00:00Dr. Eslam Ilbali is a lecturer in humanitarian operations and crisis management at University College London.
00:07It is very serious. First, the location that happened, and the second, its timing.
00:16It happened while people were sleeping, and the magnitude.
00:21In earthquakes, at seven magnitude is a huge, devastating earthquake.
00:29And third, what makes it very serious is the remote access of the location that happened.
00:37What are the most urgent humanitarian needs, I'm thinking particularly for children, older people in these communities, and vulnerable people?
00:47So, they are usually our priority because of their very vulnerable nature in terms of that they react very fast
01:00to the weather,
01:02especially children and elderly.
01:04So, they would increase, even though the earthquake has very low casualties at the moment,
01:11but the numbers are expected to rise because of that nature, the timing, and that these vulnerable populations,
01:19the children, the elderly, people with disability, would be trapped and very hard to reach.
01:25Survival is such a lottery, isn't it?
01:28I mean, some communities around the world, when a quake hits, fare better.
01:32It's so dependent on, as you've been saying, location conditions, depth of the quake, population density,
01:38and even the resilience of the buildings that you're sleeping in or living in.
01:44Yes, and especially with earthquakes, preparations usually happen before.
01:51So, as we say in UCL, there is no such thing as a natural disaster.
01:55Casualties and disasters is how we manage and how authorities manage with the natural occurrence of an earthquake.
02:03Did we have the codes?
02:04Did we do our homework before expecting that earthquake, especially in such a high altitude as a location like that?
02:15Did we do our homework?
02:17Are the populations educated?
02:20What do they do in times of earthquakes?
02:23So, that would be a test of that.
02:27Did we do our homework properly?
02:28And thirdly, do we have a centralized response and a local response?
02:38And historically, China now is a provider of humanitarian assistance, international humanitarian assistance.
02:45So, I imagine that they would be the most equipped at this moment, especially with an earthquake,
02:5372 hours window with the time that we need to save as much life.
