Poor Asian transportation disaster response could impact U.S. aviation business

As President Barack Obama continues his strategic “Pivot to Asia,” away from the Middle East, we must include in that pivot a demand that countries and companies doing business in the region embrace a more thoughtful emergency response that mirrors the openness and best practices standards of the Western world. Specifically, we must ensure that extensive and detailed family assistance plans are proactively in place prior to a major transportation disaster.

The missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the sinking of the MV Sewol are stark reminders of just how far many countries in that region and around the world have yet to travel to reach minimally acceptable standards in addressing families’ needs after such tragic accidents. We continue to see families protesting and attacking the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing and even demanding answers from the Chicago headquartered aircraft manufacturer Boeing. In South Korea, families were traumatized even further when several of the bodies of teenage victims from MV Sewol were returned to the wrong families.

As the former Director of Government, Public and Family Affairs at the National Transportation Safety Board, I have personally seen how grieved the victims’ families can be when the remains and personal effects of their loved ones are mishandled. Between 1994 and 1996, there were four major transportation accidents in the United States, which killed a total of 540 people. Similar to what we have seen in both Malaysia and now in South Korea, the U.S. emergency response teams on occasion lacked organization, coordination, and even compassion.

In answering families’ cries for assistance, Congress passed the 1996 Family Assistance Act and subsequently, the 1997 Foreign Air Carrier Act. I served as a core member in the development of the NTSB’s family assistance program, which is still in effect to this day in the U.S.

The operation we designed harnesses the assets and capabilities of the federal government to work in cooperative coordination with emergency responders and the local medical examiner or coroner, whose responsibility it is to recover and identify victims. Since the passage of the Family Assistance Act, the NTSB’s program has been considered the gold standard.

As U.S. interests pivot East, the region as well as American companies doing business there should look West and adopt the standards established by the family assistance programs already adopted in countries including Australia, Canada, Brazil, throughout the European Union and of course, the U.S. While having such a comprehensive plan in place would not have located MH370 any faster or changed the likely criminal actions of the captain of the MV Sewol, a plan would have provided some measure of relief and not exacerbated the unthinkable sadness and grief for those who lost loved ones.

A tremendous amount is at stake in Asia for the American aircraft manufacturing industry if it fails to adequately address the needs and concerns of the MH370 families head-on. This is primarily due to the information void caused by the still missing Boeing 777 aircraft and complicated further by Malaysia’s former prime minister blaming Boeing for its disappearance. While clearly this is a blatantly unfair overstatement at this point in the investigation, the fact remains for Boeing that Malaysia, and Asian region public opinion for that matter, both are turning against Boeing very quickly. It would be sensible for Boeing to take a pro-active role with the families as part of an overall reputational risk management strategy.

The reasons why this is important are clearly stated in a Boeing market report released in February 2014. In the report, Boeing predicts that the demand for new airplanes in the Asia Pacific region will grow exponentially over the next 20 years. Boeing also estimates the region's airlines will need an additional 12,820 airplanes valued at $1.9 trillion, representing 36 percent of the world's new airplane deliveries over the next two decades. However, should Boeing’s reputation with Asian governments and their publics erode due to their perceived mishandling of their response to MH370 families, Boeing could face potentially significant losses in market share within this critical region.

Both countries and companies must no longer view family assistance as reactionary but must bring the development and improvement of family assistance plans to the forefront of their strategy. If they do not prepare adequately, they too could become an unwilling participant on the next global stage where families’ horrific reactions and outrage on disaster are broadcasted internationally.

Friday 09 May 2014

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/205590-poor-asian-transportation-disaster-response-could-impact

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DisasterAction: new leaflet on Disaster Victim Identification

The charity DisasterAction has just created a new leaflet in their series When Disaster Strikes, called Disaster Victim Identification: Relatives' Experiences. The leaflet is written in DisasterAction's members' own words and shows their experience of the identification of family members after disaster. It will help emergency responders involved in this difficult work to understand the impact on families of the seemingly impersonal processes and procedures, and inspire them to be as sensitive as possible when working with families.

