Wednesday, February 23, 2005

MoD accused of tsunami 'clawback'

The Ministry of Defence has been accused of 'clawing back' costs from its tsunami relief operation by charging the government's aid budget.

Scottish National Party MP Angus Robertson said that the MoD had charged the Department for International Development (DfID) €2.5m.

Mr Robertson said people would be 'shocked and angry' at the MoD taking a 'slice of the aid cake'.

The MoD said a 'marginal costs charging regime' was in place for the operation.

'Humanitarian assistance'

Tens of thousands of people died when an earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a tsunami which devastated large parts of Asia on 26 December.

The DfID said that it had an agreement with the MoD over the recovery of costs relating to the use of military staff and equipment.

It said that 'marginal' costs which were not part of the MoD's normal defence role were reimbursed.

A DfID spokeswoman said that, for example, fuel used by helicopters carrying relief would be charged but not the salaries of the staff involved.

The spokeswoman said that the charges 'compared with commercial options'.

She said: 'No money has been diverted from our humanitarian aid work.

'We are sure the victims of the disaster are more concerned about getting the help they need when they need it (whether this be helicoptered provisions of food or planes to carry shelter), rather than worrying about whether the MoD or DfID accounted for the costs.

'What is important is that the UK Government has provided much needed aid to tsunami affected areas on behalf of taxpayers. All costs ultimately come out of the one government budget." Mr Robertson said: "The Ministry of Defence have been caught out charging the aid budget for services that most of us would have expected them to give for free.

'Waive the cash'

"£2.5m is an awful lot of money and even now would make a difference to the aid effort in the region - or indeed in Africa."

He said people across the UK had donated their "own hard earned cash and showed enormous generosity to the tsunami relief effort".

"They have every reason to be shocked and angry that the MoD is taking a multi-million pound slice of the aid cake - for services that they could offer free of charge," Mr Robertson said.

"I am calling on the government to rethink this decision. It is not too late for the MoD to do the right thing and to agree to waive the cash so it can be spent by DfID on better things."


Source: BBC News - E,UK

Governments Urged to Resolve 'Serious Issues' Over Tsunami Victims in Thailand

Governments of nations whose citizens are still missing after the Tsunami disaster in Thailand have been advised that the identification and return of the several thousand victims may be delayed unnecessarily unless 'serious issues' with the overall management of the process are acknowledged and resolved. These delays can be avoided if prompt action is taken.

Kenyon International Emergency Services, the world's leading disaster management company, has invited senior Government representatives from countries who lost citizens to attend a meeting in Bangkok in early March, at which these issues will be discussed. Problems which Kenyon has identified include the processing of DNA material, which is being delayed because individual laboratories currently being used do not have the capability or capacity to process the large volume of samples from this disaster.

Kenyon was activated within 24 hours of the Tsunami, and has worked alongside the international Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams, supporting various elements of the response. Kenyon was involved because of its unparalleled experience of responding to mass-fatality events, including the Bali terrorist bombings in Indonesia, the 9/11 attacks on the United States and numerous airline and transportation accidents.

Robert A. Jensen, Kenyon's President and Chief Operating Officer, said: 'The Thai Government has done everything possible to facilitate the identification of the victims of this terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, the commendable work of the DVI teams on the ground is being compromised because of a lack of understanding among many foreign Governments for the need to resolve problems such as the DNA processing. These issues require a collective, international response. Every day that the process is delayed extends the suffering and distress of families desperate to find their loved ones".

Mr Jensen added: "There is no commercial advantage to Kenyon in highlighting these issues -- for example, we do not offer DNA processing services. However, we have a responsibility to clients and to the families of the victims to speak up when we see problems developing and to help find solutions."

Kenyon International Emergency Services is the world's leading disaster management company and has responded to more than 300 mass-fatality events in its history. Kenyon works with more than 200 retained clients, including Governments, international organizations and private companies.



Source: Medical News Today - UK

No epidemics seen in tsunami-hit nations

Millions of people in nations devastated by last year's tsunami remain vulnerable to deadly diseases but only scattered outbreaks have been reported so far, the chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.

The December 26 Indian Ocean tsunami killed an estimated 300,000 people in 11 countries, most of them in Asia, and left millions of survivors without adequate housing or sanitation facilities.

Many of the displaced are living in crowded refugee camps.

'This is going to be a vulnerable region for a very long time,' CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said during a panel discussion here sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club. 'We're not out of the woods yet.'

International health officials and relief workers had warned that tens of thousands of people could die from diseases such as cholera, malaria, dengue fever and measles in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in living memory.

But only minor outbreaks have been reported in the past two months, said Gerberding, who credited international health observers for moving quickly into hard-hit areas to nip diseases before they spread.

The CDC was among those that sent staff into Asia following the tsunami. The Atlanta-based agency is now focusing its efforts on improving water, sanitation and disease detection services in Thailand and other affected nations.

Gerberding said rebuilding shattered health-care services would be a critical part of the long-term relief effort. 'So much of the health-care delivery system was destroyed,' she said.


Source: Hindustan Times - India

Tsunami gauge shows bite marks

Scientists scoured the oceans, particularly near the areas worst affected by the December 26 tsunami, for 36 days and found that several spots along the eastern coast have subsided by at least a metre.

One thing is clear. In many places, there has been a subsidence of one metre or more and it is clearly documented on the tide gauge in Port Blair, the jetty there and also in Chennai harbour,� said Dr Harsh K. Gupta, secretary of the central Department of Ocean Development.

He was speaking on board the research vessel Sagar Kanya after it returned to Chennai with 31 scientists who were studying the impact of the tsunami on marine, geo-physical, biological and other aspects of the environment.

The phenomenon was pronounced in the southern Andamans, with the �maximum down throw� at its tip, Indira Point. In an opposite reaction, the land level in the north had gone up by 0.8 metre.

On the mainland, the inner harbour at Chennai had become a metre deeper. The entry point has sunk two metres.

Dwelling on the various components of the proposed national tsunami warning system, Dr Gupta said implementation of the Rs 125-crore project has begun and his department planned to complete it in the next 30 months.

Dr Gupta said the Andamans and Tamil Nadu on the east and Gujarat on the west are the only areas in India that face the threat of tsunamis generated by undersea quakes at fault lines running off their coast (see chart).

With the two tsunami-prone areas identified, the next task was to have a �near real-time monitoring of earthquakes, so that as soon as a quake occurs, we know that a tsunami may be generated�.

In the vicinity of the fault lines, a �pressure transducer� � to differentiate between a tsunami and a normal wave � and recorders would be placed on the seabed to sense if a quake surge is being generated.

Dr Gupta said the sea level has not gone up after the tsunami. The scientists will have to submit their final conclusions in the next three to six months, said Dr Gupta.


Source: Calcutta Telegraph - Calcutta,India

Danger waste hits tsunami survivors

Many people who survived the recent Indian Ocean tsunami have been afflicted by hazardous waste uncovered by the disaster, the United Nations Environment Programme said yesterday.

In Somalia, people have suffered respiratory problems, skin conditions and bleeding from contact with chemical and possibly nuclear waste that was dumped near the shores of the country. The UN said it could cost as little as $2.50 (�1.30) a tonne to deposit hazardous waste in Africa, compared with disposal costs in Europe of $250 a tonne.

Maldives islanders have had to deal with solid waste such as asbestos, fuel drums and oil leaks from damaged generators. Groundwater, bore holes and aquifers in areas affected by the tsunami have also been contaminated with salt water, bacteria and sewage, according to a UN report investigating the environmental consequences of the disaster.

But the UN said the rebuilding following the December 26 disaster offered the opportunity to avoid some problems in future.

Klaus T�pfer, executive director at the UN Environmental Programme, said: 'The report underlines the importance of managing the reconstruction in an environmentally sensitive way. Buildings and other infrastructure need to be built in less vulnerable areas and to standards that will protect them and their inhabitants in the event of future tsunamis. This makes sense not only in respect to tsunamis but storms, surges, floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather events.'

The UN expects such events to become more common as the result of global climate change.

Natural defences against tsunamis such as mangrove swamps, coastal vegetation and coral reefs should be cultivated and cared for, the report advised. Areas where mangrove swamps and coastal trees had been cleared were particularly badly hit by the waves.

Traditional forms of fishing activity also tend to leave coastlines in better shape to withstand wave battering, rather than the intensive fishing and shrimp farming that have characterised Asian coastal areas in recent years. Nets and other fishing gear swept out to sea by the waves continue to pose a hazard to marine life.

The rebuilding effort offered a "clear opportunity" for installing sustainable energy generation using wind, solar and tidal power. The report asked hotels to locate in less flood prone areas, and advocated the establishment of networks of safe haven towers, such as those used in Bangladesh.


Source: Financial Times - UK

Tsunami reveals tensions in Nicobar islands

A week after the December tsunami struck India's Nicobar islands, tribal leaders wrote to the territory's lieutenant-governor.

The letter asked for neither food nor shelter, although both were desperately needed. Instead, tribal captains from the central Nicobar islands asked the administration to remove illegal settlers from their lands.

The emotive letter starkly reveals the tensions and insecurities faced by the tribal Nicobarese, beset by a tide of illegal settlement which is threatening to overwhelm them on islands which are supposed to be strictly protected tribal areas.

'We are the victims of being a peace-loving people with a good heart, and advantages were taken by the non-tribal,' the letter said. 'First they have entered our land illegally, then they have taken away our land, then our peace, then exploitation of the tribal, then cheating the tribal.

'We are not settling down in their land, then why should they settle in our land? We have lost everything, our family, our source of income, coconut trees due to the tidal waves. We again repeat ... appeal to your excellency to please remove these non-tribal from our land.'

The Nicobarese are a pig- and coconut-farming people, an Indo-Mongoloid race which has been exposed to the outside world for centuries.

The most developed and prosperous of the tribes on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, many still preserve a traditional way of life in palm-thatched huts, centred on extended families.

TRIBALS OUTNUMBERED AFTER TSUNAMI

Perhaps 5,000 of the 28,000 Nicobarese died when the Dec. 26 tsunami overwhelmed their coastal settlements. Most of the victims came on the island of Katchal where entire villages were wiped out and the whole coastal belt is now under water.

In Katchal, the tsunami has left tribals in the minority. Already they are eyeing higher ground in the centre of the island which more recent immigrants, mostly Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, now occupy.

The Tamils settled on Katchal with the Indian government's blessing to work on a rubber plantation. Families of Indian ex-servicemen were settled on Great Nicobar island in the 1970s, in a bid to cement the strategically vital islands to India.

But others have settled illegally, many arriving as labourers for government contractors, and then staying on with the connivance of corrupt local officials.

On Car Nicobar, most of the non-tribals who survived the tsunami fled the island in the days that followed. Already tribal chieftains are insisting illegal settlers not be allowed back.

For the government of India, it is a headache and an embarrassment. Many non-tribal people, traumatised by the tsunami's fatal power, would dearly love to turn their back on the sea and be given new homes on the mainland.

They are unlikely to find room.

Lieutenant-General Aditya Singh, spokesman for the relief effort on the islands, say many of the settlers came to do work, as labourers or petty traders, that the tribals were unwilling or unable to do.

"India is a plural society and you can't say in one area there will be only one kind of people," he said. "It's very easy to say we don't want settlers but the fact is the needs of society warrant a mixed population."

Nevertheless, tribal rights advocate Samir Acharya of the Society of Andaman and Nicobar Ecology says the tsunami gives the Nicobarese a new window of opportunity to have their grievances addressed.

