LONDON (AlertNet) - A soap opera can stop a landmine accident, and an ambulance siren can save a town from hurricanes, says a report on disasters.

Aid agencies need to listen to people in disaster-prone zones, instead of just rushing to fulfil donors’ wishes, and should remember to give information back to the people they’re trying to help, says the annual World Disasters Report.

“Information is as valuable as food, water or shelter for communities affected by disaster,” says the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (IFRC), which published the report.

The past decade is a grim one in disaster history, with the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004 adding more than 224,000 deaths to the toll.

According to figures compiled by the Belgian University of Louvain, there were 249,896 deaths from disasters in 2004, taking the total for 1995-2004 up to 901,177.

Stretched over the decade, Asia bears the brunt of the suffering, with more than 700,000 deaths, followed by 81,000 for the Americas.

Countries classified with medium human development have the heaviest burden from disasters during the decade with 511,000 deaths, compared to 329,500 for low-income countries and under 61,000 for highly developed countries.

’YOU DON’T NEED A LOT OF MONEY’

But diverting catastrophe does not depend on wealth, as the 2004 Caribbean hurricane season – one of the worst in decades -- proved.

Most of the 2,000 people killed during the six-week period were in Haiti -- wracked by poverty, political turmoil and environmental degradation – but 152 people died in the United States, one of the world’s richest countries.

In contrast, the most successful at avoiding loss of life were the island nations of Cuba, Jamaica and Dominican Republic, which had well-rehearsed evacuation plans in place, and minimal death tolls.

Audrey Mullings, a Jamaican Red Cross volunteer, said: “The best thing to learn from Cuba is that you don’t need a lot of money to make things work.”

The Cuban meteorological institute explains to the public why evacuation is compulsory over a large risk area, reinforcing its message with old footage of hurricanes, and authorities provide public transport to take people to shelters.

New technology is playing a role in saving lives from disasters, with mobile phones and the Internet accessible to growing numbers of people.

Weblogs where members of the public publish online – known as blogs – have taken on a new life, the World Disasters Report says.

But tale after tale illustrates how tragedies are prevented by working with the people on the receiving end of nature’s fury, where those likely to be most affected are usually the poorest.

When the electricity was down as a hurricane approached Dominican Republic in 2004, local officials in Ramon Santana used an ambulance siren to remind the town to evacuate.

SOAP OPERAS

Radio reaches into people’s homes like no other medium, and soap operas have a long tradition of slipping information into their entertainment schedule.

In Afghanistan, a BBC drama called “New Home, New Life” has tackled landmine education, sterility and forced marriages, as well as offering a welcome injection of humour during tough times.

A similar format has been tried and tested to prepare for hurricanes in the Caribbean, help people recover from earthquakes in the South American country of Colombia, tackle HIV/AIDS in the Indian Ocean island nation of Madagascar, and build peace in Sierra Leone, in west Africa.

The World Disasters report says aid agencies need to listen more to people in disaster risk areas.

It says: “Aid agencies have not got used to the idea that they should give information to affected populations, as well as getting it from them… But disasters are times of great uncertainty and this uncertainty may be the most painful part of the experience.”

Sometimes, local aid organisations do a better job. When the December tsunami struck Tamil Nadu, on India’s southern tip, a network called Abhiyan collated information which they fed to aid agencies and government authorities, reporting back to villages on a daily basis.

Often, relief organisations carry out elaborate assessments of post-disaster needs, but then just act on the hunches of the people in control of the purse strings, even when they have canvassed local opinion.

PREDICTING KATRINA

An evaluation of the IFRC response, two months after the tsunami struck the war-torn Indonesian region of Aceh, said: “The response so far has been influenced more by the media needs and the perception of donors… rather than by the expressed needs of the affected community.”

While most of the report reminds aid agencies and governments to listen to local people, it also points out how disaster specialists often have a hard time getting authorities to pay attention.

The World Disasters Report - compiled before Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast of the United States and killed around 1,200 people – warns: “A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers computer simulation has calculated that 65,000 could die in (New Orleans), in the event of a direct hit by a slow-moving category 3 hurricane.”

See also: Post-tsunami chaos wastes aid
PHOTOS: Disasters around the world
TIP SHEET: How to ‘sell’ forgotten emergencies
VIEWPOINT: Communication is a lifeline
Global disaster death toll soared in 2004-Red Cross
FACTBOX: World disaster facts and figures
FACTBOX: How warnings save lives