Authors: Chamindra de Silva, Sanjiva Weerawarna, Jivaka Weeratunga

The Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka on December 26th resulted in a massive outpouring of support for the relief of the nearly one million people that have been affected by it. When literally thousands of people from every conceivable multilateral organization and from many other places arrived here to help, it became clear immediately that without information technology it would be impossible to coordinate their efforts to maximize the impact on the affected people. The Sahana project was thus born.

Despite the tremendous value this type of software can bring to disaster management, there are only very few systems that exist today and none of them are widely deployed. In fact, the most widely used system appears to be non-Web based and using completely out-dated technology. While there are indeed various specialized parts that exist, there does not exist a single cohesive system that organizations such as United Nations Disaster Assistance and Coordination (UNDAC) deploys at every disaster situation they go to.

The long term objectives of Sahana is to grow into a complete disaster management system, including functionality for mitigation, preparation, relief and recovery.