The leaflet can be found here

Disaster Action is a charity, founded in 1991 by survivors and bereaved people from UK and overseas disasters. Living all round the UK, our members have personal experience of 27 disasters, including rail, air and maritime as well as natural disasters and terrorist attacks in the UK and overseas. We came together to help create a health and safety culture in which disasters are less likely to occur, to offer guidance and support to others who find themselves similarly affected and to raise awareness of the needs of survivors and bereaved.

Monday 24 June 2013

http://www.disasteraction.org.uk/

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What happened to the families of the drowned cocklepickers of Morecambe Bay?

On the three-hour bus trip from the southern port city of Xiamen to central Fujian province, you move into a landscape of largely abandoned villages, once the homes of so many departed Chinese migrants. Here, around Fuzhou and the counties of Lianjiang, Changle, Fuqing and Putian, tens of thousands of villagers have left in the past three decades, driven away by low agricultural incomes and land developments that left them without compensation or livelihood. Seeking new ways to survive, they headed in waves for Japan, the US and Europe, including the UK.

These villages, mainly occupied by the elderly, contain a mixture of old, shabby farmhouses and new mansions, built with money sent home by undocumentedmigrant workers toiling in sweatshop factories, restaurants, takeaways and building sites. They are also the hometowns of the cocklepickers who drowned at Morecambe Bay in 2004.

More than 40 Chinese workers were picking cockles there in the evening of 5 February 2004, sent by their recruiter and manager, Ah Ren, who was facing fierce competition from other Chinese teams along the Bay. To maximise profits, Ah Ren cut out the local middleman and gangmaster who bought cockles from him and controlled the production. That meant working against tidal charts and safety rules, which no one in the supply chain cared about as far as "foreign workers" were concerned.

At 8.30pm, two hours after they should have been told to leave the Bay, the workers realised the tide had come up too fast for them to escape. They were stranded between deep, water-filled gullies. With no sign of rescue, the workers began calling their families. They cried, and said goodbye. Some drowned before their families could call back.

The bodies of 21 men and women, aged 18 to 45, were recovered from the Bay in the days that followed. The 22nd, Liu Qinying, wasn't found until autumn 2010. One was never found. All but one of the victims were from Fujian. Their families lost husbands, wives and parents, and were left owing mountains of debt to moneylenders.

I reported on the tragedy at the time and researched the background to the exploitation of Chinese migrant workers. After exchanging phone calls and letters with these families for several years, and helping to raise money to pay off their debts, I went to meet them.

In the Jiangkou township of Putian, I found Liying, the sister of Xu Yuhua, who drowned in Morecambe Bay with his wife Liu Qinying. Liying looked frail and worn out, but was strong in spirit, as she had been in her letters and phone calls. She had supported her orphaned nephew, Xu Bin, with the income from her job as an assistant to an overseas Chinese businessman. In fact, the whole family's livelihood – her father, sister, daughter and unemployed husband – depended on her. Xu Bin had studied hard and passed the university extrance exam. He wanted to fulfill his parents' ambition for him, and was planning to go to Britain to further his studies before building a career back home.

Liying and I went to visit a woman named Jinyun in her village near Fuqing. The winding lanes led to a semi-furnished two-storey house where she lived with her entire family. We talked on an old couch set against the concrete walls. I had been exchanging letters with Jinyun and her two sons, who were in high school when their father, Lin Guo Guang, drowned in Morecambe Bay. "Guo Guang's first job in England was on a building site where he got paid £40 a day," Jinyun said. "That was why he resorted to cockling." Jinyun has brought up her sons on her own, working as a nanny and earning £60 a month. By summer 2009, she had managed to pay off half the debt of 200,000 yuan (£20,000) left by her husband (the remainder was paid by donations from the UK). "I pretend he's still working in England and just hasn't sent money home," she said. "It's much easier than thinking he's gone forever."

