Case Assignment 5 1. Divide the Armenia earthquake crisis into appropriate sections (medical, security, and so forth), and describe their responsibilities. 2. Of the organizations involved in the crisis and those included on pp. 22-23, which would you assign to each section from Question 1? Explain why you chose that organization. 3. List the efforts of the Red Cross/IFRC and the RSS. Explain how one was more effective than the other, and how you would prevent their duplication of efforts. 4. Re-read the chapter and make a list of problems as they arise. How would you expect that your organizations assigned above would handle those problems effectively? MGT 492 - Case Study Assignment 6 Answer the questions below and submit to the Assignment box no later than Sunday 11:59 PM EST/EDT. (This Assignment box is linked to Turnitin.) 1. What was accomplished in advance and immediately following the earthquake to establish an Emergency Operations Center? What were its shortfalls? From Module 5, who do you believe is necessary to have within the EOC? 2. How did purchasing and procurement work during the crisis, and how could it have been improved? Describe the advantages and disadvantages of product standardization and specification during a crisis. Address the use of purchase orders and the type of compensation arrangement you would recommend. 3. What was done to establish warehouses and ensure a proper flow of quality products? How could it have been improved? Do you feel that forecasting methods could be beneficial during a crisis? If so, which ones would you recommend? 4. What efforts were taken to control and establish needed transportation capabilities? What challenges did they face? What steps would you take to improve the situation and establish the appropriate transportation response? Introduction Monday, 25 January 1999 started out as an ordinary day in Armenia, a provincial capital of Colombia. But at 13:19 local time, an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale hit the heart of the coffee-growing region of Colombia. Armenia’s fire and police departments, two of the main institutions responsible for disaster management, were destroyed and unable to react. More than 300 aftershocks occurred in the hours and days following the initial earthquake, creating additional road destruction and telecommunication failures. The sitfuation became critical two days after the disaster when, frustrated by delays in the arrival of an organised response from Bogotá, people began looting supermarkets. The President of Colombia imposed a curfew and sent troops to Armenia on 28 January, where 183 persons were arrested. Despite the military presence, on 29 January the Colombian Red Cross1 warehouse was looted. The Earthquake The seism, with its epicentre 17kms south of Armenia, killed 1,185 people and left another 160,000 homeless. In total 28 villages were badly hit but Armenia suffered the worst damage. Of 41,277 buildings affected, 52.

1. Case Assignment 5
1. Divide the Armenia earthquake crisis into appropriate
sections (medical, security, and so forth), and describe their
responsibilities.
2. Of the organizations involved in the crisis and those included
on pp. 22-23, which would you assign to each section from
Question 1? Explain why you chose that organization.
3. List the efforts of the Red Cross/IFRC and the RSS. Explain
how one was more effective than the other, and how you would
prevent their duplication of efforts.
4. Re-read the chapter and make a list of problems as they arise.
How would you expect that your organizations assigned above
would handle those problems effectively?
MGT 492 - Case Study Assignment 6
Answer the questions below and submit to the Assignment box
no later than Sunday 11:59 PM
EST/EDT. (This Assignment box is linked to Turnitin.)
1. What was accomplished in advance and immediately
following the earthquake to establish an Emergency Operations
Center? What were its shortfalls? From Module 5, who do you
believe is necessary to have within the EOC?
2. How did purchasing and procurement work during the crisis,
and how could it have been improved? Describe the advantages
and disadvantages of product standardization and specification
during a crisis. Address the use of purchase orders and the type
of compensation arrangement you would recommend.
3. What was done to establish warehouses and ensure a proper
flow of quality products? How could it have been improved? Do
you feel that forecasting methods could be beneficial during a
crisis? If so, which ones would you recommend?
4. What efforts were taken to control and establish needed
transportation capabilities? What challenges did they face?

