Logistics Support Issues in Disaster Operations

The purpose of this research is to identify issues related to logistics support in disaster operations. This was established based on the existing academic literature as well as through the case study of South-East Asia Tsunami event of 2004. Asian tsunami of 2004 pushed academics from logistics as well as practitioners of different subjects to increase their interest in disasters logis-tics. Despite a plethora of studies in the field of disasters, however, negligible attention has been devoted to the study of logistics issues related disaster relief operations. This study finds that a need for a more in depth examination of lo-gistics issues during disasters operations is a crucial factor in order to improve the response effectiveness in disasters operations. Literature research also re-veals that logistics compounds most of the activities of disaster relief opera-tions. The need for further improvements in logistics response concerning disas-ters is related to the need of disaster logistics to learn and adopt business as well as military logistics practices. Among other issues identified during this re-search with regards to logistics in disasters include lack of logistics recognition, lack of trained personnel, absence or limited cooperation among acting agen-cies, inadequate assessment, planning issues as well as other problems as will be discussed. This writing ends with conclusions and recommendations for a more efficient and responsive disaster logistics