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15 May: Advanced Party Arrives, First Maps Printed |
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Saturday, 13 May 2006 |
Nigel and Toby arrived at Paramaribo airport last evening just behind
schedule at 16.40. After quickly passing through the airport they
booked into the Eco Resort Hotel to collocate with the UNDAC Staff.
The UNDAC team are presently working from the MoD near the NCCR and
with their help the advanced party were able to assess the role of
MapAction over the next few days of the relief phase.
David Spackman (Director), after discussion with Nigel at lunchtime
today, decided to deploy a main party of four to Suriname and so David,
Sylvie Chesneau, Chris Phillips and Hamish Pritchard all met this
evening to collect and prepare the equipment. Emerson Tan,
Chris Dowden and Mike Sims, although not deploying, were also there to
help. They will fly to Amsterdam early tomorrow to obtain their
visas and then fly onto Paramaribo at 1215 tomorrow (Tuesday) arriving
there at 1625 the same day to join Nigel and Toby.
Nigel and Toby printed the first of their first three maps at
19.56. In discussions with the UNDAC team the assessment at this
stage is that there will be no opportunity to conduct field data
collection: there are no functioning roads into the affected area,
travel by boat to and from the interior would take several days, and
air assets are limited to one Suriname helicopter in which the UN
themselves have difficultly getting a seat for air reconnaissance work.
However, locational data is reportedly being collected, at least by the
military, and this may provide input for fairly detailed and useful
situational mapping.
The situation on the ground in the affected area, we are told, is that
the flooding is mainly restricted to the river banks (up to several
hundred metres laterally) however the population – who almost all live
and farm on the flood plains – have taken refuge on what are sometimes
very narrow strips of land hard against the steep valley sides. Some
sub-districts are reporting that between 60 and 100 percent of the
population have been displaced. According to the Dutch hydrologists
some river system levels are probably falling while others may still be
rising.
Our intentions are to move into the UNDAC field base (not yet formally
an OSOCC) at the MoD, to scope out our initial role in close support of
UNDAC.
Overall a typically interesting first day in the field and many
uncertainties remain. This seems to have many of the characteristics of
'classic' sudden onset disasters, and even though deaths are reportedly
very low some 25,000 or more people – two thirds of those living in the
interior – have been displaced from their homes and will have a wide
range of basic needs currently unfulfilled. Our role over the coming
days, as in other emergencies, will be to provide good information
support for decision making by several humanitarian agencies.
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Deployment Diary 
