Dacca: "Phase one is over", commented a Swiss Red Cross
official here last week. "The dead are dead, and if there
are pockets still not contacted, we must be realists and
face the fact that we cannot reach them in time". Yet seven
days after one of the worst cyclone and flood disasters
recorded in history, which may have claimed between one and
two million dead, phase two - the rescue operations - had
hardly got under way.

From an aircraft that almost touched the battered tree- tops
of the most severely affected islands in the Bay of Bengal
last Thursday, I saw virtually no sign of rescue having
reached the destitute survivors; corpses were still lying in
the fields, and in some places the decomposing dead cattle
far outnumbered the remaining villagers.

Once or twice each century a storm of this velocity combines
with high tide in the Bay of Bengal to cause waves of the
magnitude of those that hit the East Pakistan coast late on
the night of Thursday November 12. Feeble attempts have been
made in some of the coastal areas to build protective
embankments against floods (where they existed, the damage
was considerably less than in other areas). An early warning
system has also been establishedÑ but on the fateful night,
it missed the approach of the disastrous wave, which in some
places was reported to have risen to 30 feet above the
normal sea level. Its failure contributed heavily to the
enormous toll of lives.

But the storm warning system in East Pakistan is relatively
primitive and its breakdown, however tragic, can be
understood. Much more difficult to explain is the fact that
it took almost 24 hours before anybody discovered that a
major disaster had hit the populous Ganges deltaÑand another
24 hours before anything was done about it. So slow was the
news in reaching the regional capital Dacca, only 60 miles
away, that on Friday local newspapers described the cyclone
as less severe than the previous one on October 21, which
had taken 400 lives. Only on Friday afternoon did the scope
of the havoc start to penetrate to authorities in Dacca; it
was not until Saturday that the first groups from outside
entered the disaster zone in Noakhali district on the
mainland. One week later, there were still islands in the
Bay of Bengal not yet reached by any advance survey party -
let alone rescue teams.

The astonishing inefficiency Ñ 11 political leaders in East
Pakistan describe it as "gross neglect, callous inattention
and utter indifference"Ñof the Pakistan government in
dealing with the disaster is frightening. The strange fact
is, that after President Yahya Khan's quick visit to the
disaster areas and an initial Rs30 million for the relief
effort, (only followed a week later by a Rs50 million
grant), the central government remained for a very long time
surprisingly passive in getting effective relief under way.

Even to the most superficial observer it was clear from the
beginning that in addition to emergency supplies of food,
medicine and clothing, communications equipment was most
desperately needed, in particular aircraft and helicopters
to airdrop or land emergency supplies in the devastated
areas. But the Pakistan airforce somehow completely failed
to go into action; with its numerous helicopters and
transport planes inactive in West Pakistan's airfields, the
relief authorities in East Pakistan stood very little chance
of achieving much with their one operational helicopter and
handful of tiny sportsplanes. Asked about the absence of the
Pakistan airforce in the relief operations, the embarrased
East Pakistan relief commissioner, Abu Mohammed Anisuzzaman,
could only say that this was a military matter beyond his
authority and control.

Later in the week he claimed that Pakistani C-130 transport
planes had been "considerably delayed" by India's refusal to
grant over-flying rights, and that the Indian policy had
hampered the moving of airforce helicopters from West to
East Pakistan. There has so far been no comment to this from
the Indian side. As for participation in the relief work by
other military personnel, this came under the category of
"military secrets"; it is known that a number of naval craft
have been taking part in rescue operations to the islands
and that a few battalions of the Pakistan army has been
burying the dead and aiding the relief effort on the
mainland and some of the islands.

But with the lapse of time it became abundantly clear that
the Pakistani effort was highly inadequate and that hundreds
of thousands of people in the devastated areas who had
escaped death in the tidal wave were in serious danger of
succumbing for the lack of fresh water, food and medicines.
Nearly a week after the disaster, the first Swiss Red Cross
DC6 carrying emergency supplies touched down at Dacca
airport and the Soviet merchant ship "Mednogorsk" arrived in
Chittagong with food and medical supplies. From that point
relief started to pour into Dacca from all over the world,
and contributions in money and kind were also pledged by
numerous countries, including aid from China to the value of
US$ 1.2 million.

The Pakistan government had appealed for relief supplies; it
had, however, made very inadequate preparations for their
further transport to the disaster areas. Only pathetic
trickles of the supplies reached their intended destinations
until late last week, when the some Pakistani helicopter
together with a few US and British helicopters and
shallowdraught boats finally started to airdrop and land
supplies over the isolated islands in the Bay of Bengal. By
the weekend more helicopters had arrived, including French
ones; a few private Swiss airplanes were also involved in
getting emergency supplies to the disaster areas.

But even after the first international relief supplies
reached Dacca, there was a great deal of confusion and
misconception as to what was really needed. Food, blankets
and medicines were by the end of last week so plentiful that
the International Red Cross had to ask for a temporary halt
in supplies due to lack of storage facilities. Transport was
now the major headache, with goods piling up in Dacca (and
rising fears among local cynics that a major part of it
would eventually end up in the hands of blackmarket
speculators).

Observers in Dacca have blamed Pakistani diffidence in
stating their precise requirements for the slow start of the
rescue effort. While this may be the case to some extent,
the East Pakistan relief commissioner stressed to foreign
governments his urgent need for helicopters from the very
start. The mysterious failure by West Pakistan to transfer
its helicopters was matched in other quarters. It took a
whole week for the US to send their first two helicopters
down from Nepal and two British RAF Sioux helicopters to
arrive from Singapore. In both cases they could have been
there only hours after it had become obvious that thousands
and thousands of lives depended on such equipment.

In the middle of last week a US senator asked President
Nixon "that every helicopter and crew not now urgently
required in Vietnam be moved from that conflict to help in
the Pakistan relief effort", and that this force should be
accompanied by as many fixed wing transport aircraft as
could be spared. As subsequent events were to show, the US
had other jobs for its air force last week, but sent in a
number of Huey helicopters from the US which were in action
by the weekend.

Ten days after the disaster, a number of helicopters,
shallow-draught boats and other transport equipment were
thus finally reaching the affected areas. Four British
military ships, led by the assault carrier HMS Intrepid with
helicopters and boats and a crew of 650 on board, were under
way to take up their position off-shore in the Bay of
Bengal. Occasionally one cannot but marvel at the speed and
efficiency with which military emergencies can be met by the
big powers almost anywhere in the world. This time it is the
tardiness with which theyÑand other countries in a position
to helpÑmoved in to assist in this worst natural disaster in
history, which causes dismayed astonishment.