Tsunami disaster victim identification in Sri Lanka: legal aspects

Natural hazards amounting to disasters have almost become an endemic phenomenon during past decades throughout the globe, particularly affecting less resourced countries. The capabilities of the affected nations are stretched to the maximum in most of the disasters, thereby exposing deficiencies at various levels of the disaster mitigation mechanisms. A key factor identified through the human experience of all previous disaster scenarios is the requisite of effective and integrated local, national and regional disaster management mechanisms. The national and regional legal framework in this context can supplement disaster management enormously by drafting and implementing practical legislation which can be activated in disaster situations to co-ordinate the relief missions and minimize the damage. Thus, the existing legal systems and legislation at national and regional levels should be modified accordingly to yield proper disaster management policies. However, many less resourced countries are still lacking functional disaster management mechanisms in local legislation and are consequently highly vulnerable to heavy casualties in disasters. Sri Lanka is a typical example of a state which had an ineffective disaster management mechanism, not strengthened by legislation, when the Asian tsunami struck the country in December 2004, despite having frequently been affected by natural and man-made hazards during the past three decades. The net effect was total disarray in disaster victim identification, leading to drastic and irreparable consequences.