Russ Froese: a journalistic assignment as a Red Cross delegate

Russ Froese points out the scale and location of the undersea quake. Photo courtesy of Patricia Sandberg.

Russ Froese addressed Canadian Authors -- Metro Vancouver at our November Literary event. An award-winning television reporter, producer and documentary maker who hosted the Journal on CBC, Froese is a trained delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In Getting the Story out, he described how information was organized and shared during the enormous disaster caused by the 2004 undersea earthquake off Indonesia, 9.1 on the Richter Scale. The ensuing tsunami devastated northern Sumatra. Smashing inland, it contaminated wells with salt, wiped out a city of 60,000, and killed half a million.

Along with the challenges of hosting the international media people who flooded into the disaster zone, Froese and his colleagues had to cope with local politicians and others who got in the way of the coordinated disaster response. Then there were the NGOs who built unsuitable housing which failed to meet the long-term needs of the people (wooden houses that got eaten by termites). ICRC also had to figure out how to bring in buffalo by boat for the feast of Eid.

In spite of the challenges, there was some good news. The story Froese kept going back to as he reported on the evolving situation was the amazing resilience of the people. He was also glad to tell his audience that after the tsunami, the civil war that had been waged by guerillas in the area had faded away. And unlike before the disaster, the area now has a land registry and an early warning system for tsunamis. Canadians made generous contributions, and the Red Cross ended up building more houses than they had planned. They also assisted with the trauma, including the reburial of bodies found up to two years after the event.