Disaster and society: The 1985 Mexican earthquakes

65 decisions with autonomy. This presupposes the existence of democratic community organizations acting locally. The right to create and to join them must be respected.

Emergency in Mexico was managed within the ordinary frame of the law, but traditional expressions of the official response, as to cordon off damaged areas, mirrored in some extent the view of disaster and normality as separate categories that must be kept apart. To protect lives and properties by geography could lead to an even more conflictive situation. Caputo and coresearchers (1985: 11) maintained that in several disasters in South America rigid civil defence systems impede the incorporation of the refugees’ own organizations, what was likely to happen in the studied case. The Mexican disaster showed that spontaneity and decentralized response are not synonymous of chaos,uncontrolled riots or general panic.

In the largest city on earth, the extended physical damage was as a matter of fact of small proportions, but it caused social disruption and massive response.

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers achieved an organization that worked well and had at hands the enormous amount of resources in personnel and material that a large city could offer: workers, skills, tools, services, vehicles and more. In spite of the failures of official policies of response, and as the research conducted by Russell R. Dynes asserted, all organizations had for the most all the things and personnel they needed, with a few exceptions.

The difficult procedure to apply the only existing disaster plan tried to resolve complex problems set by both the previous political reality and the vaguely foreseen management structures. Delays in going into action were at a large extent outcome of legal and political Mexican normal contexts. Further, serious damages, institutional strifes and the response of the citizens, were not expected at all. A pattern of damages like the one in Mexico City, where 12 000 ruined buildings were dispersed over 50 square kilometers, gives a new dimension to the challenge every disaster represents. Even with a more effective leadership, bettered communication and information, and improved mechanisms for interorganizational connections, centrally led emergency efforts would scarcely have been far more effective than they were. The official response should have supported spontaneity instead of attempting to gain control over it in the name of order, efficiency or specialized skills, because the feature of the disaster did not allow another way of prompt coping.