"They were being marginalised, and the state was doing whatever it wanted," he said. 'But after this enormous wave of sympathy, the doors of the Planning Commission, of (Congress party leader) Sonia Gandhi, of all the high-ups in Delhi, have opened to them."

The immediate challenge for the Nicobarese is how to rebuild their lives, their economy and especially their homes ahead of April's monsoon.

Wary of yet more settlers, tribal leaders have told the government they want only tools and materials, and will build shelters themselves. With time running out, that may be unrealistic, admits Car Nicobar tribal leader Dr Anwar Musa.

"Some workers will definitely be needed to speed the work up, especially skilled people," he said. "But that should not open the floodgates so everyone can come in.



Source: Reuters India - Mumbai,India

Bush, Clinton head to Indonesia's tsunami-ravaged Aceh

Former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton left Thailand for Indonesia, where they were to assess aid needs in the region that suffered most of the 289,000 dead in the December tsunami.

After visiting tsunami-hit regions of Thailand on Saturday, the two ex-presidents said they were seeking up to five billion more dollars in donations to meet long-term reconstruction needs, especially in Indonesia's Aceh province and in Sri Lanka.

They will hold talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the North Sumatran capital of Medan Sunday before touring worst-hit Aceh later in the day, an embassy official in Jakarta said.

They were to head to Sri Lanka later Sunday and then on to the Maldives on Monday.

More than 230,000 people are believed to have died in Indonesia alone in the December 26 earthquake and a tsunami that it unleashed that devastated coastal areas around the Indian Ocean, especially on Sumatra island.

The two said they were seeking billions more dollars in donations to meet long-term needs of tsunami-stricken countries, after visiting a Thai fishing village ravaged by the waves.

The two leaders warned that while an unprecedented seven billion dollars in post-tsunami aid had been raised to date, as much as five billion more was needed for reconstruction across the Indian Ocean.

Affected nations need '11 or 12 billion dollars to restore homes, rebuild wells, sanitation facilities (and) the economic infrastructure,' Clinton said.

'What we have to do now is not to forget these people and places when all the cameras are not there.'

Speaking at a press conference with Bush and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Clinton said Thailand was 'in a position to deal with this and have things back to normal perhaps within a year or so.'

'In Banda Aceh and in Sri Lanka they'll have bigger problems because they lost more people," he added.

"Our mission is simply humanitarian, and we're just thrilled to be trying to raise funds in the States," said Bush, who admitted it was "very emotional" to see the scale of destruction on Thailand's coast.

The two men began their four-nation tour in the devastated fishing village of Baan Nam Khem, where they were met by 30 school children who lost parents in the tsunami that ripped through the Indian Ocean, killing nearly 289,000 people.

They also visited the first house to be rebuilt after the tsunami wiped out this community and destroyed the fishing boats that had been the livelihood of residents.

"By coming here, we can see what needs to be done," Clinton said.

Thaksin said the Thai people were touched by American support.

"We are friends indeed, and we will continue to discuss the ways the two presidents and the private sector will come to support the rehabilitation here in Thailand."

Bush -- the current US president's father -- hailed "the spirit of the Thai people who are determined to rebuild their lives."

Clinton dressed in a blue shirt, the color of his Democratic party, and Bush in red for his Republicans, walked through the town where the Thai army was building 700 new homes for residents.

The pair was greeted by scores of residents as well as American and Canadian volunteers who were working on recovery projects, including a scheme to provide new boats to fisher folk here.

Baan Nam Khem, with almost half its population of 5,000 believed to have perished, was among the most devastated communities in Thailand's hardest-hit province of Phang Nga, which suffered the vast majority of the nation's nearly 5,400 dead.

Roughly half the dead are believed to be foreign tourists who were vacationing on Thailand's famous beaches.

After leaving Baan Nam Khem, Bush and Clinton went to a memorial wall at a disaster victim identification unit where they laid flowers for victims from around the world.

At a section for the American victims, which the State Department this month estimated at 33, they laid a wreath and observed a few moments of silence.

Both ex-presidents praised the outpouring of donations from the American public.

"We can now go home and say, 'you can trust that this money will be well spent'," Clinton said, adding that as many as one third of American households had already contributed to tsunami relief.

Clinton and Bush regularly appear in television advertisements requesting donations for the hundreds of thousands made homeless by the tsunamis.

The White House has placed Bush in charge of efforts to raise private US aid.

Clinton also has been named the United Nations' special envoy for tsunami relief.

President George W. Bush has pledged 950 million dollars in US aid to tsunami-hit nations.


Source: Turkish Press - Turkey

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Tsunami effect cut to B1bn

Thai Airways International Plc (THAI) has reduced the estimated impact of the tsunami disaster on revenues for the fiscal year to one billion baht, down from an earlier projection of three billion.

Ongoing co-operation with agencies such as the Tourism Authority of Thailand in rebuilding tourism confidence has begun to bear fruit, resulting in a reduced impact on the airline's projected performance this fiscal year, said president Kanok Abhiradee.

He said the TAT had invited 1,000 journalists worldwide to visit tsunami-hit areas along the Andaman coast to observe the situation, and has invited CNN to interview tourists visiting the area.

At the same time, 200 advertising spots will be bought in international media, along with attractive tour package offers for both high and low season.

THAI has also adjusted its routes for added traveller convenience, providing eight new aircraft as well as renovating existing planes to attract more passengers.

``For domestic routes, we won't raise fares, but instead we'll try to save costs. We may increase airfares on our international routes,'' he said.

THAI reported net profits of 5.7 billion baht for the first quarter ending Dec 31, a sharp increase from 4.2 billion in profits reported the previous year. Gains were attributed to a 12.5% increase in goods and services revenue due to new flight routes, while sales and administrative expenses rose 18.98% year-on-year, mostly due to higher fuel costs.

The company also reported a foreign exchange gain of 2.05 billion baht due to the stronger baht, compared to losses of 409 million the year before.

Mr Kanok said THAI had already hedged its fuel cost to minimise the risk of fluctuating prices.

Meanwhile, THAI has joined with the Office of the Supreme Commander and UBC Group in organising a campaign called ``Loving Andaman'', which aims to help restore the Andaman coastline damaged by the Dec 26 tsunami as well as lure tourists back to the area.

With the goal of making Thailand the first country to recover from the natural disaster, the campaign aims to revive tourist confidence in the country's natural beauty and marine environment.

The project consists of underwater activities, including a damage survey, coral recovery and clean-up by 400 volunteer civilian and military divers on Feb 25-28 and March 3-5.

The second is a beach festival with beach sports, jazz, rock and hip-hop music concerts and a beachwear fashion show by Chic Channel. Artists to perform in the concert include Blondie, along with other international and local acts.

To publicise the project worldwide, local cable TV broadcaster UBC plans to invite local and foreign media to join the beach festival on Patong beach on March 5.

Shares of THAI closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 48 baht, unchanged, in trade worth 183.1 million baht.


Source: Bangkok Post - Thailand

Ex-presidents promise tsunami victims more aid

George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton traveled yesterday to the ground zero of tsunami devastation, describing the destruction as unimaginable and promising survivors who begged for shelter that more help would come.

On the second day of their relief mission to the region, the two former leaders flew in US military helicopters from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, over a barren landscape that was once a patchwork of rice paddies, to Lampuuk, where the sole structure left standing is a large white mosque.

The village had 6,500 inhabitants before the Dec. 26 disaster; 700 remain.

Bush reassured villagers who greeted them: ''You're going to be OK. A lot of people around the world want to help.'

Clinton asked villager Akhi Sukri what the survivors needed most.

''They need everything,' Sukri replied.

Standing amid the debris of Lampuuk, Clinton said seeing the destruction firsthand helped him understand how so many people died.

The official death toll ranges from 169,070 to 178,118.

The number of missing is believed to be as high as 128,426, with most presumed dead.


Source: Boston Globe - USA

Report looks at environmental impact of Asian tsunami

Coastlines already damaged by pollution and man's poor land management suffered more from the southeast Asian tsunami than those with healthy coral reefs and other natural protection, the U.N. environment chief said Monday.

This is one of the conclusions of a United Nations interim report on the environmental impact of the tsunami that is estimated to have killed at least 170,000 people in 11 countries in Asia and Africa, U.N. environment agency Executive Director Klaus Toepfer told world environment ministers.

The report will be made public Tuesday during the weeklong meeting of the U.N. Environment Program's top decision-making body, UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall said.

'Those coastlines with intact coral reefs, mangroves, vegetated dunes and robust coastal forests came off better than those degraded by pollution and insensitive land use,' Toepfer said.

'So the environment is not a luxury ... It is an economically important insurance policy whose wisdom we ignore at our peril,' he said.

'Coral reefs and mangroves are absolutely vital in safeguarding people living in those areas,' Marion Cheatle, UNEP's senior environmental affairs officer, told journalists during the launch of a U.N. report reviewing the major environmental issues of 2004.

The report, 'Geo Year Book 2004/5,' quotes a preliminary report by an Indian institute that showed mangrove forests in Pitchavaran and Muthupet regions of south India acted like shields and bore the brunt of the tsunami.

Tens of thousands of people are still missing, presumed dead from the December tsunami that the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates cost the fishing industries of the seven countries hit hardest by the catastrophe U.S. $520 million (euro 398.3 million).

On Thursday, the Rome-based U.N. food agency said 111,073 fishing vessels were destroyed or damaged; 36,235 engines were lost or damaged beyond repair; and 1.7 million units of fishing gear -- such as nets, tackle, and similar equipment -- were destroyed. The seven countries studied are India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Toepfer also said that for UNEP to be more effective he is immediately going to invest 30 percent of the agency's reserve funds in UNEP'S regional offices so that they may deal better with issues that are relevant to the countries they cover.


Source: CNN - USA

Camps No Picnic for Indonesia's Tsunami Refugees

Coconut trees and palms sway against a blue sky as a breeze from the nearby sea blows, but this is no tropical paradise for those living amid the lush foliage in a motley cluster of makeshift housing.

The people now staying in huts and tents cobbled together from sheets of plastic, plywood and tin lost homes, livelihoods and in some cases parents or children when the Dec. 26 tsunami smashed through what was then their village, about 20 miles from Banda Aceh, capital of Indonesia's Aceh province.

The tsunami and the massive Indian Ocean earthquake that triggered it left more than 122,000 dead and nearly 114,000 missing in Aceh, and drove some 400,000 into relatives' or friends' homes or camps like this one set back in woods not far from their old village on the shore.

'The men worked in the sea as fishermen. Some still fish when the sea is calm but they don't earn enough. Most of the men need boats,' says Nurhayati, wearing a long, bright red dress.

Indonesia has said it will build 754 barracks in 39 locations for the displaced in Aceh to provide improved conditions for refugees, while preparations are made for them to return and rebuild in or near their old home areas.

But with nearly two months gone since the tsunami, some say the pace of the building and planning -- and of communicating the details to those who will be affected -- is too slow.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself said on Saturday, when asked about growing frustration over the issue among refugees, that he wanted government officials and agencies to accelerate the process 'the sooner, the better.'

PLEA FOR BOATS

In Lamreh camp, 25-year-old mother of four Nurhayati says no one has told the people there what is in the works for them. "We're just waiting. We don't know what happens."

Meanwhile food, money, jobs and medical care are all in shorter supply than the refugees would like.

Akirna, 25, raises her long skirt to show a festering sore on her calf, and says doctors have been reluctant to visit the camp since a clash between government troops and a GAM (Free Aceh Movement) fighter in January.

Others say the government should help them buy boats to replace those destroyed in the tsunami so they would be less dependent on handouts from civil authorities and private charity groups.