2. What steps would you take to improve the situation and
establish the appropriate transportation response?
Introduction
Monday, 25 January 1999 started out as an ordinary day in
Armenia, a provincial capital of Colombia. But at 13:19 local
time, an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale hit the
heart of the coffee-growing region of Colombia. Armenia’s fire
and police departments, two of the main institutions responsible
for disaster management, were destroyed and unable to react.
More than 300 aftershocks occurred in the hours and days
following the initial earthquake, creating additional road
destruction and telecommunication failures. The sitfuation
became critical two days after the disaster when, frustrated by
delays in the arrival of an organised response from Bogotá,
people began looting supermarkets. The President of Colombia
imposed a curfew and sent troops to Armenia on 28 January,
where 183 persons were arrested. Despite the military presence,
on 29 January the Colombian Red Cross1 warehouse was looted.
The Earthquake
The seism, with its epicentre 17kms south of Armenia, killed
1,185 people and left another 160,000 homeless. In total 28
villages were badly hit but Armenia suffered the worst damage.
Of 41,277 buildings affected, 52% were totally destroyed.2 The
collapsed structures produced 1,950,000m3 of rubble. 2 Figures
taken from DANE (National Department of Statistics)
preliminary database, Disaster of the Coffee Region, June,
1999. Located in the mountains of Los Andes, Armenia was
founded in 1889 and is the capital of Quindío, one of the 33
states of Colombia.3 In 1999, the population of the city was
around 300,000 and per capita GNP4 was US$1,980. Situated in

3. the heart of the coffee-growing region, its economy is
dependent based on the coffee crop.
Ironically, Armenia was among the best prepared cities in the
country in terms of disaster response, but the major rescue
resources were buried in the earthquake and many officers from
the police and fire departments (see Exhibit 1) were killed, a
fact that considerably diminished the local public services’
capacity to react. The mayor’s office was partly destroyed,
although the mayor was unhurt. Telephone communications
were cut off, although they were partially restored 24 hours
after the quake. Roads were badly damaged and radio and
television signals were out of action. The radio network was
quickly re-established and played a crucial role in handling the
security problems that arose over the next three days.
Once the mayor of Armenia, Alvaro Patiño Pulido, had
established that his family was unharmed, he called the
President of the Republic, Andrés Pastrana Arango, in Bogotà,
where the tremor had been felt 290kms away. The President had
already been informed of the disaster by General Tapias, the
commander of the Army, who had warned him:
“Mr. President, it’s going to be tough. It occurred 15 minutes
ago and people are already talking about deaths.”5 5 White
Paper on the Earthquake (2000), p. 36. But the President only
understood the magnitude of the catastrophe once he had spoken
with Mayor Patiño. He immediately flew to Armenia but it was
impossible for the plane to land: the airport was blocked.
Instead, at 16:30 they landed in Pereira,6 from where Pastrana
took a helicopter to Armenia, accompanied by several ministers
and Monica Yamhure, the Coordinator of the National Disaster
System. She recalled: 6 The capital of Risaralda, one of the
states of Colombia, Pereira is 48kms from Armenia. “We were
flying over Armenia when the President asked why everything
was moving down there. The strongest replica, the one that
killed most of the people, was taking place.”

4. The Relief Chain7
7 Exhibits 2 and 3 describe the relief chain using the model
proposed by the Fritz Institute, 2005.
Planning and Preparedness A National Disaster System had been
set up by the Government of Colombia in 1987 to respond to
disasters. The system was organised via technical and operative
committees at three levels: national, regional and local (see
Exhibit 4). It was an open system and included various public,
private and community sectors. However, in this case the local
and regional emergency response committees, if they existed,
were too weak. Carlos
Mejía, Director of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare
(ICBF) in Quindío, explained:
“There were contingency plans on paper, but in practice there
was total lack of coordination. Everyone had to see to their own
tragedy. I had to bury my deceased family members before
beginning the rescue operation with the ICBF.”
The destruction was exacerbated by several factors. Firstly,
there had been a severe lack of foresight. In 1995, the
Occidental Seismology Observatory (OSSO) had presented an
alarming picture of the risk of seismic movements in that zone,
showing that it was one of the most at-risk regions when it came
to earthquakes. Secondly, the situation was worsened by the
construction of homes on very unstable terrain. General Jaime
Cortés, commander of the Third Division of the Army,8
elaborated: 8
The pyramid structure of the Colombian Army is made up of a
General Command, followed by seven divisions which are
structured into brigades and battalions. The Third Division had
jurisdiction over the Coffee Region. “Sixty percent of the
buildings [in Armenia] didn’t have foundations, were placed on
mountainous edges and unstable hillsides, with clay roof tiles,
which seem to cause the most damage in the case of an
earthquake.” Furthermore, although the reaction of the national
government was immediate and at the highest levels, nobody

