The report really highlights the benefits of good preparation pre-disaster (i.e. DRR) and the importance of local agencies coordinating a humanitarian response, despite an impaired capacity to do so due to the disaster. The volcanic eruption in Tonga seems to have affected the nation primarily on an economic level, and with the exception of particularly affluent countries dealing with a disaster (e.g. Japan following the earthquake and tsunami in 2011), I imagine it would be quite common for a country’s capacity to respond to be stretched by financial (and physical capacity) limitations. Take the earthquakes in Nepal last year, where many affected communities were hard to access, resources to respond were limited, and claims of government corruption eating away at what aid was coming in were common. But with Tonga, we have a rapid and centrally-controlled response, empowerment of separate Clusters and communities, ongoing and effective communication with regular bulletins / forecasts / assessments, inter-agency cooperation with swift responses, and the resource backing of NZ to be able to fill in the gaps as they emerge. It’s seems to be quite a good model for DRM by the look of things!
