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Trials & Errors Issue #66 (Sept 22 2005): High Water: Ham Radio's Role in 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
"When all else is dead, short wave radio is alive."
Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Novelist
[Simuelue Island, Sumatra, Indonesia -- early morning of December 26th, 2004]
Three of Sumatra's most dedicated fishermen were out on the deepest parts of the Indian ocean. It was on this stretch of water that these three hoped to catch a few mahi-mahi. Unfortunately, that fish population had been depleted by commercial companies over the last decade for foreign export; Mahi-Mahi or Wahoo were now a limited and risky catch for smaller boats like the one owned by Bencawan. His wife's father had purchased this boat many years before, a jukung polangan, when fishing close to shore was viable -- but few Westerners would consider it an ocean-going vessel.
Bencawan saw that the morning sky was already clouding up on the Eastern horizon, as expected, for it was the rainy season. As he and his two villager friends began to pull in the drift nets, he noticed something odd. His attention shifted from the catch coming into the boat to the ocean surface where he could see a rhythmic movement of the previously calm surface. Oddly it matched a similar vibration he felt coming to his feet from the bottom of the jukung. As he glanced at his friends, he saw the concerned look on their faces.
Each of them knew what this meant.
The story of the great Tsunami had been sung for generations on their island, from Grandmothers to babies, from mothers and fathers to their children. It came in song and poetic stories describing the smong, or "ghostly wave." They knew that if they didn't move quickly, they or their families could be victims of this particular phantom.
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[Koh Phi Phi Island, Thailand, 600 miles from Sumatra]
The elephant keepers were having a difficult morning. It had been a gorgeous sunrise, as usual, but their animals were giving them a hard time for an unknown reason. Normally content to be chained to palm trees overnight, these worker elephants had begun to cry and pull at the iron attached to their legs. A number of the larger animals broke free of these chains and took off, running uphill with their keepers chasing after them. It was an event with no logical explanation but one that would be discussed with reverence for those great beasts in the months and years to come.
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[New Delhi, National Capital Territory, India]
In early December of 2004, the Indian ham organization NIAR (National Institute of Amateur Radio) pulled off a minor miracle.
As one of the world's top DX locations, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands had unfortunately been years without an amateur radio presence. These islands were a strategic location for the Indian military, so there was a strong government limit on accessibility. It's also a tribal location for an indigenous people and with many unusual plants and animals. In short, this beautiful group of over 500 isles had until 2004 been almost impossible to visit on a DXpedition.
But persistence and good networking paid off, as VU2RBI and other NIAR leadership pleaded the case to the Indian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in New Delhi. Soon, this honor was accorded to to Mrs. Bharathi Prasad (VU2RBI) as team Leader. along with VU2DBP, VU3DVS, VU2MYH and VU3RSB. Permission was granted for this team to use the special callsigns of VU4NRO & VU4RBI . . . the first time in two decades that the VU4 prefix had been assigned. The team gathered their equipment and, along with international support (primarily from American and German hams) set off for this destination 1200 kilometers from India's coastline.
No one knew, of course, that the DXpedition would be active in the Andaman and Nicobar islands at the same time that the shifting plates of the earth's crust would cause complete chaos and destruction across a wide area, killing nearly a quarter of a million people. Disasters on that scale are hard to imagine.
The NIAR DXpedition soon turned from a fun and rewarding ham event into a critical emergency communication exercise for our hams who dropped all DXpedition efforts as the waves struck the islands. Because all communications infrastructure and Internet on the islands had been taken down by the tragic earthquake and resulting Tsunami, the NIAR team ended up being present for a lifesaving opportunity on the islands. Mrs. Prasad (VU2RBI) and her colleagues held emergency coordination efforts together as the disaster moved to recovery.
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Within hours of the great wave hitting the shores of Sri Lanka (where 35,000 died), 4S7VK had set up a communications link between government headquarters in Colombo and stations in the stricken area on the Southern shoreline. Up until that point, all the operational communications equipment in the region consisted of one satellite phone . . . everything else had been wiped out.
The team was led by Victor Goonetilleke (4S7VK) who at the time was president of the Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL). The Society had only $200 in funds available, but luckily some equipment had been left behind by a Japanese DXpedition and it was put to use for this critical need. In a voicemail, Victor gave me an eye-opening explanation of the difference between emergency communication and true disaster communication:
"When I heard those in the area say that they needed at least 1,000 body bags, I knew it was going to require a strong team. Dealing with a disaster, as a radio operator, requires a completely different mindset. There were children running all over looking for their families, half of them with little or no clothing, starving people roaming mad almost, and the stench of animal and human bodies. It was an overwhelming task. Being in a disaster communications role doesn't mean turning on a transceiver and hitching up an antenna and operating . . . You have to have the mental strength to do your job like a trained combatant in a war zone. You just have to concentrate on doing your job, the one in front of you." After listening to Victor and the emotion he put into those words, I can tell that this was an indelible part of his life as an amateur radio operator.
One of those who remembered the valiant efforts of the amateurs in the days following the disaster was Arthur C. Clarke, writer and futurist. Clarke lived there during his later years, and he had this to say about this team of ham radio operators:
"We might never know how many lives they saved and how many minds they put at ease, but we owe a debt to Marconi’s faithful followers," from an interview conducted by Wired Magazine. (Photo of Clarke in Sri Lanka below).
In Closure
The list of radio heroes is far too long to repeat here. In each affected country there was an amateur operator or a group of operators who served their population, connecting critical emergency services with those in need -- or providing peace of mind to others concerned about friends and family. This was not a localized event . . . the tsunami traveled at 700 km per hour and reached as far as Somalia, more than 5000 km distant. A local operator there, Burhan (6O0AP) set up the early communication with emergency services and was credited with saving lives.
It was an event that showed the world how "elegant, simple technology" (RF combined with an antenna) can be lifesaving; these efforts also aided amateur radio societies in many countries as they secured wins on spectrum allocation.
VY 73, Dave W7DGJ
PS - Going back to the story in the first few paragraphs, the fishermen and their families aurvived on Simuelue Island, where only three or four deaths were reported, as their history of Smong taught them their ancestors' lessons about saving lives in tsunamis. It was a huge victory for oral tradition and story-telling.
PPS - The soundtrack for this column is a song performed by Cliff Richard and a whole lot of famous rock friends after the 2004 Tsunami. Check out "Grief Never Grows Old."