5. was prepared for the magnitude of the devastation. There was
no protocol to determine how they should react in such a huge
catastrophe.
One advantage Colombia had in reacting to disasters was its
experience with armed conflict.9 Government agencies and the
Red Cross had learnt lessons in disaster management between
1985 and 1995, during a period of narcotics-funded terrorism in
Bogotá, Cali and Medellín, the main cities of the country.
Walter Cotte, National Aid Director for the Red Cross and 25-
year veteran in the organization, described the approach:
9 Colombia has suffered over 50 years of armed conflict
between government forces and communist guerillas.
“We suffered all those bombings, and since then we have
established a procedure. A Unified Command Post (PMU) has
been set up, which is coordinated by the first one at the site. All
government agencies, the Red Cross and the Civil Defence are
present in the PMU.”
Following an evaluation of the damage to public buildings, the
PMU was established in the Regional Autonomous Corporation
of Quindío (CRQ).10
10 The Regional Autonomous Corporations reported to the
Ministry of Environment and were in charge of managing
environmental policy in the State of Quindío. Assessment The
Red Cross estimated the initial impact of the catastrophe using a
normative and operative rescue manual similar to a checklist, as
Cotte described: “The operative coordinator reaches the site and
checks: ‘Number one, the money, where are we going to keep
it? Number two, the cars, where are they? Number three, maps,
where are we going to locate our command post?”
Once the operation was under way, operatives began to gather
information from the radio, the press and on the ground. With it
they produced a diagnostic of the situation and broadly
determined the scale of the disaster. The initial requirements

6. were estimated to be 150 metric tons of food and half a million
litres of water every 24 hours.11
11 White Paper on the Earthquake (2000), p. 49. Crucial to the
operation was the establishment of shelters. The agencies
evaluated the state of the infrastructure for this purpose. The
football stadium was partially destroyed so they decided on the
exhibition centre, CENEXPO. Director of the Scouts, Emilia
Casas recalled: “Although the buildings had some structural
damage, the parking lot was in good condition and was
sufficiently large. Here we set up our first shelter.”
Resource Mobilisation
Financial
During the first three days, public money spent in helping the
victims came from several sources. One portion was provided
by the National Fund for Calamities. This was used to purchase
medicines, food and fuel for Air Force aircraft which
transported donations to Armenia. The Social Solidarity
Network (RSS) (see Appendix 1) provided a fraction of their
budget during the crisis. The ICBF, responsible for food
provision, also used a special account for disaster management.
However, as Mejia pointed out, the budget management of
public organisations in Colombia was far from easy:
“At first they tell you to buy and spend, but afterwards
investigations on expenditures begin.”
The Red Cross had a budget for aid during emergencies which
was not part of the national public budget. During the
emergency it also mobilised resources from the Red Cross
National Societies in other countries and from the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) (see
Appendix 1).

