Former President Martti Ahtisaari to lead tsunami response board of inquiry

Martti Ahtisaari

Harri Holkeri

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Former President Martti Ahtisaari is to head a board of inquiry into the response to the Asian tsunami catastrophe in December. Former Prime Minister Harri Holkeri will be the vice chairman of the seven-member group.
      Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen announced the names of the board in his regular scheduled meeting with press representatives on the national FM network YLE Radio Suomi on Sunday.
     
The independent board is to clarify the course of events, the possibilities to survive and be rescued at disaster sites, as well as the officials’ ability to organise rescue operations in Finland. Based on its findings, the board is to give recommendations on measures needed to improve the efficiency of rescue efforts.
      The other members of the board are Director Tuomo Karppinen of the Accident Investigation Board Finland, Research Officer Esko Kaukonen of the Emergency Services College, Head of the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology Ilkka Kiviranta of Jyväskylä Central Hospital, Professor of Journalism Ullamaija Kivikuru from the University of Helsinki, and former Director of the Finnish Accident Investigation Board Kari Lehtola, who is now retired.
     
PM Vanhanen said that he decided not to summon the government to a crisis meeting after the tsunami, as it was preferable to keep a low profile and let professional expert organizations deal with all post-catastrophe measures.
      All necessary partners, for example tour operators, Finnair, and the Red Cross were included in the decision-making process. Thus all those who had to implement the decisions were involved and authorised directly by the Government if needed.
      According to Vanhanen, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland as well as Finland's Ministry of the Interior were informed of the disaster through their alarm system on the morning of Boxing Day, but the fact that the damage spread to dozens of countries and over thousands of kilometres of beach became evident only gradually.
     
"In the course of the first few hours, there was no idea of the real situation. It was difficult to get information, as not even the authorities in the countries involved could describe how serious the situation was", said Vanhanen.
      Vanhanen noted that alarm systems should be improved so that it would be possible in the future to get accurate and speedy information of accidents even in far-away countries.
      "It is not possible for the authorities of an individual country, including Finland and Sweden, to maintain such an emergency and information acquisition system in overseas areas that we would be fully informed of a catastrophe without delay", added Vanhanen.
     
There has been some public criticism of the tardiness of the Foreign Ministry response to the disaster, with accusations levelled that officials did not take seriously the reports of eye-witnesses, for example in the devastated area of Khao Lak in Thailand, where many Finns are believed to have perished.
      The current figures are of 15 confirmed dead and more than 170 missing.
      The body of the first Finnish victim to be returned from Thailand was brought back this morning. The Prime Minister was among state officials meeting the coffin at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Diary of Destruction, 26.-30.12.2004 (4.1.2005)

Links:
  Accident Investigation Board Finland
  Emergency Services College
  Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
  Ministry of the Interior

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