Closing the Digital Divide Saves Lives

When a hurricane causes $68 billion worth of damage and hits they country’s media capital, it leaves a lasting impression. So you can be forgiven for being skeptical at first when you hear that—in spite of Sandy—2012 was actually a relatively quiet year for natural disasters.

Obviously, natural disasters still happened and still had tragic consequences, and I don’t want to marginalize anyone who lost their homes, loved ones or anything else. But taking a wide, statistical look, natural disasters had a high cost in terms of money— $157.5 billion—but low cost by other metrics. And a report released this week looks at how technology is helping to change disaster relief for the better.

According to 2013 World Disasters Report, put out by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the number of deaths caused by natural disasters globally last year was 90 percent below the average for the decade—down to 9,656 deaths as compared to 297,730 in 2004.

Part of the difference was that the number of natural disasters was just down worldwide. The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters counted 364 natural disasters, second lowest of the decade and almost half of the peak in 2005.

Still, there are estimates that 2012 exceeded set a record in terms of the number of people displaced by natural disasters. According to Swiss Re Sigma, over 32 million people were left homeless by disasters in 2012, double the number in 2011. What gives?

The other factor that brought down the human toll of disasters is that it’s now easier than ever to warn people that a catastrophic event is coming, easier than ever to call for help, and easier than ever for that help to call for back-up and supplies.

Even though the digital divide is very real, inroads that have been made in underserved countries is already showing results. Per the report:

In the five years between 2008 and 2013, low- and middle-income countries have roughly doubled the number of mobile phone subscriptions, adding an extra 2.5 billion. There are now almost twice as many mobile broadband as fixed broadband subscriptions, with mobile broadband being the fastest-growing information and communication technology.

And, provided the natural disaster spares cell phone towers, they’re a huge help. The report mentions humanitarians calling for supplies before they ran out after the 2008 earthquake in China, and also how tweets were used to generate assessment maps and facilitate the location of people during 2012’s deadliest natural disaster, Typhoon Pablo in the Philippines.

After an 8.7 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, communities were far more prepared for a potential tsunami—the wave thankfully never came—than they were in 2004, thanks to satellites and radar monitoring the Indian Ocean, and the proliferation of mobile phones.

And mobile phones are just one technology that the IFRC is excited about.

America’s disaster preparation is changing too. San Francisco, ever leading the way, launched a semi-social disaster preparedness website this week called SF72. The website “is designed around the idea that being prepared is based on social connection.” It’s optimized for smart phones and looks more like a fashionable Kickstarter page than preparation for “the big one.”

While far from the deadliest or costliest disaster in American history, Sandy was a reminder of how far even America has to go. Sandy left 8.5 million people without power, lead to gas shortages and closed the stock exchange for two days.

New York isn’t even one of cities most at risk from natural disaster. Swiss Re found with the exception of Los Angeles nine out of ten of the largest cities that are facing risk from the big five city disasters—catastrophic flooding, storms, storm surges, tsunamis and earthquakes—are in Asia.

The ways we can and do react to natural disasters is changing both due to available technology and due to the changing threats. For the first time in history more people live in cities rather than in rural areas, and that number is only projected to keep rising.

According to the UN, 68 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, and many of these large and growing cities are situated in potential disaster zones: subject to flooding, earthquakes, storms and storm surges. In case you needed any further incentive to work on closing the digital divide, these reports have one—it could potentially be life-saving.