“Tsunami: The Aftermath” Reflection

Tsunami: The Aftermath is a television mini-series about the problems surfaced after the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami that comes from the Indian Ocean earthquake and hit the coast bordering the Indian Ocean and one of them is Thailand. Simultaneously, this mini-series is based on the research and interviews from people that are affected from the disaster, and the issues brought up in the movies are the political, social, and economic issues that occurred.

First of all, in term of political issue, one of the scenes in the mini-series shows that the government was warned about the tsunami but they did not warn their citizens and they didn’t set up a warning system around the area. At the same time, they do not have warning, training, and briefing about the safety plans and briefing of what to do when the disaster strikes. Moreover, the Thai government didn’t do much to help and evacuate the village since it has a poor access and simultaneously, embassies from other countries were too slow to send help and evacuate their citizens. Thus, if there were warning, briefing, and easy access maybe more people could still survive because it is stated that people were unaware about the disaster and there’s a scene in the movie that shows that a man died on the way to hospital to get treatment. Moreover, there is one scene where because Thailand hospitals do not have proper equipment, the boy has to amputate his leg to save his life. Hence, there wouldn’t be so much chaos and deaths if there was warning, briefing, and easier access.

Second of all, in terms of economic issues, the government lost so many properties and they have to rebuild everything back again since the Tsunami cleanse all the buildings and flatten the land. Same as the investors in Thailand, they losses lots of money and it made the investors unsure wether they want to invest in Thailand again. In addition, there was one scene, where one of the men from the press said “that is a lot of unpaid room service.” Which is true, since everything is flatten to the ground the hotel needs to be rebuilt and they need money for it and they couldn’t get the money form the costumers anymore.

Lastly, in term of social issues, there was a scene where the monks burning all the dead bodies without identification to prevent infection or any diseases spreading because of the corpes. Additionally, the survivors are facing lots of problems and live under lots of pressure regarding the lost of their relatives and becoming homeless people. Besides that, the foreigners are facing more pressure because they are not familiar with the area and they were wondering wether their family members are still alive and how are they able to get home.  

In conclusion, after watching this video, I hope that people all over the world are aware of natural disaster. And at the same time, this video is a feedback and to raise awareness for the Thailand government to have better respond on the disaster and rebuilt the city or the village with better access and train the people to be aware of what to do when the disaster occur.