BACKGROUND: Prepared for the worst
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By Anna-Riitta Sippola
Pentti Partanen has served as Finland’s top rescue official from 1991.
His task is to prepare for the worst, but even he did not have the imagination to anticipate the dimension of the Asian catastrophe - a natural disaster whose impact extended from Indonesia to the coast of Africa.
Partanen is now keenly awaiting the report of the board of inquiry on the actions of officials dealing with the disaster.
"The board will undoubtedly do thorough work, listen to different people involved in the accident, and those involved in aid work. It will bring out a massive amount of information and experience", he says.
Some kind of a measure of the success of Finnish officials will come when comparisons are made of how sucessful officials in different countries facing the same situation were in dealing with the problems.
"We were probably good in some things, and weaker in others", Pentti Partanen says.
"Concerning the Monday morning after the tsunami, it can be asked if aid operations were launched only on Monday, or already on Monday. When the international comparison comes out, the conclusion will probably be that already within a day it was noted that the Finns need to be evacuated from there."
Partanen also points out that neither the state budget, nor inappropriate laws or other regulations impeded action by the government.
For instance, on the authority of the Prime Minister it was decided to waive the requirement contained in consular legislation that those without a travel ticket are required to sign an undertaking before a return journey arranged by a Finnish consulate that they will pay for their ticket.
Partanen emphasises the importance of cooperation: there are many parties sitting around the same table, from government officials and Red Cross representatives, to travel agents and insurance companies.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 10.1.2005
More on this subject:
 Officials need to prepare for new kinds of risks
ANNA-RIITTA SIPPOLA / Helsingin Sanomat
anna-riitta.sippola@hs.fi
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