Examination of witnesses (Questions 200
- 219)
THURSDAY 23 MARCH 2000
ROSS MOUNTAIN,
KATARINATOLL-VELASQUEZ
and GILBERT GREENALL
200. Of UNDP?
(Ross Mountain) Yes, he is accredited by the Secretary-General
as the United Nations resident co-ordinator. In that capacity
he is also responsible in cases of disasters to OCHA, to the emergency
relief co-ordinator, who is the head of OCHA, for managing the
disaster management team, which is the UN country team, in response.
So there is a systemic mechanism which links us to them on such
cases. That is why we send out our UNDAC teams to support the
resident co-ordinator and the country team.
201. Yes. Is it he, the resident co-ordinator,
responding to the Mozambique Government's appeals to the United
Nations, who calls upon OCHA to come and intervene and help them?
How is the initiation of OCHA and UNDAC operations achieved?
(Ross Mountain) Notionally this is the mechanism,
we have discovered, however, very recently, that sometimes there
can be lags in communication between the situation occurring and
an understanding of what we might be able to do to help from OCHA.
So we now move to the procedure, for example, in the case of Turkey,
where hours matter—and in the case of Mozambique—and
we in fact despatch people while we are trying to reach the resident
co-ordinator in order that they are on their way. We take the
view that if they are not needed, they can be sent back, but the
time saved is invaluable. This is a new development which we have
learnt lessons from over the last year.
202. So somebody in Geneva therefore in your
team, in your organisation, will be monitoring the news worldwide?
(Ross Mountain) Absolutely. We have 24 hour duty officers.
We monitor the wires, we monitor the meteorological situation
and so on. As luck would have it, disasters usually break out
at night in Geneva time or over weekends, but we do have the mechanisms
to respond.
203. Can I ask you about the commercial aircraft
that you are renting. Is it you who are renting them or somebody
else?
(Ross Mountain) The logistics operation is being managed
by the World Food Programme as part of the overall UN response,
so it is an integrated part of how we are operating there.
204. Why do we need commercial aircraft? What
will they be used for?
(Ross Mountain) We are looking at helicopters, I think,
at the present time. The British Government did make available
funds for the hire of commercial helicopters at the outset of
the second major flood, in addition to the military which did
come in and of course took a bit longer to come all the way out
from Europe naturally.
205. What will they be used for? Are they going
to be used to stand-by in case you get further floods and therefore
to help people avoid drowning, or are they going to be used for
the distribution of food and shelter and equipment?
(Ross Mountain) I will pass that to Katarina but the
supply of the hundred sites, many of which are isolated, does
require unfortunately still a helicopter.
(Katarina Toll-Velasquez) Indeed. This is for the
assistance phase and the requirement is particularly for the next
four weeks. We understand that there are stocks in country of
food and non-food supplies probably to cater for the immediate
needs of the next month, but there will be, when the military
assets depart, a definite shortage of transportation to get those
stocks out to the affected population. The roads are still very
much impassable, there is a heavy dependence on air capacity for
transportation and so that is basically what it is going to cover—the
daily transportation of goods to affected people.
206. How many do you reckon you need?
(Katarina Toll-Velasquez) Right now, as I said, there
are 23 helicopters in country. I think WFP is looking at something
more modest than that, they have appealed for 10 million dollars.[3]
They were talking to me this morning about an immediate need for
four helicopters for Beira, which is in the central part of the
country, and of course there is a need for a capacity also in
Maputo.
207. Four. You will need more than four, will
you not?
(Katarina Toll-Velasquez) Absolutely.
(Ross Mountain) We still have the South Africans who
are operating at the present time, the military helicopters, which,
as I think was reported to you at your meeting with the Secretary
of State, is being funded by a number of countries through the
United Nations, through the World Food Programme, which is managing
this.
208. So what is the operational need immediately
for all this? How many helicopters do you want working from whatever
source?
(Katarina Toll-Velasquez) I am not sure exactly about
the total number, I know they are appealing for 10 million to
cover the cost based on what commercial aircraft in the region
cost. When I say "commercial", it is actually commercial
and the continual use of the South African National Defence Force
helicopters, so that is based on the cost estimate of—
209. My problem is I do not know how much a
helicopter costs, so I do not know what 10 million translates
into in numbers of helicopters.
(Ross Mountain) It is about £3,000 an hour, roughly—
210. That is going to give me a headache too!
(Ross Mountain)—for those who are mathematically
inclined. We were estimating, what was it—?
(Gilbert Greenall) It is 100,000 for every five days
and that is for five helicopters.
211. 100,000 for five—
(Gilbert Greenall) A day. Sorry, five helicopters
were costing 100,000 a day.
212. What does that translate into? 15, 20 helicopters?
(Ross Mountain) I will leave that to those who are
much stronger in maths than I am.
Chairman: Okay, we can think about that.
I am going to ask Mrs Clwyd, who was leading part of the Committee
which visited Mozambique. In fact, all the Committee visited Mozambique
but the part of the Committee I was with in fact visited the Province
of Tete and Zambezi on the borders of Malawi, which was not affected
although we did get the tail end of the appalling hurricane which
had hit Beira called Eline, and that was fierce enough. We simply
could not proceed for about an hour. Mrs Clwyd will lead us about
the area where she was during the week of the 20th.
Ann Clwyd
213. Yes, we were in Mozambique from the 20th
to the 24th, but prior to that we were in Southern Africa and
we heard the weather forecasts, and the weather forecasts sounded
dire in the week before we went into Mozambique. One of the things
I wondered was that I got the feeling that the rapid rise of flood
waters on the 25th and the 26th in Mozambique was not actually
planned for by OCHA. Would you agree with that?
