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Friday, April 29, 2005
Olympic swimmer to auction off gold medal to benefit tsunami victims
BERKELEY, Calif. If you want your own Olympic gold medal without training for it --today you'll have your chance.
Former Olympic swimmer Anthony Ervin is auctioning off the gold medal he won in 2000 to raise money for victims of last year's tsunami.
Ervin won the medal when he tied for first place in the 50-meter freestyle in Sydney, Australia.
He came up with the idea of auctioning off his medal on a trip to Japan.
After the tsunami hit Southeast Asia later in December, he decided to auction his medal and donate the proceeds to the Tsunami Relief Fund.
The auction is expected to begin today on eBay.
By the way, Ervin is coming out of retirement and hopes to win another gold in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Source: KESQ - Palm Desert,CA,USA
Seawater inundates Tuticorin coast; sparks tsunami scare
A tsunami scare was caused as sea water inundated a coastal area in Tuticorin last evening, submerging nearly 300 huts and forcing the residents to move to safer places.
The water entered the huts at Inigo Nagar, 200 metres from the coastline, submerging them. However, the water receded after three hours.
According to villagers, waves gushing in till 100 metres from coastline was a normal phenomenon during full moon days.
However, last night the sea seemed to be abnormally rough.
'We have enough expertise to study the waves during daytime. But if it is night, we will be in trouble. We have lost peace of mind since the tsunami tragedy and the vagaries of the sea,' a villager said.
Source: Hindu - Chennai,India
Thursday, April 28, 2005
First Boats Launched From Phillips Foods Tsunami Fund, Inc. Build-A-Boat Program
Baltimore, Maryland based Phillips Foods, Inc. has kicked off the second phase of its Operation Build-a-Boat program, releasing the first boats built into the hands of tsunami-affected fishermen. Designed to put boats and fishing gear directly into the hands of those who need them most,
Operation Build-a-Boat has raised over $150,000 through seafood industry and individual donations for the fishermen who lost their livelihoods in the tragedy that struck in December 2004.
'Operation Build-a-Boat puts actual boats, nets, fishing lines and equipment directly into the hands of the coastal fishermen who desperately need them to get back on their feet.' said Steve Phillips, chief executive officer of Phillips Foods, Inc. 'By providing these fishermen in Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka with fully-equipped boats, Phillips not only gives them the means to create an income, but also enables them to feed their families through the seafood they catch.'
Boats are constructed in each country, utilizing local materials and craftsmen, helping to further channel funds into each economy. Operation Build-a-Boat spurs on localized development; most importantly, this development is sustainable in the long term to bring the individuals in the affected coastal villages back to self-sufficiency.
'Phillips has adopted -- and taken a few creative liberties in the wording -- an old adage as its motto for Operation Build-a-Boat: 'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Build a man a boat, you feed his family for a lifetime',' said Aden King, Director of Operation Build-a-Boat.
The Ocean City Lions Club, Ocean City's Seacrets Resort, Preferred Freezer, Allines Inc., The Brick Companies Foundation, and various Phillips employees held fundraisers and ran promotional nights to contribute to the initiative. One Phillips employee's child even gave up one of the most exciting times in a child's life, his birthday party, to donate the money to this effort.
Phillips has committed 100 percent of all funds raised directly toward building and equipping boats. Working with local suppliers within its network of established relationships in the coastal seafood villages, Phillips Foods' team throughout Asia will identify the fishermen who have an immediate need for boats and boating equipment.
About Phillips Foods, Inc.:
Phillips Foods, Inc. is leading the seafood industry with the highest quality and most delicious seafood products on the market today. Owning and operating crab plants and seafood restaurants for over 45 years has placed Phillips in a unique niche in the food and restaurant world. Phillips -- Making Seafood a Bigger Part of Life(TM). For more information on Phillips' products and recipes, please visit http://www.phillipsfoods.com .
Source: Yahoo News (press release) - USA
'Tomorrow Starts Today' Tsunami Humanitarian Relief Efforts Recounted for Students
Dr. Rahmi Mowjood, Webb School of California class of 1990, spoke at his alma mater today as part of the 'Men in the Arena' program. Dr. Mowjood shared his journey to his homeland of Sri Lanka on a post-tsunami disaster relief mission with Webb students who had collected over $5,600 in just two days to support Dr. Mowjood's relief efforts. The name of the 'Men in the Arena' program comes from an often quoted speech of President
Theodore Roosevelt's that praises those who live their lives on the front lines. 'The man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly ... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause.'
Dr. Mowjood, who upon seeing the enormous need caused by the tsunami in his homeland of Sri Lanka, journeyed there along with three other doctors to offer whatever assistance they could. Having only their best intentions and no prior relief work experience, they packed up donated medicine and supplies and headed off to offer help and hope to the survivors. The team provided emergency healthcare, while leaving behind a stocked pharmacy. Because the two week mission was a success, Dr. Mowjood and his colleagues are planning to return to Sri Lanka this summer to administer additional aid and to invest in long-term projects in the area.