In a nearby camp in hills above the coastal town of Krueng Raya, hard hit by December's giant wave, refugees used debris from the disaster to build much sturdier housing than that of the Lamreh villagers, but say they too need help.

"We were fishermen but we have no boats anymore," says Sapriadi, 28, as he sits with a group of friends.

"We can't get clear information from the government whether they will give us boats or not."

Rice supplies have been too small lately, complains Nurjana, 55, who says she lost her husband in the disaster. "We don't have any information about why we're not getting more."

Most of what has come to the camp has been from foreign sources like the United States and Arab countries, not the government, says M. Nur, 35, who sold fish before the tsunami put him out of work. He adds that money that should be going to the Acehnese people is instead supporting the Indonesian military.

Indonesia has been fighting a simmering rebellion by the GAM separatists for 30 years. Talks on a possible settlement are under way in Helsinki this week.


Source: Boston Globe - USA

Ex-U.S. Presidents End Tsunami Area Tour

Wrapping up a tour of tsunami-ravaged nations, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush sat with child survivors at a temporary shelter in southern Sri Lanka on Monday, and mingled with European tourists at a luxury beach resort in the Maldives.

The children danced, sang and drew pictures of their experiences.

``Some of them are still drawing about the tsunami, and some of them are drawing life as they remember it, and as they want it to be again,'' Clinton said in the fishing town of Weligama on Sri Lanka's battered southern coast. ``There was a lot of emotional damage here that's not visible to the eye. We don't want them to be suffering from this five or 10 years from now.''

The U.S.-funded temporary houses, built of cinderblocks and iron sheeting, were replacements for homes washed away in the tsunami, which killed more than 170,000 across the region.

The purpose of the three-day tour, which included stops in Thailand and the devastated Indonesian province of Aceh, was to encourage more donations for a reconstruction process across the Indian Ocean region that is expected to take years.

``We're going to have to stay at this for some time,'' Clinton said.
President Bush asked his father and Clinton, former political adversaries, to lead the American effort to raise private funds for tsunami relief. The former presidents said they planned to deliver a report to the younger Bush on March 8.

``I want to be able to tell that the money we saw was well spent, and that we have done everything we could to fulfill the mandate he gave us to get a high level of American private contributions, to ease the burden on the government,'' Clinton said in the Maldives, a nation of islands that suffered severe damage to its tourism, agriculture and fishing industries.

Private U.S. donations have amounted to $700 million, Clinton said, and President Bush has asked Congress to provide another $950 million to tsunami relief at a time when costs of U.S. involvement in Iraq are mounting.

Clinton said he supported the establishment of independent auditing operations to make sure there is no corruption or mismanagement.

The two former presidents traveled by speedboat from the island capital of the Maldives, Male, to the nearby Kurumba resort, where tourists in bathing suits lounged by the pool, shaded by palm trees. Bush said vacationers around the world could help the Maldives recover by returning to its resorts, repeating a similar call that he made in Sri Lanka.

``You ought to come here, you ought to try it,'' Bush said against a backdrop of deep, blue water sparkling in the sunshine. ``If it's as beautiful every day as it is today, you're missing something.''

Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom warned that a tsunami warning system would be of little use because his citizens had nowhere to run on their low-lying islands if the ocean struck again.

``If the seas are going to rise by even one meter, that will mean that this country will be no more,'' Gayoom said. He appealed to the international community to curb greenhouse gas emissions that environmentalists point to as the main cause of global warming.

The United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming that sets targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and came into effect last week.

``Every country wants an early warning system,'' Clinton said. ``They all want it interconnected throughout the Indian Ocean, but they want enough ownership to have some confidence that it will work for their people.''

The Maldives, a string of 1,192 coral atolls about 300 miles off the coast of India, is one of the lowest-lying countries in the world. Officials estimated in the days following the devastating waves that up to 40 percent of the nation was under water.



Source: Guardian - UK

Monday, February 21, 2005

Former US Presidents to visit tsunami hit areas

Former US Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton will arrive here Sunday afternoon and hold an evening meeting with President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.

They will tour tsunami-affected areas in Matara on Monday morning and then leave for the Maldives.

The visit comes at the request of President George W. Bush and is not connected to any role Clinton might take up with the United Nations once he returns to the United States.

The two former Presidents will visit sites in the Matara district including a debris-clearing project near Matara Fort where USAID is providing cash-for-work and equipment to people affected by the tsunami to help expedite the clean up.

This will be their first ever visit to Sri Lanka.

President George W. Bush has asked the two former Presidents to head up private sector fund-raising for relief and reconstruction.

Source: Columbo Daily News - Columbo,Sri Lanka

Corzine, Pallone introduce bill to create global tsunami early warning system

New Jersey Democrats Sen. Jon Corzine and Rep. Frank Pallone introduced bills Thursday to establish a global tsunami warning system and called for long-term assistance and relief for victims of December's catastrophe in South Asia.

The bills would earmark $38 million in the next fiscal year for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to expand the early warning system now in place in the Pacific Ocean to include the coastlines along the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean and European waterways.

After the system is in place, the bills would provide $32 million annually to maintain it.

The bills also direct NOAA to work with coastal states to educate the public on tsunami preparedness and to implement evacuation procedures.

'Our legislation gives NOAA all the necessary tools to fully create a global warning system, and keep it running in the years to come,' Pallone said. 'Congress must enact this legislation to protect all coastal communities around the world from future tsunami disasters.'

Source: Newsday - Long Island,NY,USA

ADB clears aid for tsunami-hit nations

Asian Development Bank�s board of directors on Thursday approved the setting up of a multi-donor Asian tsunami fund with its contribution of $600 million to deliver prompt emergency funding to tsunami-affected countries like India, Indonesia, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The fund will pool and deliver grants for emergency technical assistance and investment projects to support reconstruction and rehabilitation in tsunami-hit nations.

We see this as a mechanism to attract funds from multiple donors for a structured, systematic and transparent flow of funds to tsunami-affected countries, while upholding the strongest standards of governance,� philip erquiaga, principal director of adb's office of cofinancing operations, said in a statement from manila.

Adb will accept contributions to the fund from bilateral, multilateral and individual sources.

The money will be used exclusively for prompt restoration of services to the affected people.

Source: Financial Express - Bombay,India

ADB emergency funds for Tsunami nations

Asian Development Bank's Board of Directors today approved the setting up of a multi-donor Asian Tsunami Fund with its contribution of 600 million dollar to deliver prompt emergency funding to tsunami-affected countries like India, Indonesia, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The Fund will pool and deliver grants for emergency technical assistance and investment projects to support reconstruction and rehabilitation in tsunami-hit nations.

'We see this as a mechanism to attract funds from multiple donors for a structured, systematic and transparent flow of funds to tsunami-affected countries, while upholding the strongest standards of governance,' Philip Erquiaga, Principal Director of ADB's Office of Cofinancing Operations, said in a statement from Manila.

ADB will accept contributions to the Fund from bilateral, multilateral and individual sources.

The money will be used exclusively for prompt restoration of services to the affected people.

The sectors which would get assistance are public services such as water supply and sanitation, electricity, and communications; infrastructure such as roads, railways, and ports; health and education services; agriculture and fisheries; housing; restoring livelihoods; and containment of environmental damage.

ADB is working with governments to expeditiously deliver the assistance packages at country-level.

Resources from the Fund will be made available to the tsunami-affected countries based on the outcomes of needs' assessment activities that ADB has been carrying out jointly with the World Bank, UN system, and other agencies. (Agencies)

Source: Chennai Online - Chennai,India

Former US Presidents To Tour Tsunami-Ravaged Region

Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush are on their way to Asia on a four-nation tour to inspect the devastation caused by last year's tsunami.

Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush will visit Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives. They will tour hard-hit areas of Indonesia's Aceh province and visit refugee camps.

The two former presidents are hoping to counter donor fatigue and help keep the focus on the vast amount of work that still needs to be done to rebuild the region.

More than 200,000 people are dead or missing in 11 countries hit by the tsunami on the morning of December 26, 2004.

Earlier this year, Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton were appointed by President Bush to spearhead fundraising efforts in the United States.

Source: Voice of America - USA

No Epidemics Seen in Tsunami-Hit Nations -CDC

Millions of people in nations devastated by last year's tsunami remain vulnerable to deadly diseases but only scattered outbreaks have been reported so far, the chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.

The Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami killed an estimated 300,000 people in 11 countries, most of them in Asia, and left millions of survivors without adequate housing or sanitation facilities.

Many of the displaced are living in crowded refugee camps.

'This is going to be a vulnerable region for a very long time,' CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said during a panel discussion here sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club. 'We're not out of the woods yet.'

International health officials and relief workers had warned that tens of thousands of people could die from diseases such as cholera, malaria, dengue fever and measles in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in living memory.

But only minor outbreaks have been reported in the past two months, said Gerberding, who credited international health observers for moving quickly into hard-hit areas to nip diseases before they spread.

The CDC was among those that sent staff into Asia following the tsunami. The Atlanta-based agency is now focusing its efforts on improving water, sanitation and disease detection services in Thailand and other affected nations.

Gerberding said rebuilding shattered health-care services would be a critical part of the long-term relief effort. 'So much of the health-care delivery system was destroyed,' she said.


Source: Reuters - USA

Tsunami: Tihar inmates pitch in, donate Rs 10 lakh

It's a battle of the sexes at Tihar Jail, albeit for a noble cause. The male and female inmates of the prison are vying with each other to raise funds for tsunami victims. So far, they have collected Rs 10 lakh for relief operations.

Initially, the men's section of the prison started contributing money for the tsunami-hit. The men donated about Rs 5 lakh. The entire exercise took on a competitive flavour when the women inmates vowed that they would outdo the males.

The women, too, managed to collect a sum of Rs 5 lakh, with one inmate � Susan D'Souza � alone contributing more than Rs 4 lakh. The women's gesture is laudable, considering that there are only 550-odd female inmates in Tihar compared to 13,000 males.

A senior Tihar official said: 'Some inmates have donated the money they earn here after doing various kinds of labour in jail. Others have borrowed money from their family members to contribute. Such has been the enthusiasm to help the victims.'

While the Tihar inmates' contribution may be a drop in the ocean, it highlights their sincere effort to help those afflicted by the natural disaster. The official said: 'The Tihar inmates have always been at the forefront of relief operations whenever any disaster has hit the country, be it the Gujarat earthquake or even the Kargil war.'

They have also been donating about Rs 13,000 every month for the refurbishment of Champaran Jail in Bihar, which has been declared a national heritage site.

The amount of Rs 10 lakh from Tihar will be handed over to Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit. The jail inmates have also offered to donate their blood for the tsunami-affected."

Source: Times of India - India

Friday, February 18, 2005

DNA SOLVES TSUNAMI'S TUG-OF-LOVE

The 4-month-old boy dubbed 'Baby 81' now has a name � Abilass � and a birth date � Oct. 19 � after a judge's announcement yesterday that a DNA test shows the child dug out of tsunami debris belongs to the couple who waged an agonizing court battle to claim him.

But the parents, Jenita and Murugupillai Jeyarajah, have to wait two more days for a formal court hearing that will return custody of their son.

'We have gone through a lot of hardships during these days that we never experienced before,' the boy's joyous father, Murugupillai, said after being informed of the finding.

Eight other couples also tried to claim the boy in the early days following the Dec. 26 tsunami as he lay in hospital care. Only the Jeyarajahs filed a formal claim, but they couldn't document the boy's birth because their records and other possessions were lost when the killer waves battered Kalmunai. They said the baby was swept out of his mother's arms.

