reconstruction

Flood affected areas in Metro Manila Region and Rizal Province, Philippines. Hi-res version. Canadian Space Agency Image processing, map created 29/09/2009 by UNITAR/UNOSAT.

Saturday morning, September 26, in Washington, DC: I am driving my daughter to class. I check my Blackberry and see an urgent email from Mukami, our Disaster Management team member in Manila, asking me to call her. (I need to stop reading emails at red lights. It’s probably against the law and it’s certainly obsessive).

I call Mukami on her cell-phone. She says that Manila has seen some of the worst flooding in its history after Typhoon Kestana dumped 16.7 inches of rain in just 12 hours on Saturday. The Government is immediately looking for satellite images to help in the search and rescue efforts. Some World Bank staff were still unaccounted for. She also asks about what other assistance the Bank can offer the Government in the aftermath of this disaster.

A fireman showing the Bank's Global Disaster Management team around Onna.

Two countries, two cultures, a world apart, but I have learnt this week that the human face of the Wenchuan and L’Aquila earthquake tragedies is not dissimilar.  I am in the beautiful historic town of L’Aquila, devastated by the earthquake which struck the Ambruzzo region of central Italy at 3:30am on April 6, 2009. 

Sharing global best practice is one of our most important jobs as Bank staff.  This past week a group of eleven staff from all over the Bank, including four from country offices (Haiti, Aceh, Islamabad and Beijing), who all share the task of helping Bank clients prepare for and respond to disasters came to Italy to learn about the L’Aquila earthquake response.  We are here as guests of the Civil Protection Agency of Italy – a most gracious host – to learn from their experiences in managing the L’Aquila earthquake.  The mission has been organized by the Bank’s recently formed Global Expert Team for Disaster Management, of which I am a member. 

For most of us, when a disaster happens in a far away place, we only get brief glimpses of the immediate aftermath and subsequent recovery efforts – often only through news media or occasionally close-by bloggers. During four years of reconstruction after the devastating tsunami that hit the Indonesian province of Aceh in 2004, few have seen the rebuilding process like those who are part of the recovery efforts.

The Multi-Donor Fund (MDF), which is managed by the World Bank with contributions and guidance from 15 other international donor partners, continues to work on the ground in Aceh and Nias. The reconstruction has been extremely successful, with more than 100,000 new houses constructed, more than 90,000 hectares of agricultural land restored and 2,500 kilometers of road built. In late 2008, the MDF held a photo competition for people involved with projects or agencies related to reconstruction. The resulting pictures are not professionally created, but they give a beautifully close and comprehensive view of the rebuilding of Aceh.

(Hover your mouse over "Notes" to see information about each photo)

Many of the pictures were featured in the Multi-Donor Fund 2008 Progress Report, which can be found at the MDF website. You can also see the photos at our Flickr page.

Much that remains of Beichuan, China from the earthquake, is buried – reclaimed by the environment.

It has been seven months since the Wenchuan Earthquake devastated Sichuan Province and I have just returned from my seventh trip to the quake zone, this time with World Bank President Robert Zoellick. Yesterday we traveled three hours by bus from Chengdu to Beichuan, the town that was most severely affected during the earthquake. On May 12, the day of the 7.8- magnitude earthquake, buildings collapsed and mountains came crashing down, burying thousands. The ground literally opened up and swallowed people, cars and buildings. A staggering 12,000 people died in Beichuan on that day – about 74 percent of the town's population. More than a thousand children died at the high school alone.