(Ross Mountain) I would agree that the rapid rise
of the flood waters on the 25th and the 26th was not expected
by anyone, including the Government of Mozambique and unfortunately
us. That was not just because we were not paying attention to
the weather forecasts, it was on the basis of the rivers going
down even if there was going to be some sort of additional rainfall
and since the first phase of flooding was at that stage very largely
under control, indeed so under control that the Foreign Minister
was very happy to bid us farewell. Obviously, and I go back to
this, we will want to see how we can strengthen regional co-ordination
to see how better understandings of this situation arise, but
I must submit to you that no weather forecaster—and my colleagues
were there at the time—indicated we were going to get what
was I think 1.4 metres come down in a 24 hour period. My colleague,
Gilbert Greenall, has said that in winter London may get a bit
more rain, a bit more snow, but it is not prepared to take 4 feet
of snow in Trafalgar Square. This was unprecedented in living
memory in Mozambique. Should we try and find mechanisms for the
future—
214. What sort of warnings were you getting
from the World Met Office then? None?
(Gilbert Greenall) As a matter of priority we put
in our daily co-ordination meetings the weather information and
hydrological information as number one and number two items every
day. We had reports from South Africa, Reunion, Zimbabwe and Zambia
and one of team was actually Deputy Head of the Met Office in
Zambia. Each day the weather reports coming in were different
and contradictory and as far as Eline was concerned we heard it
was going south, we heard it was going west, it was strengthening,
it was weakening. It was expected just north of Inhambane Town;
in fact it came in 200 miles further north in the Save area. We
were expecting rain in South Africa; we got rain in Zimbabwe.
Actually on the 24th the Met Report from Zimbabwe did not report
a serious condition there nor was there any alarm reported until
the next day and that was five days later after the cyclone.
215. So if there were contradictory reports,
on the one hand you were told things were going to get worse and
on the other hand you were told things were going to get better—
(Gilbert Greenall) And we prepared for them to get
worse and the one thing that perhaps did not come to light in
some of the debates and the reports is that the areas that we
expected to get a new crest down the river had already been flooded
and the population was already displaced so our concern was not
as great as it might have been if the floods had never happened.
This was an area where the waters had gone down significantly
over the last two weeks. There had been two weeks of the rivers
going down on a daily basis. We were expecting the crests but
nothing as extensive as what actually happened. We are talking
about the river going up 1.4 metres in less than 24 hours. It
happened overnight on that weekend.
216. Were you happy with the information you
were getting from neighbouring countries?
(Gilbert Greenall) I think it was the difference between
data and information that one can use for the management of the
situation. We were getting a tremendous amount of data, but much
of it was retrospective of flows from dams and so forth. To convert
that into information to predict what was going to happen and
make any strong correlation between rainfall and river regimes
in Southern Africa seemed to be extremely difficult. The more
we have investigated this, not only at the time but subsequently,
we find that the correlations are not at all strong. One of the
lessons learned would be that water management and regional co-operation
on these matters to try and get more predictable information is
terribly important.
217. Was there any monitoring of the river levels
going on in neighbouring countries or not?
(Gilbert Greenall) Certainly there was in Mozambique.
We got the river levels but it tended to be retrospective. The
flows rose and fell so rapidly from the point of view of making
predictions I do not think it was useful.
218. Can I ask you about the process of informing
other countries during the period of uncertainty. What sort of
messages were going back to the United Kingdom, for example, and
were they going back on a regular basis? I know in the memo you
sent us on 4th March you starting issuing situation reports on
the rains in Mozambique from 26th January and you issued 16 situation
reports up to 13th March. Who do those situation reports go to?
(Ross Mountain) Maybe I will start on that and pass
to Katarina if I may. The situation reports are produced daily
in Maputo under the auspices of the INGC. They come to OCHA Geneva
and are disseminated within 12 hours from this to a verywide audience,
governments, non-governmental organisations, international institutions,
and it is on the web so individual citizens can also pick it up.
Katarina could maybe say something more about the content of the
reports that were coming up.
(Katarina Toll-Velasquez) From the field we had the
reports on the basis of the daily co-ordination meetings and that
covered the weather situation and the forecast, the status of
rescue and assistance activities in particular of the South African
National Defence Force and later on—
219. I am talking in particular of the period
up to 25th February.
(Katarina Toll-Velasquez) Absolutely, when I was there,
and that basically started happening very soon after we arrived.
There were already situation reports being sent prepared by the
UN in-country team and it is on the basis of that that OCHA Geneva
had in January started preparing situation reports. The daily
co-ordination meetings started. We arrived there on 12th February
and the daily co-ordination meetings started on 16th February.
From that moment there were daily accounts of these meetings and
that included also information on each of the emergency sectors
and that was all fed to our headquarters.
(Ross Mountain) You did indicate, as I understand
it, during that period the desirability of additional helicopters?
(Katarina Toll-Velasquez) Right, we were flagging
from the second day of our arrival the need for adequate transportation
by air, in particular helicopters since heavy aircraft could not
land because of the wetness of the ground up country.
3 Note by Witness: The request of the World
Food Programme for US$ 10 million in the funding appeal for Mozambique
translates into the following requirement:
8 MI-8 helicopters (4 in Beira and 4 in Maputo) that could carry
4 metric tonnes of cargo;
6 helicopters for assessment (these do not need to have as large
a cargo capacity).
It should be emphasised that WFP hopes to mobilise helicopters
with as much cargo capacity as possible up to4 metric tonnes (which
is preferable to smaller helicopters, both in terms of time and
cost effectiveness). However, if only aircraft with a smaller
cargo capacity than 4 metric tonnes would be available, WFP may
need a larger number than indicated above in order to move the
same amount of cargo. Back
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