Yesterday, Kalmunai Judge M.P. Mohaideen unsealed the results of the DNA test from an envelope, read them at a closed meeting with lawyers, and then ordered the

Jeyarajahs, hospital officials and the baby to appear in court tomorrow, said S.H.M. Manarudeen, an attorney representing the couple.

Source: New York Post - New York,NY,USA

Families to sue over tsunami deaths.

Relatives of victims of the tsunami disaster are planning to file a lawsuit demanding that Thailand, a hotel chain and American weather forecasters prove they reacted adequately to the disaster.

Lawyers acting for relatives of 18 Austrian and German victims are to file the action in an American court.

The lawyers accuse the US Government's tsunami warning system of apparently failing in its duty to issue an alert to warn the countries involved.

The lawyers are also calling for documents relating to the Accor and Sofitel hotel chains.

They say the hotels in the Thai resort of Khao Lak should have been equipped with state of the art warning systems, as they were built in an area with a serious risk of tsunamis.

It is unclear whether the lawyers will eventually sue any of the defendants for negligence.

They say they first need the documents to establish the basis for any possible future lawsuits.

Source: ABC Online - Australia

Tsunami survivors in Aceh move to temporary homes

Hundreds of survivors of the Asian tsunami disaster moved from crowded camps into government barracks yesterday as Indonesia took a step towards the eventual reconstruction of its devastated Aceh province.

Indonesian officials expect 150,000 survivors of the December 26 disaster to spend up to a year living in specially-built barracks while rebuilding gets under way in Aceh, where more than 230,000 people are now thought to have died.

Human rights groups have questioned the plan, saying it could be used by the Indonesian military to control many of the 400,000 people left homeless by the disaster. The military has been accused of frequent human rights abuses during its 29-year conflict with separatist rebels in Aceh, much of which has been carried out under often-brutal martial law.

Survivors who moved into a camp on the outskirts of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, complained they had been told about the move only the day before and had had little choice in the matter. But they also said it was a welcome relief from the leaky tents they had been living in.

'If you have been living in a tent this is better,' said Rosnidar, a 22-year-old survivor who is preparing to spend the next year living with a brother, sister and two friends in a cramped room with cardboard-thin wood walls and a single window.

'What can I do?' she sighed. 'I have no choice. I have to stay here. If we want to build a house we don't have money and we don't have land.'

Like others who moved into seven tin-roofed barracks with easy access to running water and electricity across the river from the market town of Lambaro, Ms Rosnidar is from the destroyed community of Peukan Bada and has nothing to return to. According to official figures more than 16,000 of its one-time population of 20,000 are either dead or missing. "There is nothing there any more," Ms Rosnidar said.

Rusli Muhammad, the regent of Aceh Besar, or Greater Aceh, a district which includes Peukan Bada, said he wanted survivors to live in the barracks for no more than a year. "The longer they stay in those barracks the lower their morale will become and it will also lower their dignity," he said.

Mr Muhammad also insisted civilian authorities would run the camps, in despit of the fact that armed soldiers loitered around Ms Rosnidar's new home yesterday.

The soldiers, he said, would maintain a presence but were "just monitoring" the camp for rebels.

Source: Financial Times - UK

Ronaldinho's World Team Wins Soccer's Tsunami Fund-Raising Game

Ronaldinho's World team beat Andriy Shevchenko's European selection 6-3 in soccer's ``Football for Hope'' match to raise funds for victims of the Asian tsunami.

Samuel Eto'o, named African Footballer of the Year today, scored two first-half goals for the World team at Barcelona's Nou Camp stadium and Henri Camara added two in the second half. Alessandro Del Piero, Gianfranco Zola and David Suarez scored for Shevchenko's side.

Stars including David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Brazil's World Cup-winning captain Cafu joined world player of the year Ronaldinho and European title-holder
Shevchenko for the match. All proceeds will be donated to the FIFA/Asian Football Confederation Tsunami Solidarity Fund.

Cricket and rugby also organized gala matches to raise funds for victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami, which left more than 290,000 people dead or missing in 12 Indian Ocean countries. Top cricket players competed in a Jan. 10 match in the Australian city of Melbourne that raised $11 million.

Source: Bloomberg - USA

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Acehnese ask shamans to help find tsunami missing

Many desperate families in Indonesia's Aceh province are turning to traditional magic men to learn the fate of loved ones still missing more than six weeks after the Asian tsunami.

Hundreds of people are flocking to shamans, known as 'dukun', with photographs of children and other relatives, hoping to determine if they survived the December 26 earthquake and giant waves that left more than 230,000 dead or missing on Sumatra island.

Standing on the porch of a shaman's house, Mariamah, 40, is searching for her brother's family. She said she had been told by one dukun that all five, including three children, were dead and she was getting a second opinion.

'I went to a dukun in another village, but he said all of them were dead. That can't be,' said Mariamah, wearing a black Muslim head scarf and green tunic.

'I decided to see this one, and he said he saw my niece was safe. I will talk to more family members and find out where the girl is. She is only nine.'

Photos of missing children can be seen stuck up all over the provincial capital, Banda Aceh -- in shop windows, on fences and on notice boards at refugee camps and hospitals.

The number of parents missing children and children missing parents is a reminder that the psychological damage from one of the world's worst natural disasters may never heal, festering long after the rebuilding of homes and livelihoods.

Hafidh Alfairus, 29, is a musician who says since the age of 12 he has possessed special powers that enable him to divine the future and find missing people.

THRIVING BUSINESS

The long-haired man with a wispy goatee explained through billows of cigarette smoke that before the tsunami struck, he ran a thriving business doling out supernatural advice.

Now he sees about 100 clients a day, most seeking children or other family members missing since the tsunami.

"Almost all of them. So, I started to focus only on working on those missing people. I also heal people, like helping people who want to have a child or whatever," said the youthful shaman.

After being shown a picture of a missing child, Alfairus scribbles the name in Arabic on a white card.

Staring into the distance he concentrates on the name and then pronounces whether he believes the person is dead or alive. Sometimes he says he even divines the person's location, before accepting a donation equivalent to a few dollars for his efforts.

Aid workers operating in the dozens of refugee camps around Banda Aceh say many parents tell stories of their youngsters being torn from arms by the rushing waters.

Children made up a large portion of the dead because they were too weak to hold on to anything.

A handful of aid groups and government departments is working to reunite children with families.

At its dusty headquarters in Banda Aceh, Save the Children has a list of displaced youngsters pinned to a notice board.

"These are 178 who have been registered as separated from their parents, and parents come up here every day to look at the list," said agency spokesman Mike Kiernan.

But for those unable to find their youngster's names on lists, shamans are one of the few places to turn.

And when that fails?

"I tell them to put the photos on local TV or advertise them in the newspapers, because too many people are coming, thousands of them ... I am only human," said Alfairus.

Source: Reuters.uk - UK

Sting raises $4m for tsunami victims

BRITISH pop star Sting helped generate a flood of funds for tsunami victims last night, with more than $4 million raised at his sold-out West Australian charity concert.

The veteran singer and international activist enthralled a crowd of 6000 at the Leeuwin Estate winery in Margaret River with a two-hour gig dedicated to the Asian relief effort.

His mix of old hits such as Message in a Bottle and Every Breath You Take and songs from his current Sacred Love tour were lapped up by the ardent fans and corporate supporters who had paid a minimum of $150 a ticket to attend the benefit concert.

'I think you would be very hard-pressed not to have had a good night last night - Sting gave a fantastic performance,' Leeuwin Estate's co-owner
Trish Horgan said today.

A tired but happy Ms Horgan confirmed the concert alone had raised at least $2 million, with money from bar sales and donations from local accommodation houses and businesses still to be counted.

The West Australian government has also pledged to match the funds raised dollar for dollar, making a total of at least $4 million.

'The money is still coming in,' Ms Horgan said. 'As late as yesterday I had a donation of $50,000 given to me.

'People have been very generous and we're very pleased to be able to raise such a huge amount of money for this cause.'

Ms Horgan said Sting and his band had been very happy with the outdoor venue, set in a large wooded grove on the Leeuwin property.

The pop star and his family were looking forward to a day on the local beaches and golf courses today, she said.

Sting will hold a further two scheduled shows - also sell-outs - as part of Leeuwin's annual concert series on Saturday and Sunday nights.

Source: Melbourne Herald Sun - Australia

In wake of tsunami disaster, a grand canyon

The first images of the seabed that was rocked by the earthquake that triggered Asia's catastrophic tsunami revealed huge ruptures spanning several miles along the Indian Ocean's floor.

President Bush, meanwhile, said he would ask Congress to more than double U.S. tsunami relief to $950 million, a pledge that would put the United

States atop of the list of donors to the disaster.

The images of the seabed were from a British naval ship collecting data off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island that could be used to help develop a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean region.

'There are features which we would think are something like the Grand Canyon would look,' Tim Henstock, a scientist aboard the HMS Scott, told BBC News. 'You can see huge piles of mud maybe a few hundred meters thick.'

The images show 'slide scars' more than six miles wide from the 9.0 magnitude quake on Dec. 26, the world's biggest in 40 years. It triggered an tsunami that killed more than 160,000 people in 11 nations.

A 5.7-magnitude aftershock struck Aceh on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It sent terrified residents fleeing for higher ground.

Tens of thousands of people are still missing, although officials say it's too early to add them to the toll.

Police in Sweden finally released a list of its 565 missing citizens. It made for harrowing reading: a 9-month-old boy, entire families and nearly 100 children younger than 13.

And New Zealand slashed the number of its missing nationals to just four, all who are presumed dead."

Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) - MN,USA

Muslim world falls short on tsunami aid - Wolfowitz

Parts of the Islamic world are 'big on talking about jihad' but have fallen short in aiding Muslim victims of the South Asian tsunami, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on Thursday.

Speaking to a Senate hearing about the international response to the massive earthquake and flood that left some 300,000 people dead or missing, Wolfowitz also said the European military response could have been greater.

'There's been very little generosity so far from parts of the Muslim world that are big on talking about jihad and other things, but when 200,000 people -- all of them Muslim in the case of Indonesia -- died in this catastrophe, there's not much help forthcoming,' Wolfowitz said.

Jihad is a broad term in Islam and generally means a struggle for the benefit of the Islamic community. It can be anything from an internal struggle to be a better Muslim, to a violent conflict in defense of the faith.

'I hope those people might think a little bit about what they've done and what they haven't done,' Wolfowitz said. He did not specify who he meant.

Wolfowitz has been a hawk in the administration of President George W. Bush on issues including the Iraq war, which triggered widespread anti-U.S. anger in the Muslim world and set Washington at odds with many traditional European allies.

The government of Kuwait has pledged $100 million in tsunami aid; Saudi Arabia has pledged $30 million, with an additional $100 million in private donations; Qatar pledged $25 million; United Arab Emirates $20 million; Bahrain $2 million.

The Bush administration has pledged $950 million. The money must be approved by Congress, but the U.S. military has been in the region since the early days of the relief effort.

Another $600 million has come from U.S. private donations.


IMPACT ON NATO?

Wolfowitz was asked whether the trans-Atlantic NATO alliance was considering changes to respond better to crises like the tsunami. "I wish I could say I've seen an impact, but I think we're dealing with a problem with our NATO allies," he replied. "Their defense budgets just keep declining and very few of them have the capacity to do even things that they've been trying to do already."

While he said he did not want to diminish European efforts, he noted that France had sent an aircraft carrier to the Indian Ocean, but "it was three or four weeks after we got there."

Wolfowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia who visited the disaster zone in January, praised Canada, Germany, Britain and unspecified countries in the region for their aid efforts, noting that India had taken a leading role.

The United States and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, are seeking closer military ties. Wolfowitz said last month in Jakarta he would confer with his government and Congress over when to increase contact and ease restrictions on the sale of military equipment.

Asked about this at the hearing, Wolfowitz noted human rights abuses by the Indonesian military, especially in East Timor in 1998, but said progress had been made since then.

He said Indonesia's democratically elected government is committed to democratic reform and civilian control of the military, and the military now is headed by a civilian.

"There's a lot of change ... and I think as important as it is to work for an accounting of things that were done in the past, I do think that this is a new era," Wolfowitz said.

Source: Reuters India - Mumbai,India

Warne humbled by tsunami survivors

Shane Warne has said he was inspired and humbled by the determination of the people he visited in tsunami-devastated Sri Lanka.

The Australian leg spinner is in Sri Lanka to help his cricketing rival Muttiah Muralitharan in the tsunami relief effort.

In his column in British newspaper The Times, Warne described the tsunami survivors as the real champions of the world.

'One village near Galle I visited was reduced from 400 houses to just ten,' he wrote.

'I met tiny children who have lost both parents, all their clothes and toys, but are battling on. They are the real champions of the world.

'To hear them laugh when we gave out books and crayoning sets, and to be so polite, has been humbling.

'The determination and resilience of people has been inspirational.

'As a parent, I still struggle to get my head around the tales of mothers and fathers having to let go of the arms of a child to try to save the life of another.

'I don't know if I could leave two of mine, knowing they would be swept away, to make sure the third survived.'

'The Test here in 1992 is still my favourite because it was the first time I felt I contributed to the Australia team. That is why I decided I wanted to help as soon as the scale of the tsunami tragedy registered,' he wrote.'

He said visiting the ruined cricket ground in the town of Galle was one of the saddest experiences of his life.

'The idea of visiting Galle and Colombo has been to put smiles back on a few faces,' he said.

'I wanted to help the children in particular to move on and look forward. I have helped to distribute things like chocolates and biscuits and cricket sets, but the aim has gone deeper than that. I have tried to give the kids hope that better times lie ahead."

Source: Sydney Morning Herald (subscription) - New South Wales,Australia

Radio host returns to air after tsunami scandal

Controversial Hot 97 morning show host Miss Jones returned to the air Friday with little fanfare and a brief apology.

Miss Jones, whose real name is Tarsha Jones, had been suspended from WQHT97.1 FM for two weeks after broadcasting a song that referred to tsunami victims in racist terms. Asian community groups have protested and pressured advertisers to withdraw from the station.

'Turn the music down, I need a moment,' Jones said at about 6:45 a.m. Friday, then apologized 'from the bottom of my heart' for broadcasting the song.

She also noted, 'I didn't write the tsunami [song], I didn't sing on it.'

Miss Jones is one of the few survivors of the tsunami debacle. Former morning show host Todd Lynn and producer Rick Delgado were fired. Another host, DJ Envy, was suspended for two weeks but did not return to the air Friday. Co-host Miss Info, an Asian-American who objected to the song and was not suspended, did not come on-air Friday.

Joining Miss Jones was Sunshine (Tasha Hightower, a formerly suspended morning show assistant) and assistant music director E-bro.

The tone of the show was muted. Discussing the day's news, Miss Jones declined to skewer scandal-plagued Yankee Jason Giambi.

'Having been on the other side,' Miss Jones said, 'maybe he really is sorry.'

Source: Newsday - Long Island,NY,USA

Woman found alive 45 days after tsunami hit islands

A woman who said she survived on wild fruits for 45 days after tsunami waves ravaged the Andaman Islands has been rescued, police said.

The 18-year-old woman was rescued on Wednesday from Pillopanja, one of the southernmost islands of the archipelago ravaged by the towering waves on December 26, the police chief of nearby Campbell Bay island said.

He identified the woman only as Jessy and said her husband and her one-year-old child were missing, presumed dead.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation estimates around 40,000 pregnant women were left homeless following the devastating tsunamis around the Indian Ocean, and have expressed concern about the lack of midwives on hand to care for them.

'In most of the camps, the biggest problem for the women is the lack of personnel qualified in childbirth,' the WHO said in a statement, saying the result could be haemorrhaging and asphyxiation.

'Mothers, newborns and young children are the most vulnerable of the displaced people,' Dr Samlee Plianbangchang, the WHO's director for South Eastern Asia, said.

The WHO stressed the necessity to have medical centres on hand in camps for those left homeless by the tsunamis, who can dispense prenatal care and assist in childbirths.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald (subscription) - New South Wales,Australia

Aceh's Mentally Ill Suffer After Tsunami

Feared by their relatives and locked away for hours every day, life was never easy for patients at the only mental hospital in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province.

But the giant waves that tore through the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, the day after Christmas swamped the dilapidated collection of low-rise hospital buildings several kilometers from the sea.

The tsunami that killed tens of thousands in the city filled the 300-bed facility with thick black mud that is only now being shoveled out by Australian soldiers.

The lives of those who inhabit the concrete cells and wards will take much longer to rebuild.

Some traumatized patients climbed trees to escape the water, while the rest fled into Banda Aceh, doctors told Reuters.

Of 350 hospital patients, only about 140 have returned after the earthquake and tsunami. Many are filthy and wild-eyed.

They have been joined by about a dozen people suffering trauma from the tsunami, the first of many health officials expect to need help after a disaster that left more than 230,000 Indonesians dead or missing.

'The shock caused by extreme life events such as disasters can express itself as mental disorders, depression and sleeplessness,' said Dr Kris, chief of medical services at Banda Aceh Mental Hospital.

The Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami struck more than a dozen nations around the Indian Ocean rim, leaving nearly 300,000 dead or missing from Thailand to Somalia.

HELP ON WAY

As many as 90 percent of survivors may have suffered psychological trauma. Children are most at risk, mental health experts said at a meeting in Thailand this month.

Tens of thousands would need either medication or counseling by doctors, relatives and religious leaders, they said.

Help may be on the way.

The Turkish Red Crescent Society, already working with the World Food Programme to provide emergency relief to the hospital's patients, said it was in talks with the government about building a new facility.

"There is a proposal for the construction of a new hospital building, but in the first three months they need emergency things like food," said Bulent Ozturk, an official from the Turkish group working at the hospital.

He said plans included a new trauma center to cope with an influx of tsunami-related patients, but said it could be more than a year before the new building is ready.

Kris said the number of patients at his hospital was set to rocket as dozens of aid groups and foreign armies wound down medical operations at makeshift refugee camps.

A 2002 survey showed many Acehnese already suffered trauma after nearly 30 years of rebellion in the province, he said.

"I think it will rise three or four times from the tsunami," Kris said, but he added the stigma of mental illness may keep some needy people away.

"We already had a trauma center, but nobody came, because they thought if they come here it means they are mad," Kris said. (Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia)

Source: Wired News - USA

Friday, February 11, 2005

Bush aims to boost US tsunami aid

US President George W Bush has said he is seeking a $600m (€323m) boost in aid to nations hit by the Asian tsunami.

The new money, which needs to be approved by Congress, comes on top of the original $350m (€188m) pledged after the 26 December tsunami.

The aid package includes $339m (€182m) for reconstruction projects and $168m (€90m) to provide food and shelter.

More than 200,000 people were killed in the tsunami, according to the United Nations, most of them in Indonesia.

In the days after the tsunami, Mr Bush was criticised for his slow response.

But on Wednesday, Mr Bush insisted the US was committed to the aid effort for the long-term.

'We will use these resources to provide assistance and to work with the affected nations on rebuilding vital infrastructure that re-energises economies and strengthens societies,' he said in a statement.

The $950m tsunami aid package includes:
$346m to reimburse the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Defence Department for their relief efforts in the region

$339m for reconstruction - from rebuilding roads and schools to major water systems

$168m to help victims with food, shelter, housing and education

$35m for tsunami early warning systems and disaster mitigation efforts

$62m for technical assistance for reconstruction activities and the costs of US government operations in the affected countries

The UN said earlier this week that governments had only given a fraction of the money they pledged for tsunami relief.

Later this month, President Bush is sending former Presidents George H Bush and Bill Clinton to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives, to lead a US fund-raising drive."

Source: BBC News - London,England,UK

Doctors' donations en route to tsunami victims.

More than two tonnes of medical supplies donated by Western Australian doctors will be flown to tsunami-devastated Sri Lanka next Monday.

The $2 million worth of medicines and surgical supplies has been donated to help the sick and injured following an appeal to doctors in the days following the tsunami.

The Australian Medical Association's state president, Paul Skerritt, will travel to Sri Lanka to help deliver the shipment.

'I don't think we really expected to have two tonnes of stuff to be sending,' he said.

'That's really quite something.'

Dr Upul Govinnage was visiting family in Sri Lanka when the tsunami struck and helped to identify what drugs and other supplies were needed.

'I think in the medium- and long-term, my main concern is the trauma counselling,' he said.

The supplies will be flown out at the State Government's expense."

Source: ABC Online - Australia

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Bush seeks $950 million in tsunami aid

President Bush said Wednesday he will ask Congress for an additional $600 million to aid victims of the December 26 tsunami that ravaged parts of southern Asia.

That aid would be in addition to the $350 million the United States already has pledged, according to a written statement from the White House.

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered the massive waves, which struck a dozen nations. The disaster killed more than 160,000 people, with Indonesia hit hardest.

'I will seek $950 million as part of the supplemental appropriations request to support the areas recovering from the tsunami and to cover the costs of relief efforts to date,' Bush said.

'We will use these resources to provide assistance and to work with the affected nations on rebuilding vital infrastructure that re-energizes economies and strengthens societies.'

Bush pledged $350 million on December 31 after facing criticism for first offering $15 million and then raising that to $35 million two days after the disaster.

Andrew Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told reporters Wednesday that the $950 million humanitarian pledge would represent 'the most generous and the most extensive in American history for the U.S. government.'

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said at the press briefing that some 16,000 U.S. military personnel in the region have delivered more than 10 million pounds of food and provided more than 400,000 gallons of fresh water. He also stressed the diplomatic importance of the relief mission for the United States.

'Above and beyond the humanitarian considerations -- which would be compelling enough -- we have an enormous interest in seeing this succeed,' Wolfowitz said, noting Indonesia's status as both an "emerging democracy" and the world's most populous Muslim country.

The White House said the $950 million will include $339 million for reconstruction of infrastructure; $168 million to help victims transition back to their communities; $35 million for early-warning and disaster-mitigation efforts; and $62 million to help plan reconstruction activities and cover the costs of U.S. agencies in the region.

The total also includes $346 million to cover money already spent by the USAID and the Defense Department, the White House said, and an unspecified sum may also be used to cover debt deferment for tsunami-affected countries.

Former presidents thanked

President Bush in January tapped former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush to help encourage private-sector financial support for tsunami relief.

On Wednesday, the president said he is grateful for the fund-raising efforts by his father and Clinton. And he expressed appreciation "to all of those who have donated money to help those in need."

The White House said estimates place private-sector donations toward tsunami relief efforts at more than $700 million.

Clinton and the elder Bush will visit tsunami-affected countries this month, the White House said, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives.

Last week, the United Nations announced Clinton will serve as the world body's envoy for tsunami reconstruction efforts. (Full story)

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan believed "no one could possibly be better qualified for this task," a spokesman said.

