging Conference, the agreed Tripartite Core Group (TCG) coordinated relief efforts by the Government of Myanmar, the UN and ASEAN. On 31 May, the TCG agreed to conduct the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) to assess the extent of the destruction and the requirements for humanitarian assistance as well as medium- and long-term recovery. About 250 staff from the GOM, ASEAN, ADB and WB, UN agencies and NGOs conducted the VTA and the DaLA. Staff from 18 government ministries were involved in field visits and data interpretation; some 70 people condensed this data into the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment Report (July 2008).
- 14.
Focus group discussion, November 2012
- 15.
Later, in a similar disaster event, her house has also been designated as an evacuation point.
- 16.
Personal communication with NGO leader, November 2012
- 17.
See Paton et al. (2008) for an insightful evaluation of the “collective efficacy” of collective societies in facilitating community recovery from a disaster.
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James, H. (2016). Post-Disaster Reconstruction Models: The Governance of Urban Disasters in China, Iran and Myanmar. In: Miller, M., Douglass, M. (eds) Disaster Governance in Urbanising Asia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-649-2_12
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