7. Human Resources
There was a massive influx of people willing to help. Four
hours after the earthquake, Cotte arrived on the scene. He
recalled his first impression:
“I arrived at 18:00, and it was full of dust. Everybody in the
government was complaining because it was too disorganised
and chaotic. ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘it’s an earthquake!’”
Emilia Casas joined 13 volunteer experts in organising massive
camps.
“I called the Director of the RSS, who was a friend of mine, and
told him we had experience in organising massive shelters for
jamborees; we once organised one for 16,000 people.”
She also contacted the commander of a Mexican disaster aid
battalion, Colonel Coronell, who moved his unit to Armenia on
the third day. This was the first overseas aid to arrive and their
help was essential in setting up shelters.
Other teams specialised in rescuing earthquake survivors were
also deployed by countries such as France, the US, Belgium and
Russia. Doctors from Médecins Sans Frontières, specialising in
family medicine and epidemiology, also arrived from Havana,
Cuba. On Tuesday, volunteers from the Red Cross12 and the
Civil Defence arrived from all over the country. They brought
with them machinery, mechanical excavators and specialised
rescue equipment; 99% of Red Cross personnel were
Colombians. 12
The Colombian Red Cross had 2,000 employees and 35,000
volunteers around the country—its donor network comprised
approximately 30,000 people.
Individual volunteers also began to arrive spontaneously. They
began distributing money and food, but the problem was that
nobody knew the quality of what they were delivering.
Moreover it was perceived as generating inequality: some
people received aid more than once, while others got nothing.
“There was a feeling of corruption among the population as they
saw what appeared to be no equality and no order,” commented

8. Cotte.
Organisational Set-up The President decided that the National
Disaster Management Office and the RSS should assume the
initial coordination of the response. The RSS reported directly
to the President’s office but they had no experience in managing
disasters. Their expertise lay in managing policies for internally
displaced people fleeing violence, and
in managing the donation of goods seized by the DIAN (national
tax and customs office) to victims of armed conflict. The sub-
director of the RSS admitted, “Due to our lack of experience
everything at first was by trial and error. But I think we learned
quickly.” President Pastrana delegated military command to
General Cortés, commander of the Army’s Third Division. To
tackle the tragedy, Cortés added 300 men as reinforcement to
the 2,000 troops already stationed in Armenia. This way he had
a reserve of personnel that could replace those troops who had
become exhausted. The Red Cross assigned an administrative
employee to take charge of money and personnel. The Technical
Department was in charge of threat analysis, vulnerability, risk
and security. In other words, as Cotte explained: “We were
responsible for how we were going to give opinions and what
we were going to tell people; that is, what the message of the
Red Cross would be in order to avoid saying anything stupid to
the media.” They also assigned a logistics coordinator which
covered transportation, supply, warehouse network and
specialised volunteer management. Another was assigned to
telecommunications. Three other key persons went to Armenia:
the reduction coordinator, who was in charge of all preventive
measures, a second in charge of response, rescue and shelters,
and a third in charge of recovery, whose responsibility was to
plan what to do with those affected over the next three months.
Procurement and Donations
Solidarity on the part of the national community prompted a
quick response. Colombians delivered donations en masse to

9. reception points in the main cities. Public and private sector
organisations also provided large quantities of goods and
transportation services, although some problems arose with
these. Guillermo Casasbuenas, sub-director of RSS, recalled:
“Many foodstuffs and medicines arrived past their expiry date.
They were of no use and took up a lot of space.”
Food and medicine had to undergo quality controls before being
stocked. INVIMA13 and the Universidad de Antioquia checked
the quality of the food, medication and water. For example,
ICBF received a shipment of several tons of rice seized by the
DIAN on the border with Venezuela. Although badly needed,
the rice neither looked nor smelled in good condition and
INVIMA declared it unfit for human consumption. It was buried
during the night. Mejía explained the need to deal with this
situation carefully:
“We couldn’t keep it in the warehouse because the community
would have said that we were keeping food from them. The
controls we set around food helped us avoid cases of
intoxication among the population.” International donations
started to arrive on the third day. Specific requests were made
through the Chancellor’s office. Some significant international
donations those first days included a mobile operating room
from USAID and grains such as rice, lentils and cereals from
the World Food Programme (WFP). Some organisations set up
parallel systems to receive donations. The Red Cross had its
own system for gathering international donations, which
allowed it to act very quickly during the first few days.
Food procurement management was initiated on Tuesday, 26
January by the ICBF. They held a meeting with local
supermarkets, at which it was decided to buy everything in
Armenia to help reactivate the economy. Whatever was not
available in supermarkets was to be purchased directly from
wholesalers that had not been seriously affected by the
earthquake.
Transportation