Source: CNN - USA

Indonesia calls for graft scrutiny as tsunami rebuilding begins

Indonesia has urged the global community to heighten vigilance to ensure rampant corruption does not swallow billions of dollars of tsunami aid as it promises a March deadline to begin large-scale reconstruction in ravaged Aceh province.

Senior Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab, who leads the government's disaster response team, said his country was gambling its reputation on the reconstruction of Aceh, which will put a pledged war on graft to the test.

Although the United Nations has said it wanted to take a more hands-off role in the effort to aid those affected by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami, Shihab said Indonesia was not ready to go it alone.

He said it was vital that donor cash be channelled directly to rebuilding projects to avoid the country's notoriously suspect bureaucracy but where that was unavoidable, heavy scrutiny was needed.

Indonesia has forecast it would cost some four billion dollars over five years to rebuild Aceh.

US aid to Indonesia is also expected to increase, after President George W. Bush announced plans Wednesday to nearly triple aid to 950 million dollars largely for rebuilding infrastructure in tsunami-hit nations.

'I think the foreign donors will provide representatives so they will be part of the whole operation. Actually the government -- if it can be done -- the money will not be in their hands,' Shihab said.

'Rest assured that the government is more concerned than the international community, because this is a test case for its integrity and reputation.'

Indonesia has been named by watchdog Transparency International as one of the world's most corrupt countries. Its renown has led to a fall off in foreign investment, hampering recovery from last decade's regional financial crisis.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono rode into office last October on pledges to root out the culture of kickbacks, bribery and collusion at the heart of the problem, but his administration has yet to deliver solid results.

Analysts have warned the huge sums of money pouring into the country in the wake of the tsunami, which killed an estimated quarter of a million Indonesians, will be too much of a temptation to graft-hungry officials.

Shihab has promised to install a series of checks and balances to keep tabs on the cash, recently launching a full investigation on an apparent 20,000 dollar discrepancy which he said was due to a typing error.

The need for close scrutiny has been heightened by a major shift in the aid process as work moves from emergency relief to the huge reconstruction projects involving graft-prone bidding for lucrative contracts.

Indonesian scholars and experts will meet February 11 to hammer out a blueprint for reconstruction, with major work to begin in the following weeks, Shihab said.

"I think the plan will be ready, we are concerned with having the plan as soon as possible because we don't want the donors to wait too long. By March, we will have it ready and start the work," he said.

The UN, which has warned that coming months will prove more of a challenge than the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, has said it wanted Indonesia to take the lead in the next stage.

"We need to agree to a common strategy that we're working on, but we need to put the local authorities and the Achenese in the driving seat," the UN's deputy coordinator in Aceh, Joel Boutroue, said earlier this week.

But Shihab said it was important for the UN to stay highly involved in the coordination process, although there was still a role for regional authorities.

"I think it is only normal that the UN will be part of the supervisory board. The UN will be part of the coordination of the NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and donors.

"The UN will contribute whatever resources they have to see the construction is carried out smoothly -- but you can't ignore the local government."

Source: Channel News Asia - Singapore

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Sting thinks global, performs local in tsunami benefit.

British rock star Sting has arrived in Perth for a charity concert to aid victims of the Indian Ocean tsunamis.
The death toll in the disaster, which has directly affected 12 countries, is approaching 300,000.
Sting is accompanied by his two of his children and wife Trudy, who is an ambassador for the United Nations children's fund, UNICEF.
The singer says he is looking forward to helping raise much-needed money for the tsunami victims at a Thursday night concert at Leuwinn Estate near Margaret River.
'One of the great things that have come from this terrible disaster is that people have rallied together,' he said.
'They have realised that we are one planet, we are one family.
'What happened in Indonesia could happen here. We need to think globally.'
The event is expected to raise more than $3 million.
Sting says he is looking forward to tasting some of the region's wines, even though Australian wine has proven costly to one of his business ventures.
'We had a vineyard in Italy... it has been put out of business by Australian wines actually,' he said.
'But there's no hard feelings really.'"

Source: ABC Online - Australia

Tsunami compassion best in world: Howard

The scale of Australian compassion and response to the Asian tsunami disaster had possibly been the most generous in the world, Prime Minister John Howard says.

The current amount of corporate and community assistance to the damaged countries now stood at $235 million, alongside more than $1 billion pledged by the federal government, Mr Howard told parliament.

'This is a marvellous reflection of who we are as a people; it is the true spirit of Australia and Australians,' he told parliament.

'What was striking to me ... through the extraordinary response by Australian citizens to this terrible disaster ... was the incredible way in which our common humanity shines through in times of adversity.

'Differences of race, nationality and religion pale beside loss and suffering of such magnitude.

'I am intensely proud of the compassion, enthusiasm, and remarkable generosity with which ordinary Australians have gone about mobilising funds and effort to assist those affected by the disaster.

'Australia's response to the disaster, both in public and private contributions, has been one of, if not the most, generous in the world.'

Mr Howard said the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development signed with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had committed $1 billion over five years and was reflecting a new improvement in relations with Indonesia.

'Australia's relationship with Indonesia is very important,' he said.
'This new partnership will assist Indonesia in its recovery and is the largest single commitment of overseas aid in Australia's history.'

Mr Howard said President Yudhoyo had expressed his gratitude for Australia's help.

"We re-affirmed our determination to work together, not only in relation to the tsunami but also more generally," he said.

"Australia and Indonesia share a common future, and I intend to build on the spirit of cooperation borne of the tragedy to improve our relationship."

Source: Age (subscription) - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia

Tsunami was a blessing in disguise for Sri Lanka's economy, analysts say

The Indian Ocean tsunamis killed 31,000 people in Sri Lanka and caused unprecedented damage, but were also a blessing to its economy which had been heading for a major catastrophe, according to analysts.

A record trade deficit, balance of payment crisis driven by high crude oil prices, galloping inflation and an uncertain political climate due to tension between the government and Tiger rebels, had pushed the economy to crisis point.

The December 26 tsunamis destroyed three-quarters of the country's coastline, wrecked the road and railway network and initially left a million people homeless, but there followed an aid windfall from abroad.

Analysts said the avalanche of assistance from global lenders and the post-tsunami reconstruction across the devastated regions will kick-start economic growth now expected to cross five percent next year.

There will be a dip in the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005 as an immediate effect of the tsunami, but from next year the reconstruction effort will emerge as a growth engine, the analysts said.

"This is the opportunity for growth for Sri Lanka," said Alastair Corera, vice president at global rating agency, Fitch.

"The much-needed long term economic pick-up can start happening if the government adopts the right approach," he told AFP.

Already, the Sri Lankan rupee, which had fallen by nearly 10 percent in 2004 against the US dollar, has recovered by almost five percent in the six weeks after the giant waves lashed the island.

The government had earlier spent nearly half-a-billion dollars to support the falling rupee.

"What is now needed is building up of long-term infrastructure projects that can put the economy on a wider footing, sustained campaign to increase tax collections and tightening up of fiscal measures," Corera said.

He said a new transport infrastructure can help efficient transfer of goods and reduce economic disparities, one of the causes for political instability.

Sri Lanka's trade deficit hit a record 1.95 billion dollars in the first 11 months of last year due to the higher cost of oil imports. The previous record deficit was of 1.75 billion dollars in 2000.

"The feedback is that the government will continue with the tax collection drive which is heartening, as a softer approach in the aftermath of the tsunami could be harmful to the economy," Corera said.

Given post-tsunami goodwill for Sri Lanka a series of duty concessions can be negotiated with other countries to buy time for the government to streamline its strategies, analysts said.

"Though short-term, duty sops can buy time for the government to put its house in order, but care must be taken so as it does not bring economic lethargy," said Murtaza Jafferjee, managing director at J.B. Securities.

Duty concessions offered by the United States to the Sri Lankan textile sector, which were to expire this year, are being renegotiated.

Analysts expect the government opt for a short-term strategy of raising interest rates which have been falling in the last two years, in order to help pay less for its huge debt.

Sri Lanka has estimated debt service payment of 495 million dollars for this year.

"A rise in inflation can stem demand-pull inflation which has been riding high since early last year," said Jafferjee. Sri Lanka's inflation rate is hovering around 15 percent.

Above all, analysts expect the political situation to remain stable at least for two years as most parties appear united on the issue of rebuilding.

The danger of a war with Tamil Tiger separatists had reduced after heavy damages to both the warring parties in the tsunami, but tensions remain.

However, there is bickering over aid distribution, with the Tigers accusing Colombo of dragging its feet on setting up a joint committee to monitor aid in the rebel-held northeastern areas.

Source: Channel News Asia - Singapore

DART to return from tsunami zone next Monday

Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team begins returning home from tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka next Monday, as a defence contractor fights a legal war with federal officials over the team's equipment.

The 200-member DART has been in Ampara district 300 kilometres east of Colombo since Jan. 10, providing water and medical care to survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami that latest estimates say killed up to 178,000 in 11 countries.

The team will return in two main transfers -- Feb. 14 and 24, Foreign Affairs confirmed in a statement Monday, on schedule with its previously stated intention to remain in Sri Lanka for 40 days.

The two reverse osmosis water purification units the troops will bring home with them are the subject of a court fight.

The maker of those units is awaiting a ruling from the Federal Court of Canada on who will be allowed to "repair and overhaul'' them.

Zenon Environmental Inc. is seeking an injunction against the Public Works Department preventing it from contracting servicing of the water purification system out to a third party -- Seprotech Systems Inc. of Ottawa.

Zenon fears trade secrets will be lost if the servicing is farmed out to another company, court documents suggest.

The system is capable of purifying any kind of water in the world, says the Canadian army website. It can treat water tainted by nuclear, biological or chemical warfare agents, as well as fresh, brackish or sea water.

The legal case, filed last March after similar units were used by Canadian troops in Afghanistan, was heard in the Federal Court of Canada last Tuesday. The judge reserved decision.

The DART medical teams have seen about 5,500 patients, while engineers have produced over 2.5 million litres of drinking water and transported more than 55,000 people across a local waterway.

More than 10,000 people died in Ampara alone -- a region about half the size of Prince Edward Island.

Working with international relief agencies, the team repaired schools, cleared rubble and helped build temporary shelters.

The DART complemented the efforts of local authorities and more than 100 non-governmental organizations registered in the region; they will take over the team's tasks.

"DART members did outstanding work to help the region recover from this terrible tragedy,'' Defence Minister Bill Graham said in a statement.

Canada has committed $425 million over five years in relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction money to south Asia since the disaster.

The federal government also announced Monday that Canada has assumed the chair of the Bilateral Donors' Group, which was established to co-ordinate delivery of international assistance in Sri Lanka.

Canada set up a temporary liaison and co-ordination office in Indonesia days after the disaster, one of the first countries to establish such a presence, the statement said.

The number of Canadians dead or presumed dead as a result of the tsunami is seven, while the number of missing Canadians stands at 14.

Source: CTV - Canada

Scientists Worry Developing Countries Lack Infrastructure for Tsunami Warning Systems

Japanese scientists are among the leaders in tsunami-warning technology. But even as they develop new computer and satellite systems to spot potentially deadly waves, many experts worry that developing countries lack the infrastructure to ensure coastal residents are warned in time to reach higher ground. VOA's Steve Herman reports from Tsukuba, Japan.

The December 26 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean stunned seismology experts, who had no indication such a calamity could occur there.

Makoto Murakami of the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute in Tsukuba was among those caught by surprise.

'I personally didn't know the possibility of the occurrence of such a huge earthquake in that region and, of course, naturally I didn't expect such a huge tsunami can attack that region,' he said.

