The Command Post - Global Recon - The Iranian Regime's Incomptence

December 30, 2003

The Iranian Regime's Incomptence

Shargh Newspaper Sahar Namazi Khah

You need only spend 5 hours in Tehran's Mehrabad ariport to see the regime's paralysis in sending medical volunteers to the eathquake site. You need only circle the cities' main squares for 2 hours to see all the people wondering around clutching armloads of supplies they want to donate in search of collection points and transfer sites they can't find. And you need only visit blood donation sites to see how donations are halted as a result of minor glitches such as a shortage of blood bags. This is when you realise the truth, that the people are ready and willing to help, but the officials have disappeared.

People who hear calls for help, supplies and blood on radio and TV all day, rush out in the cold and snow to donate what they can, only to be turned away to go back home unable to help. They send them away hurt and disappointed, and only comfort them with suggestions of prayers instead of an opportunity for participation and assistance. During natural disasters like earthquakes, floods and fires one of the most important tasks is the proper managment of the response, organisation of aid, volunteer groups and transfer of supplies and assistance to the afflicted areas. Sending medical and volunteer aid groups to a disaster area such as an earthauke site is as important as pulling out dead bodies.

A day after an earthquake, go to the biggest airport in Iran at Mehrabad to see all the doctors, emergency and medical teams stuck waiting for hours as a result of the total incompetance of response management while hundreds desperately need their help. Reporters were paralysed as a result of paper chases with the dreaded Herasat officials and the airport Revolutionary Guard squads wasting time that could be spent reporting the breaking story. Young rescuers without any proper clothing were being sent to a freezing cold destination. Because of the regime's incompetance groups of young doctors from the Tehran Medical School, Shahid Pezeshki University, the Halal Ahmal Helpers, journalists and reporters spent endless hours sitting around holding their plane tickets waiting to leave while hundreds were dying for lack of rescuers and medical aid.

Everyone could see the weakness and incompetance of the reigime in responding, organising and managing this crisis, a regime whose most minimal responsibility is to deliver aid in the case of emergencies and disasters, and a regime that was not able to to do so in any way shape or form.

Archive of earthquake articles from BlogIran

Posted by Michele at December 30, 2003 11:23 AM | TrackBack

Comments

It is sad.

Ideas have consequences. It all of life must be tightly controlled, then all flexibility is lost.

When you live in a top down world, everything must be generated from the top down.

In our world, that which is not formally forbidden, is permitted.

In their world that which is not formally permitted, is forbidden.

Posted by: Limpet at December 30, 2003 12:15 PM

As a suggestion for relief for future quakes, I suggest that we take the City of San Francisco Building Code, translate it into Farsi, and distribute copies to all top Iranian officials with the strong suggestion that they enact and implement it. California just had a Richter 6.5 quake that killed one or two people. Iran just had a Richter 6.5 quake that killed over 25,000 people. There is no reason for this loss of life except lousy construction.

Posted by: J. G. Jackson at December 30, 2003 04:07 PM

JGJ,

To be fair, the 6.5 CA quake happened in a relatively sparsely-populated region, while Bam is a major city. Quake experts interviewed after the 6.5 quake said that if it had happened in downtown LA, the effects would have been truly catastrophic, building codes or no. This is not to say you don't have a point about construction, but its not the whole story.

For an example of what a major quake can do even to a region with modern building code construction, this site has slides from the '94 Northridge CA earthquake:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/slideset/18/18_thumbs.html

Posted by: tagryn at December 31, 2003 01:21 AM

For what its worth, csmonitor.com has a piece at http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1231/p01s02-wogi.html which is (indirectly) complimentary towards the regime's response, though its mostly a backhanded slap at the international community for not responding this way to all disasters. The article ends: "Iran itself has proved much more welcoming to international aid workers this time than it was in 1990, when another earthquake killed some 30,000 people."

Posted by: tagryn at December 31, 2003 02:29 AM

And yet the Northridge quake (as I've mentioned here before), which occurred in a heavily populated area and was actually slightly closer to LA than the Iranian quake was to Bam, killed 57 people. And, while the damage was bad, the greater part of a city was not reduced to pebbles and dust ... and the dead.

Posted by: Achillea at December 31, 2003 12:50 PM

now this is iran we are talking about here.. a third world country that just moved into the industrial revolution 30 years ago. Before that they were living in tents and riding camels in the desert.

Posted by: gijoe at January 2, 2004 12:40 PM

Well, that's figuratively, but not literally true. The buildings that collapsed are ancient. Bam is a mud and brick city older than anything in America.

It they insisted the day after the San Francisco earthquake all NEW buildings be modern and earthquake proofed it wouldn't have made a brick of difference.

Posted by: Limpet at January 3, 2004 10:55 PM

why were we not given enough information on the recent eathquake near Tehran, our national news barely covered it,? thank goodness, my iranian husband can listern to the Isreali iranian world news from the world service.he was worried sick

Posted by: loretta at June 5, 2004 06:19 AM