10. The roads leading into the city had minor blockages but these
were fully repaired in less than 48 hours. Nevertheless, the
streets of the city centre of Armenia were covered in rubble and
some roads which led to smaller villages in the mountainous
area were seriously damaged and blocked by landslides. The
low-capacity “El Edén” airport in Armenia was also partially
destroyed. To support the operation, the airport in Cartago, a
city 52kms from Armenia, was made operational on the same
day of the earthquake. Initial shipping of aid by air from Bogotá
was difficult. The bottleneck during the first few days was at
CATAM,14 Bogotá’s military airport, from which aircraft
loaded with supplies left for Armenia. The RSS had sent many
donations to CATAM but these were not getting through. This
posed a huge problem, as Casasbuenas recalled:
“The President called me and asked what was going on and why
no aid was arriving. I told him that we had sent everything to
CATAM, so he told me to go over and take care of the delay.”
When Casasbuenas reached CATAM, he saw that all the aid was
being held in a warehouse. The commander of the base
explained that Cartago’s airport had no night-time operation and
nobody had authorised the aircraft to take off, nor did they
know who would pay for the fuel. This situation delayed the
delivery of the first supplies. After 24 hours of negotiating with
the military, the first Hercules took off for Armenia. Once the
problem was resolved, the air force’s help came more quickly
and contributed greatly to overcoming the crisis. The air force
provided five Hercules,15 each able to carry 110 passengers.
They each made six flights daily, starting the second day and
continuing for 10 days. Even the presidential jet, a Boeing, was
used to transport aid. On the way to Armenia they carried
supplies and on the way back they evacuated victims who had
family in other cities. Commercial airlines also provided planes
to evacuate victims to other cities. The Red Cross made 34
search and rescue flights between 26 January and 4 February.

11. Aid destined for several villages which could not be reached by
land was transported by a fleet of air force helicopters.
These also assisted in evacuating victims. In total, during the
first week close to 10,000 people were evacuated, General
Cortés confirmed.
The condition of Armenia’s airport allowed only one Hercules
to land at a time. A minor accident occurred because the runway
was so narrow that two planes collided on the ground.
Fortunately, they only touched wings and nobody was hurt.
For transportation towards the interior of Armenia, vehicles
belonging to the local and regional governments, the Red Cross,
Civil Defence, the Army and private individuals were used.
Citizens who owned vans lent their vehicles to different
agencies or drove them themselves. Ambulances also began to
arrive spontaneously from nearby cities—by the third day there
were about 350 ambulances operating in Armenia. But instead
of helping, they were starting to slow traffic down. “We had to
return some to their cities of origin,” commented General
Cortés. The traffic situation and the arrival of people not related
to the earthquake forced the Army to set up roadblocks on
access routes to reduce the flow of vehicles and people towards
Armenia, allowing only those with permits to enter the city as
of the third day.
Tracking and Tracing
Shipments were tracked manually using notebooks or with
improvised excel sheets. Paper forms were used to register aid
shipments in Bogotá and several other Colombian cities, and to
register items received in Armenia.
“There was an application called SUMA. People from IBM
came to show it to us but it was of no use in a situation like
this. There was no time to fill in all the information that the
system required,” said Mejia.
The situation within the Red Cross was different. The Red Cross
could track an item until it reached the victims.