Mr. Murakami heads a project to develop a satellite-based tsunami monitoring system.

The cutting-edge system relies on a phenomenon called cluster deformation. As an earthquake or tsunami occurs, it moves the air, sending vibrations and disrupting electrons in a region of the sky called the ionosphere. This disturbs the microwave frequency signals sent from global positioning satellites to ground sensors.

Mr. Murakami says if banks of computers can analyze these disruptions as they happen, the direction, speed and size of a tsunami can be predicted.

'If we can do that, we can detect cluster deformation associated to the large earthquake, huge earthquake, offshore, a long time before the actual arrival of tsunami wave because the propagation velocity of the seismological wave is much faster than tsunami,' he explained.

Japan already has a nationwide network of 1200 GPS sensors. The data they recorded during December's earthquake is being analyzed by the Paris Geophysical Institute, which is working with Mr. Murakami's team. The French scientists plan to determine how accurate such a real-time warning would have been.

Japan, which is vulnerable to both massive earthquakes and tsunamis, has long tried to minimize both the human and economic toll from massive waves. In 1983, it took 20 minutes for data to reach Tokyo about a big quake in western Japan. By then a tsunami had already poured over sea walls, killing more than 100 people on the Sea of Japan coast and causing $800 million worth of damage.

A decade later alerts could be sent within 10 minutes. But that was still not fast enough to save nearly 200 people on the northern Japanese island of Okushiri in 1993. Three minutes after a quake was felt, the island was hit by waves as high as 29 meters.

Nobuo Hamada, an earthquake and volcano expert at Japan's Meteorological Research Institute says the 1993 tragedy mandated a new benchmark.

"Our target is we issue the tsunami warnings only three minutes after the earthquake," said Mr. Hamada.

Since then no one has died in a tsunami in Japan. The faster system is credited with saving lives in 1994 when a tsunami hit Hokkaido in northern Japan. Eight seconds after the tremor was detected, a warning was automatically sent via radio and television stations.

However, Mr. Hamada worries that developing countries do not have the resources for a system as elaborate as Japan's. He notes that despite initial enthusiasm for the Pacific tsunami warning system, some countries have been more motivated than others to take part in it and maintain the necessary infrastructure.

"26 countries around the Pacific joined. But actually the primary role is taken by United States. And Japan and several [other] countries [are] very eager to sustain it. But the activity of remaining countries is not so good," he explained.

Laura Kong, who runs the International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii, says the existing global seismic network, which can measure earthquakes in the Indian Ocean, can be used to improve coverage there.

"That same network can be used to look at the Indian Ocean,” she noted. “In terms of sea level information there are sea level networks in the Indian Ocean already that need to be upgraded to be able to detect tsunamis reliably because, by and large, these networks were focused on climate change."

Japanese and American scientists are also discussing placing meters on the ocean floor to measure tsunamis. These would transmit information immediately to buoys on the ocean surface, which would relay it to satellites. But each U.S.-designed meter, utilizing simple buoys, costs $200,000, while the more sophisticated Japanese detectors are priced at $5 million.

Tsunami researchers warn, however, that state-of-the-art detection systems are useless unless information reaches areas at risk quickly and people know how to respond. The biggest challenge for developing countries may lie in ensuring coastal dwellers have enough radio or TV receivers to get the warnings or are within earshot of loudspeakers or sirens.

Coastal dwellers will also need to be educated about tsunami risks, so that when an alert is given, they know to head in-land. Ironically, many who survived the December 26 tsunami were considered the region's least sophisticated people. Sea gypsies and primitive tribes did not need technology to tell them that when the ground shakes or the tide suddenly recedes, it is wise to run to higher ground.

Source: Voice of America - USA

Mexico to Study Creating Tsunami Warning System

Mexico, jolted into contemplating its risk of a killer wave after the devastation in Asia, is studying setting up its own tsunami warning system, the government said on Tuesday.

Despite a history of tsunamis along its earthquake-prone Pacific coast, experts say Mexico's coastal resorts and communities would be ill-prepared for a wave near the scale of December's Indian Ocean tsunami.

While the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning System should alert the entire region to waves generated by Pacific Ocean tremors, Mexican officials have expressed concern about how quickly word would get to coastal residents.

'From the disaster in South Asia we have learned that we must be prepared to face this type of phenomenon,' Interior Minister Santiago Creel said during a meeting on Mexico's part in the tsunami relief effort.

'That is why I have instructed (national disaster centers) to summon experts with the aim of analyzing the installation of a detection, monitoring and early warning service for tsunamis in Mexico, taking into account the distances from our coasts.'

Mexico was hit by 49 tsunamis in the 19th and 20th centuries, Creel said, and the idea is to install a system that would detect approaching tidal waves and immediately alert communities at risk.

The system could take years to complete and it is too early to imagine extending it to Mexico's poorer Central American neighbors like Guatemala and Nicaragua, thrashed by a tsunami in 1992, disaster experts say.

'We are only just starting out. It could be extended later, but that's not been talked about yet,' said Oscar Fuentes, a researcher at CENAPRED, Mexico's disaster prevention center.

'Tsunamis are not frequent but, well, if something happens, a warning system is good," he added.

Geophysicists drew up recommendations on tsunami awareness in Mexico in the late 1990s, but they had gathered dust in CENAPRED's offices as authorities focused on teaching people to survive hurricanes, which strike more frequently.

But scientists worry Guerrero state, home to the resort of Acapulco, is overdue for a quake that could trigger a wave.

Past tsunamis include a 17-foot wave that hit the Pacific town of La Manzanilla in 1995, and a huge tsunami in 1932 that leveled the fishing village of Cuyutlan.

Source: Reuters - USA

Sri Lanka tourism recovering from tsunami

Sri Lanka's tourism industry will recover faster than that of other tsunami-hit countries in Asia because the island nation has taken quick steps to revive the sector, the World Tourism Organization said on Thursday.

Tourism contributes about 2.0 percent to Sri Lanka's gross domestic product. More than 100 hotels were badly damaged or destroyed by the Dec. 26 tsunami, which left nearly 300,000 dead or missing in 13 countries, nearly 40,000 of them in Sri Lanka.

'The progress made after five weeks as far as reconstruction is concerned is impressive,' Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of the U.N.'s World Tourism Organization, told reporters in Colombo.

'We feel the recovery here will be faster than other Asian nations hit by the tsunami,' Frangialli said.

Frangialli is visiting the country after attending a two-day meeting in Bangkok where tourism officials proposed a global campaign for coming months to persuade tourists to return to tsunami-stricken Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives.

Sri Lanka's tourism industry, revitalized by a three-year cease-fire between the government and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, was badly hit by the tsunami.

The World Bank said on Wednesday the tsunami caused extensive damage to the sector amounting to about $200 million in damages to facilities, with estimated number of tourists in 2005 now revised downwards by 100,000 people.

A record 565,000 tourists visited Sri Lanka in 2004, tourist board figures show. The total was expected to top 600,000 this year.

'The best thing we can do now for Sri Lanka tourism is to encourage the early return of tourists,' Frangialli said.

The Indian Ocean island's white sand beaches are a magnet for European tourists, and steady arrival growth helped spur the island's stock market to all time highs towards the end of 2004.

Source: MSNBC - USA

Monday, February 07, 2005

Malaysia issues tsunami warning

Thousands of Malaysians in Sabah state are returning home after fleeing to higher ground when the country issued its first tsunami alert.

The warning came after an undersea earthquake in neighbouring Philippines and resulted in panic and traffic jams among locals and tourists.
The Malaysian government says it will have an official tsunami warning system in place by the end of the year.

The sea between the Philippines and Malaysia is one area to be monitored.
Sunday's alert came from the prime minister's Crisis and Disaster Centre after it was alerted by the meteorological department to the 7.2 magnitude quake in seas near the Philippine island of Mindanao.

Tremors were reportedly felt in several parts of Sabah state, which is on Malaysian Borneo.
"Our department immediately sent out the alert to the Malaysian Control Centre, which relayed the message to the Sabah police, military, the information ministry and the local meteorological department," said centre director Muhamed Muda.

Local people and tourists were urged to evacuate coastal areas and head for higher ground, causing panic across the state.

Region-wide system
Sabah's chief minister Musa Aman was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying the panic showed an early warning system was needed for the region.

Malaysia's science minister Jamaludin Jarjis said such a system would be in place by the end of the year to protect the northern peninsula and Sabah and Sarawak states on Borneo island.
The Sultanate of Brunei has also asked to take part in the $5m (£2.6m) project, he said.
Mr Jarjis added that he hoped it would link up to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii and to similar centres in Japan, and would be installed with US and Japanese expertise.
Malaysia lost around 68 people, mostly fishermen, when the 26 December tsunami hit the north-western coastline.

A tsunami early warning system for the whole Indian Ocean region has been discussed at several international conferences in recent weeks.

There has been no consensus on where it would be based, although it was agreed that the UN should start work on an interim decentralised network.

*SOURCE: BBC

Royal Navy Checks Tsunami Disaster Epicentre

A British naval ship surveyed the ocean floor today near the epicentre of the quake that triggered killer waves across Asia, checking the stability of tectonic plates as countries consider a tsunami-warning system for the region.

Meanwhile, Australian cricket star Shane Warne headed to the ravaged coast of Sri Lanka to join on-field opponent Muttiah Muralitharan in a goodwill tour to promote charities.

“I’m proud for us to be brothers in arms for such a cause,” Warne wrote in a column for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

The massive recovery effort entered its seventh week, with the US military winding down its deliveries of aid by helicopter but workers clearing debris in Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sumatra island still finding several hundred corpses per day.

About 90 miles west of Sumatra, the British naval vessel HMS Scott was on the second day of a six-day mission of high-tech sonar readings to assess the stability of the region’s tectonic plates – moving pieces of the Earth’s crust.

The ship was “re-mapping the sea bottom, where we believe there’s been quite a lot of shift” following the magnitude-9 quake on December 26, said Wing Cmdr John Turner, the British defence attache in Aceh.

Indonesia has two naval officers aboard the vessel, and was expected to examine the data as it and other Indian Ocean nations consider setting up a tsunami early warning system.

Several international conferences have discussed the issue in recent weeks, but there has been no consensus on where a full-fledged system would be based. The UN has said it is developing an interim one.

Estimates of the death toll from 11 tsunami-hit nations ranged yesterday from about 152,000 to 178,000 – more than 113,000 in Indonesia alone. The number of missing ranged from 26,000 to 142,000. Most are presumed dead, but officials say it’s too early to add them to the toll.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan toured the worst-hit region – Aceh – over the weekend and afterward pledged his country’s help in rebuilding schools, orphanages and hospitals.

