Danger zone

When disaster strikes, relief workers must think fast and act faster. Power saves lives, but getting it up and running is not easy. On December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake generated the tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people. At least 150,000 were killed or missing in Indonesia, with another 31,000 dead in Sri Lanka. In its 2002 report, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent estimated that, between 1992 and 2001, well over half the number of deaths resulting from disasters took place in areas of low development. This was attributed to the infrastructure in areas of low development being much less robust than in highly developed regions of the world. The article looks at how relief agencies can cut the death toll in these regions and how important the role of power engineers is.