12. “Part of our transparency system consists of being able to
receive something and getting that thing somewhere and
knowing who received it and having it all registered. These
things are part of our daily life,” explained Cotte.
Stock Asset Management
Two hours after the earthquake struck, the National Government
selected the points of storage for aid received from other parts
of the country. The main warehouse in Bogotá was set up in
Corferias.16 The police, the Red Cross and 2,000 scouts arrived
at the scene to help receive and register donations. The National
Government set up 33 other storage facilities in Colombia’s
main cities. The air force also set up a provisional warehouse in
CATAM airport near Bogotá. Here cargo was unloaded from
trucks sent from Corferias and stored until it was shipped to
Armenia.
A further warehouse was set up next to Armenia’s Armenia’s
airport building. This storage facility was managed by the RSS
with help from the national Army, which was in charge of
security. From the first day, a warehouse belonging to the
IDEMA17 was also used. This was the largest warehouse in
Armenia during the recovery period and was initially managed
by 120 operators from the RSS. It was used to store all kinds of
supplies (food, blankets, tents and medicines) before they were
distributed. A warehouse was set up in the CENEXPO shelter,
where food supplies for the victims were kept. The ICBF set up
a small warehouse, operated by 10 people, to receive donations
and store purchases in Armenia. Other lower capacity
warehouses were set up in the city by the Civil Defence and the
Federation of Coffee-Growers of Quindío.18 The Red Cross had
two warehouses in which to store food, blankets, tents and
essential medication.
“We had one which was looted and another, larger one, which
was in an isolated place,” recalled Cortés.
Asset management included transporting items from one
warehouse to the other prior to the final delivery. Casasbuenas

13. explained: “There were parallel efforts. Besides, things were
being sent from one warehouse to another instead of delivering
them directly to the people.”
Extended Relief to Beneficiaries
The distribution of aid began on the day of the earthquake, just
after the beginning of the rescue operations. The Red Cross
used its stock in Armenia to respond to the emergency. The
ICBF also started to distribute food in densely populated areas.
The second day, the ICBF began setting up communal kitchens
with food that had been purchased from local supermarkets. The
ICBF supplied the food to meet nutritional requirements while
local women, often heads of families, prepared the meals.
At this point, aid was failing to arrive from Bogotá. The
community lacked reliable information, resulting in panic and
uncertainty among the population. Although very little time had
passed since the quake, the fact that no food arrived prompted
fears that they were going to starve to death. Also, there were
rumours that others from outside the city had come to steal from
them. Fearing for their lives and abandoned properties, people
started to build barricades to defend themselves.
“It was terrible. Neighbourhoods were defending themselves
from other neighbourhoods,” recalled Eduardo Uribe, a
professor at the Universidad de los Andes. During those first
days it was very difficult to deliver supplies. Tension in city
centre streets was heightened by people who were armed and
aggressive and it was frightening to be out at night. Armed
groups were seen guarding their block with pistols, rifles,
machetes and shotguns.
“We drove by slowly so they wouldn’t harm us. It isn’t easy to
tell someone that you will distribute supplies the next day when
the guy has a gun and a machete in his hands. Our safety
regulations say that where that happens, we stay away,” Cotte
pointed out. The situation worsened on the third day, when

14. looting occurred in some of the city’s supermarkets. In one of
the supermarkets, people took everything, including the cash
register. Other stores were also looted. “People were saying:
‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry,’ and they would walk out of the store
with a TV,” added Mejía. To make matters worse, the mayor’s
office gave erroneous information over the radio, she recalled:
“The mayor had everyone on his back asking for things and
people complaining a lot. On Thursday, he said over the radio,
‘Go tomorrow to the Red Cross because tomorrow they’ll give
you things there.’ So lots of people went to our warehouse.”
Despite the fact that the Red Cross had a distribution system set
up, that they had counted people, and that they were going to
distribute food to the neighbourhoods, Mayor Patiño’s message
sent all the people to one warehouse which couldn’t handle the
demand. “We tried to line them up and count them there. But at
one point, everything got out of control and they broke into the
warehouse.
We let them, even though we had army personnel on the
premises. I asked the army not to do anything. Afterwards, they
chased them and some people were captured. It only took a few
minutes, but the news travelled around the world. Our image
suffered as a result, although after that we received
international donations via the International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent societies that allowed us to build a
warehouse network to respond to future disasters in the region,”
Cotte recollected.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting
Monitoring was weak during the first days. “We had no
indicators. We had no time for measurement,” said
Casasbuenas, from the RSS. Fortunately, there were control
organisms. The Office for Oversight of Government Resources
and the Internal Government Affairs Agency were monitoring
management of the disaster. Scouts kept paper forms of their

