A 6.1 quake was reported hitting Iceland some 30 miles from the capital Reykjavik at 15.45PM local time. A few specialized news outlets picked up the event, which I reached some two hours after it happened. Minimal reference to the event was received in mainstream media outlets, and while not enormous a 6+ level event typically qualifies as strong with the potential to severely damage population and structures in a 100KM radius. It would only be much later that a brief snippet of the event would clarify the "minimal" effect of the damage. Two critical factors played an important role in giving it such a low profile: small population, and high wealth. The trouble is that relatively small poor populations may also be as a result of their size outside of the alert systems, something only fixable through proactive local preparedness.

One of the most common and reliable places to reach disaster alerts and updates is the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS). Funded by the United Nations and the European Commission it is a web based operation that monitors early warnings, and provides an automated estimate of the impact then triggering further manual analysis. GDACS is admirably transparent in its automated estimates and offers a reliable insight in the methodology and algorithms employed to assign green, orange, or red alerts to the different events. For the most part this provides a fairly accurate qualifier and their benchmarking is quite useful. However, this system by its own nature will highlight large events, with large potential losses, leaving smaller and targeted events under a green alert label, or out of the system entirely.

Disaster impacts are estimated by considering nearby population centers, critical infrastructure, and local wealth as an indicator of preparedness and the capacity to respond. It explains that since much of investments in earthquake preparedness and available funds for quick response is related to household income, the GDP per capita can be used as a rough indicator of resilience. By that account, Iceland being a high level income country is considered an area of high resilience, and based on the combination of 9 indicators including its small population and low density, the European Commission Humanitarian AidECHO) attributes Iceland a low vulnerability. While quite understandable, the message of such analysis for Iceland is quite simple: it needs to be particularly well prepared for severe events making this assessment true, or else it will face tremendous trouble, reaching the news cycle late, and quite possibly aid resources would be limited or ineffective as a result.

And in the case of Iceland, labeling it as a low vulnerability region has critical shortcomings. In an area prone to such events, a severe disaster would isolate not only a referential community, but most importantly it would hinder the capacity of one of the strategic transportation spots in the Atlantic not only for fisheries and cargo boats but still critical to small planes making a much needed stopover crossing the Atlantic. Not being able to do so, could potentially stress alternative routes. Just because of obvious intangibles like this one, the possibility of a severe disaster on the island would probably need to rank much higher on the alert system. Fortunately in this occasion the event indeed was of a relatively low impact from a broad analysis, although locally the event couldn't be further from being considered minor.

Be as it may, there is a far more somber lesson from the Icelandic quake. If someplace such as Iceland could slip away like this from the news, if it can so easily miss all the qualifiers that would drive the initial attention to a potential disaster, what guarantees do poorer populations or smaller communities have to receive the adequate attention and resources to respond to such events? There are no guarantees. And wealthy or not, the message in this circumstances has to be dedicated to the importance to localize preparedness and response strongly at the community level, support building standards, and ensure that an investment in disaster prevention is done as an investment in the longterm well being of the community. It is easier said than done, in particular when resources are short. A consistent effort over time is a great part of such a challenge, an effort that develops a strong local response networks and seeks to establish reciprocal support connections with neighboring communities and regions.