*SOURCE: Scotsman

Thais love leader who met tsunami challenge

THAKSIN SHINAWATRA, the Thai Prime Minister, claimed the most overwhelming election victory in his country’s history last night, as voters rewarded him for his decisive actions after the Asian tsunami.
The opposition Democrat Party quickly conceded defeat after exit polls suggested that Mr Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party would win almost 400 of the 500 seats in Thailand’s parliament, guaranteeing him re-election.
“I thank the voters for their overwhelming support of my party,” the former telecoms tycoon said, as he claimed victory yesterday evening, less than four hours after the last votes had been cast. “If the exit polls are correct, Thai Rak Thai has more than enough seats to set up a one-party government.”
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Thailand’s long history of political instability and intermittent military coups ensured that no previous prime minister had succeeded in surviving even one four-year term. Yet Thai Rak Thai far outstripped the 295 seats that it won in 2001 and seemed confident of being able to govern without its coalition partner, Chart Thai.
Mr Thaksin’s popularity owes much to his rural development programmes, which have bestowed cheap loans and subsidised healthcare on Thailand’s poor rural areas, as well as to his aggressive approach to problems such as the drugs trade. However, it was his reaction to the Boxing Day tsunami that won him a crushing, rather than merely a decisive, victory.
Accompanied by teams of reporters, he made repeated visits to the stricken fishing villages and beach resorts of Thailand’s west coast, where more than 5,300 Thais and foreign tourists died on December 26.
Yesterday voters on the west coast queued at polling stations close to fields of debris, still uncleared seven weeks after the tragedy. At the village of Ban Namkhem, where many deaths occurred, the wreckage of a fishing boat carried inland by the powerful wave lay close to a polling station in a school. All but a handful of people have abandoned the area and voters were transported to the polls from their refugee camps in army lorries and fishing boats.
“There were 3,000 people registered here, but we don’t know how many will come today because we’ve no idea how many are dead or missing,” Praiyun Jongkraijak, a fisherman, said. “It’s very hard for people, but most want to come and vote. They are spread out and they have no transportation. No car, no nothing. They’ve lost everything.”
The other focus of attention was Thailand’s three southernmost provinces, where conflict between Thai security forces and Muslim insurgents has caused about 600 deaths in the past 13 months. Around 30,000 troops were on duty guarding polling stations and there were no reports of significant violence.
“Generally there has been less crime than the last election and voting in all polling stations has taken place without obstacles,” General Kowit Wattana, Thailand’s police chief, said. “Ambushes and killings of candidates are down from four years ago.”
Although it was relatively peaceful, this was not a clean campaign. Before the polls opened, the election commission admitted that corruption was widespread, although few perpetrators were caught. One survey estimated that 10 billion baht (£138 million) was paid in bribes during the four-week campaign.
Mr Thaksin, a multibillionaire, has been accused of using his wealth for improper political ends, although he was acquitted of charges of corruption in 2002. More worrying to his opponents is his record on human rights and media censorship.
The Democrat Party unsuccessfully appealed to voters to give it at least 201 seats, the number required to table a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, and gave warning of the dangers of an elected “dictatorship” with an unchallengeable majority.
“Where in the world is a single-party government called a dictatorship?” Mr Thaksin said at an election rally before the vote. “What’s wrong with it when people have faith in me?”

source: timesonline.co.uk

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Disaster meet ends with tsunami alert, preparation pledges

The United Nations committed itself Saturday to a broad plan of action to reduce the number of deaths caused by natural disasters over the next decade.

But questions remained over whether the collective political will of the member states will be enough to ensure such goals are met.

Delegates to the U.N.-sponsored World Conference on Disaster Reduction ended five days of talks by adopting the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, which puts priority on establishing disaster reduction policies at both national and local levels and ensuring that technological, logistical and bureaucratic systems are in place to identify, assess and monitor natural disaster risks and enhance early warning abilities.

In addition, the Hyogo framework commits the U.N. to building better relations with a variety of nongovernmental groups to help implement disaster reduction policies, including financial institutions and various NGOs.

'I believe that if we implement the goals of the Hyogo Declaration, we can reduce by half the number of deaths affected by natural disaster,' Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, said at the close of the conference.
Overshadowing the entire conference were the tsunamis in the Indian Ocean in late December that have claimed an estimated 158,000 to 221,000 lives.

Egeland noted that the tsunamis were a wakeup call to the international community to plan better for disasters. Though not mentioned directly in the Hyogo framework, the document does call on delegates to learn from the experiences of natural disasters.

A separate Hyogo Declaration issued by the conference emphasized the need for better disaster preparedness in smaller towns and villages noting that strengthening their capacity to reduce disaster risk is especially needed.

Now that a basic 10-year action plan has been established, it will take political action on the part of member states to carry it out.

That, many delegates admitted, could prove difficult as attention of the world's leaders is diverted to more urgent matters.

"At the political level, we must now go back to our home countries and make a variety of preparations for disaster preparedness," said Yoshitaka Murata, state minister for disaster management who presided over the conference.

Salvano Briceno, director of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, insisted that much progress had been made compared to 10 years ago, adding there will be strong political interest at least for the coming year.

"One conference doesn't solve all of the problems," he said.

While welcoming some conference developments, especially the formal recognition in the Hyogo Declaration that there is an intrinsic relationship between disaster reduction, sustainable development and poverty reduction, major NGOs offered heavy criticism of the lack of specific timelines and ways in which the goals can be met.

"What we have here is a watered-down document that appeals to the lowest common denominator," said Thea Hilhorst, a spokeswoman for the 80 NGOs that showed up for the conference.

"In the 11 years since the last conference in Yokohama, little progress has been made," said Marcus Oxley, management director of the NGO Tearfund. "The rhetoric was strong, but the Hyogo framework does not match it with concrete action. If ever there was a time for governments to show political will to action it was now, but this opportunity has been missed."

Source: The Japan Times - Japan

Lone Tsunami survivor rescued

A lone tsunami survivor has been rescued from a remote Indian island, officials say, a rare moment of hope in the Indian Ocean as nations pledge to try to stop such a disaster happening again.

In the Andaman and Nicobar islands, an archipelago 750 miles from the Indian mainland, a military officer said on Saturday a tribal man had been rescued after surviving alone for nearly four weeks eating only coconuts.

Michael Mangal told rescuers the first giant wave sucked him out to sea before subsequent waves flung him back onto the tiny island of Pillow Panja where he discovered everyone else from his village was gone.

It was one of the few pieces of good news in the Indian Ocean where as many as 225,000 died after a magnitude 9 earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered the tsunami on December 26.

At a United Nations-sponsored conference in Kobe, Japan, international officials pledged to try to prevent such a disaster happening again by getting a tsunami warning system running within 18 months.

'All disaster-prone people deserve to have early warning systems,' Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s director of emergency relief, told a news conference. 'The tsunami was the wake-up call for all of us.'

Officials said $8 million (4.3 million pounds) had been pledged for the warning system, including about $4 million from Japan, which already has a system that aims to issue an alert within three minutes.

Data-gathering for an early-warning system was to begin immediately. The British research ship HMS Scott was scheduled to arrive in Indonesian waters on Saturday to survey the seabed near the epicentre of the quake.

The information was expected to help scientists assess the stability of tectonic plates, essential for predicting future hazards and developing a warning system.

"NOBODY KNOWS BUT GOD"

With so many missing after the waves slammed into nations around the Indian Ocean, conflicting figures put the total death toll from Indonesia to Somalia at between 158,000 and 225,000.

No one knows how many more bodies remain to be found or, indeed, how many have died.

"The real number, nobody knows but God," Indonesia's chief social welfare minister, Alwi Shihab, told a news conference in Indonesia's devastated Aceh province, which was the worst hit by the disaster.

More than a million survivors around the region are in need of food and shelter -- including 400,000 in Aceh.

Although the grim task of finding bodies continues, relief workers said it was time to focus on rebuilding.

Governments and private groups around the world have pledged more than $7 billion for tsunami-hit countries.

"The emergency is almost behind us," Budi Atmadi, chief of relief operations in Aceh province, told Reuters on Saturday.

Chris Lom, spokesman for the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration, said it was imperative for Indonesia and international aid workers to repair roads so that trucks could bring food to hundreds of thousands of people in Aceh.

Relief work has been complicated by wrangles between Indonesia's military and rebels in Aceh.

Despite an informal ceasefire between the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and Indonesian forces since the tsunami, Indonesian commanders say soldiers have killed 120 rebels for allegedly interfering in relief work over the past two weeks.

A spokesman for the rebels, who have fought since 1976 for independence, said the army attacks had killed mostly civilians.

But in Sri Lanka, Tamil Tiger rebels said the disaster opened up possibilities for a solution to ethnic conflict there.

"We want to see this human tragedy ... open up new perspectives ... so that we can work out a mutual solution to solve the ethnic problem," chief rebel negotiator Anton Balasingham said after talks with Norwegian peace envoys.

But he said the government must do more to get aid to Tamil-held areas and build trust.

In the Maldives, voters were choosing a new parliament on Saturday in an election that had been scheduled for December 31, five days after the waves struck, killing 82 people.

Rescue and relief had been particularly slow in coming to the Andaman and Nicobar islands because all its harbour jetties were destroyed. Mangal, the lone survivor, was rescued after the crew of a rescue dinghy saw him waving a flag made of his clothes. Around 7,500 people died in the island chain.

In Britain, top stars of rock, pop and classical music packed a Welsh stadium to help raise money for tsunami victims at Britain's biggest charity concert in 20 years. Performers included Eric Clapton and the band Manic Street Preachers.


Source: Reuters - UK

For Tsunami Homeless, Sanitation a Critical Concern

New York, NY - Hundreds of thousands of tsunami survivors living in temporary camps face a growing risk of water-borne disease due to flooding of toilets and inadequate numbers of toilets and bathing facilities, UNICEF said today.

The sanitation situation is particularly worrying in Indonesia, where in some areas of Aceh Province only one in 1,000 people has access to a toilet. The shortage of toilets has been exacerbated by heavy rains, which have flooded many toilets in low-lying camps, prompting the government to announce the relocation of 21 camps for displaced people to higher ground.

'Rain and overcrowding is making a bad situation worse,' UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said Friday. 'Emergency facilities are being over-stretched and construction of new toilets is not keeping up with the demand. Conditions are becoming miserable for families, leaving them little defense against disease.'

Children, who make up at least one-third of the overall population in the worst-affected countries, are particularly vulnerable to water-borne diseases like cholera and diarrhoea.

Heavy rains have worsened the situation in Sri Lanka as well, where some camps are flooded and many toilets are full and in need of emptying. While those residing in Sri Lanka's 450 temporary camps have access to safe water, only 35 per cent of people in the camps have access to safe sanitation, UNICEF said.

And in the Maldives, 85,000 people on 69 islands have had their freshwater supply destroyed. The water supply is being restored, but hygiene and sanitation are serious problems.

UNICEF is working with governments to coordinate aid agency relief efforts across the tsunami-affected countries to restore access to safe water and sanitation. The agency's relief activities include:
Building emergency toilets for camps and tent schools.
Supplying sanitation kits (containing shovels and plastic sheeting) and water kits (containing water containers, purification tablets and soap).
Cleaning and rehabilitating wells and installing desalination plants.
Supporting hygiene education in schools and camps.
Conducting sanitation and clean-up drives in affected areas.
Supplying water tanks and safe drinking water.

UNICEF's emergency water and sanitation projects will be supported by the Tsunami Water and Sanitation Fund, created by the Clinton Foundation and UNICEF. The fund will also help the affected governments with longer-term management of water supply and sanitation systems, including such things as well digging and permanent toilet construction, especially in schools and health centers. In addition, the fund will support hygiene education and promotion in schools and community groups.

Many of the children affected by the tsunami lacked access to safe water and sanitation before the waves hit. Across South Asia, only 35 percent of people have access to a basic toilet and 84 percent to safe drinking water. Children living without these essentials are likely to become weak and malnourished by repeated bouts of diarrhoea and other water and sanitation-related illnesses.

In addition, many children in the region - particularly girls - are denied their right to education because they are busy fetching water or are deterred by the lack of separate and decent sanitation facilities in schools.

"Water is not just an immediate need, but a long-term development challenge," Bellamy said. "Safe water and proper sanitation are essential to keep people alive today and give them a chance at having a better life tomorrow."

Source: Kansas City infoZine - Kansas City,MO,USA