15. management of supplies. However, as Emilia Casas noted:
“Nobody controlled us. No external control was applied. People
know that scouts don’t steal things on principle.” The lack of
monitoring made some administrative processes difficult. The
Regional Director of the ICBF recalled: “We suffered a lot
when finalising a contract several months later. The food
contract was very costly and we didn’t have a good record of
what had been given out. In the end, the notebook of a highly
organised ICBF employee saved us because she had a detailed
list of everything: quotes, purchases, deliveries, etc. It’s a good
thing she didn’t throw out that notebook. That notebook saved
us.”
Coordination and Collaboration
Initially, the President and his ministers met every two hours at
the PMU. These meetings were always attended by 15 to 20
people from different organisations, including the Army. “When
I went, I didn’t allow any other military officer of lower rank to
be present. I represented the Army. I also coordinated actions
with the Red Cross and the Civil Defence,” said General Cortés.
Some organisations had to interact for the first time after the
earthquake. This was the case of the scouts. “Perhaps the
president thought I was a person of some influence in the
international scout organisation because I had gotten the
Mexicans to send their disaster response squad. He made me
part of his work team, and a lot of people started to ask, ‘What
are the scouts doing here?’” mused Emilia Casas. President
Pastrana assumed the coordination of the Disaster System. “The
president tried to manage the situation but he had no idea what
to do, he was not familiar with the Disaster Recovery System
structure and capacity. Fortunately, he noticed that very
quickly, let others coordinate the operation and supported the
process well,” recalled Cotte.
There was some conflict between the national, regional and

16. local levels. The locals were very sensitive because they saw it
as their tragedy. They told the national representatives that they
had no right to speak. There were also conflicts between
organisations. Some agencies wanted to stand out, which
initially put the governor’s and mayor’s offices at odds. In some
cases it became personal, involving the governor and the mayor.
“It was terrible. They would be in the same place and they
wouldn’t speak to each other. There was a lot of institutional
jealousy, duplicate actions. There was no coordination.
Everything was so hard to organise,” bemoaned Casas.
On the fourth day the organisation started to improve. The
president put an end to the disputes between organisations. “I
had never seen President Pastrana angry. But he said, ‘No
more!’ And he made the right decision,” observed the Director
of the Scouts. Five days after the earthquake (30 January), the
president created the Fund for the Reconstruction of the Coffee
Region (FOREC), which would be controlled by Luis Carlos
Villegas, president of ANDI (see Appendix 1). FOREC was the
organisation put in charge of managing financial donations,
loans and public money for reconstruction. “Doctor Villegas
said, ‘Look at the problem we got ourselves in.’ My reaction
was, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll pull through,’” General Cortés
reminisced.
One year after the earthquake, FOREC won the United Nations
Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction, one of three
prestigious prizes established in 1986 by the Nippon
Foundation. On 11 October 2000, World Disaster Reduction
Day, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the UN honoured
FOREC for its “outstanding contribution not only to the
rehabilitation of the earthquake-devastated area but to the
building of a truly sustainable and socially equitable
development model.”
Conclusion

17. The UN award confirmed the value that the organisation FOREC
brought to the response effort. Yet why was such an
organisation needed and what could have been done in the
initial few days to have prevented the degeneration into such a
difficult situation? The earthquake that devastated the region of
Armenia had a lasting effect not only on the country of
Colombia but on the international community. How could future
generations ensure that they were better prepared to cope in the
event of similar disasters and that the lessons learned from this
earthquake did not go unheeded?