Back in Putian, a town with few industries apart from the odd shoe and garment factory, Liying and I walked the dusty lanes to the local market where we met Mr and Mrs Lin, parents of Lin Zhifang, at 18 the youngest of those who drowned. They had come down from their home in the mountains to sell dragon eyes (a fruit similar to lychees) and sugarcane. Mr Lin said they had stopped working the land as the income was too small to live on. Now they depend on selling fruit in the market for a living. "Zhifang had worked in a factory for two years before leaving. He was our eldest son, and what he wanted most was to build a house for the family," Mr Lin said. "He could never have done it working in Putian."

The burden of debt after Zhifang's death meant his younger brother had to work in the factory rather than go to university. Zhifang's mother couldn't speak much Mandarin but listened intently, and asked her husband to translate what she wanted to say. Several times she looked down, remembering the loss of her son, and wept.

Zhifang's parents seemed to have swallowed the pain of losing their son in such a modest way, as if misfortunes were inevitable for those born into the life of peasants. They had moved on and toiled away for the little cash that would keep them from starving. Their endless strength was humbling.

Liying and I then travelled to the outskirts of Fuzhou to see Yan Chun, the widow of Dong Xin Wu, who was 39 when he drowned. He had been a cobbler in Fuzhou and migrated to the UK to work for his family. Yan Chun lives in a village with her mother and mother-in-law, who suffers from dementia, and lives on state support of only 150 yuan (£15) a month. The cost of medication has been a huge burden, even after a medical insurance system was introduced: "It's a joke. Patients can only claim insurance if they are hospitalised, and then only 20% of the costs," a neighbour who helps look after Dong's mother told me.

Yan Chun works as a cleaner in an insurance company, earning up to £80 a month. Her son had wanted to serve in the army in Tibet, where he could earn 100,000 yuan and help clear the family's debts. (Most of the army in Tibet and Xinjiang, the "troubled regions", are recruited from the impoverished countryside.) But Yan Chun wouldn't let him go. She said she didn't want to lose him as well.

For the widows and families of the drowned workers, the future of the next generation has always been the overriding consideration. Yet it is hard to see what chance of a secure livelihood their children have in Fujian – and China. Fujian has always lagged behind the country as a whole; under Mao, the province was much neglected and received less than 2% of the nation's capital investment. Agriculture was the mainstay, but less than 10% of the province was arable. In the late 70s, before Deng Xiaoping's reforms, Fujian was ranked 23rd of 29 provinces in GDP. Since then, although poverty has been reduced, development initiatives have been concentrated in coastal cities such as Xiamen, while much of the countryside remains neglected and open to random land appropriation by developers.

What's left for the youth? As Liying and others kept saying: "There are few real jobs around here." In villages and townships, the main work options are in low-paid manufacturing and service industries. Even with a university education, jobs in the public sector are difficult to get: connections are the key.

When Jinyun's family had finally paid off its debts, she borrowed money and sent both her sons to study in Japan, where course fees are half those in the UK, to study and work in the catering trade. Her younger son met a Fujianese woman and got married. However, their plans were interrupted by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami – Jinyun was anxious and asked them to return to China. Now her younger son is working for a relative in the timber business; her elder son is jobless.

The desire for betterment still motivates many Fujianese to migrate. Today, the immigration cap on non-EU migrants has closed off legitimate routes, while the strengthening of the EU's border controls has made overland smuggling even more expensive. Given all this, many Fujianese parents look for other ways to send their children to Britain, often as students or asylum-seeking orphans.

Those who come as orphans are among Britain's most vulnerable young migrants. They leave home for the first time and arrive in a country they know little about as unaccompanied minors. They then claim asylum and are put into social care. Some may be granted refugee status; others disappear into the informal economy, where they tend to work in the lowest-paid jobs in catering and service industries and are exploited – just like their predecessors. When I look at these young men and women, I remember the tanned faces of the workers, kneeling down to rake the shiny black cockles under the sun and rain, in order to send money home.

As a Fujianese woman whose whole family had migrated told me: "Our migrating ancestors left us with this legacy: You mustn't sit and take what is thrown at you in life. You must always endeavour to improve your living standards. You must do better."

Tuesday 23 October 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/22/drowned-chinese-cocklepickers-morecambe-bay

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NPIA - Family Liaison Officer Guidance 2008

Download PDF here

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