Useless Relief Supplies and Increasing Hardship for Flood Victims

Without ineffective delivery of relief supplies, flood victims are suffering.

Now a lot of victims in areas devastated by typhoon Rusa cannot but depend on relief goods. However, the problem is that these goods are not delivered properly to those victims. In addition, these supplies, most of which are bottle water, rice and ramyeon, become useless because they do not have kitchen utensils.

This is due in part to the failure to collect an assortment of relief goods in advance. Also, government offices randomly provide supplies to typhoon-battered areas, without assessing the degree of damage. Currently, organizations like the National Council for Disaster Relief and the Republic of Korea National Red Cross are collecting donations from companies and people.

The disaster relief agency has in stock two kinds of goods: clothes such as blankets, underwear and sportswear and cooking utensils like burners, Kocher, butane fuels and tableware.

Kim Jea-ho, manager of general affairs section of the agency said, “In preparation for large-scale natural disasters, we should have 100,000 sets of those goods. However, we only have 20,000 sets because of lack of money, and there are limits to kinds of goods donated.

According to a law limiting collection of donations, collection can start under the permit of the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs after natural disasters take place. Against this backdrop, it is very difficult to collect contributions in advance.

Moreover, agencies collecting donations cannot request specific goods for each donor, so imbalance arises between supply and demand of relief goods.

Ineffective function of government offices in charge of rationing of supplies also contributes to the problem.

An official with Red Cross noted, “Most administrative offices lack professionalism in dealing with relief supplies. They do not figure out which area needs what. The fact is that they are just intent on keeping track of supplies donated in preparation for future audits.

“In order to counter natural disasters effectively, the government should allow those relief organizations to collect donations all times and have in place goods for specific disasters and specific regions. Also, specialists in delivery of relief goods should be nurtured,” said Chang Hun, professor at Sungkyunkwan University.

Min-Hyuk Park mhpark@donga.com