According to Dean of Webb School of California, Patrick Collins, speakers like Dr. Mowjood serve as role models and help students, 'to learn a bit about how these men have approached their achievements.' Past speakers have included consumer advocate Ralph Nader, combat helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, renowned photographer and Webb alumnus Robert Glenn Ketchum and war hero, former prisoner of war and vice-presidential candidate Admiral James B. Stockdale.
The Webb Schools are three affiliated, yet autonomous educational institutions. They include Webb School of California for boys, Vivian Webb School for girls, and the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology. The Webb curriculum provides college-preparatory education for grades 9-12. The schools co-exist in a learning environment that emphasizes honor, leadership, integrity, pride, and unity.
Source: Yahoo News (press release) - USA
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Tsunami Family Reunited after Four Months
A man has been reunited with his wife and daughter four months after they were separated by the devastating tsunami that struck Asia on Boxing Day.
Brian Screen, 49, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, had given up hope of seeing his wife Yuphin, 30, and two-year-old daughter Kathleen again after they were separated by the giant wave while staying on the Thai island of Krabi.
The tsunami, which struck Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and other islands in the Indian Ocean, claimed the lives of more than 125,000, with thousands of people still missing.
Supermarket cleaner Mr Screen escaped the tsunami by clinging to the roof of his hotel, but his Thai wife was swept away in the torrent and lost her memory after being hit on the head by debris.
Mrs Screen and Kathleen were eventually rescued by residents on Krabi and stayed with a local family throughout the aftermath of the disaster.
Mr Screen searched mortuaries and hospital wards for his wife and daughter for three months before eventually returning to his home in Cheltenham empty-handed.
Mrs Screen finally regained her memory some six weeks after the tsunami hit and began the same desperate search for her husband in the ravaged tourist spots.
Her search then moved to Bangkok but still she failed to find any trace of Mr Screen.
Then, three weeks ago, she finally got in touch with her Thai family in the isolated rural village of Brakchonchai and was amazed to discover that her husband had left messages with her relatives.
She immediately contacted him and the family were finally reunited at Heathrow Airport last night.
Speaking to the Sun newspaper, Mr Screen, who has been married to his wife for four years, said: "I couldn't believe it, I was in shock. I'd given them up for dead.
“The last time I saw Yuphin and Kathleen I kissed them goodbye as they headed to the beach. Ten minutes later the waves hit.”
Mrs Screen said she had escaped the full force of the tsunami because she had visited a noodle bar with her daughter instead of going to the beach.
She added: “I am very, very happy. When I saw him at the airport I ran into his arms and we cried and Kathleen ran up and gave her daddy a hug.
“I just wanted to come home. I haven’t seen my husband for four months and I thought he was dead.”
Source: Scotsman - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK
Sri Lankan Buddhists oppose tsunami aid to Tamil rebels
A political party led by Sri Lanka's Buddhist monks fiercely opposed a government move to share part of the foreign tsunami aid with the Tamil Tiger rebels, a spokesman said.
Athuraliye Ratana Thero, a spokesman for the National Heritage Party, claimed that the rebels cannot be trusted with the funds.
The party's rejection could complicate the government efforts to share millions of dollars in tsunami aid with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Diplomatic sources close to Sri Lanka's fragile peace process with the rebels said that both parties were expected to agree on a joint mechanism to disburse tsunami aid by the end of next month.
The Marxist JVP, or People's Liberation Front, also said that they opposed the 'joint mechanism' proposed by peace mediator Norway to deliver part of the aid to rebel-held areas, claiming that the rebels could use the money to build their own state.
The Tamil Tiger rebels command areas of the island's north-east that were worst hit by December�s deadly tsunami, which killed more than 31,000 people in Sri Lanka.
They have been demanding a share in the foreign aid dedicated to Sri Lanka, but some international donors were reluctant to directly give funds to the rebel group.
In December 2002, the rebels agreed with the previous Sri Lankan government to accept a federal solution to the conflict which claimed more than 60,000 lives.
Both sides reached a ceasefire agreement in February 23, 2002, but direct peace talks have been suspended since April 2003.
The massive tsunami initially raised hopes that both parties would work together to help the survivors, but disagreements over international aid sparked new tensions.
Source: Aljazeera.com - London,UK
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Tsunami changed Tamil Nadu shoreline :
Nearly four months after devastating tidal waves struck the east coast of India, a study has revealed that the Dec 26 tsunami considerably changed Tamil Nadu's shoreline.
The study conducted by the Suganthi Devadason Marine Research Institute, a Tuticorin-based NGO, says marine fauna and flora were more or less unaffected by the tsunami.
But all along Tamil Nadu's 1,076-km coast, the shoreline, or the area where the sea meets the land, has been changed considerably, it said.
Soon after the tsunami, eyewitnesses said they had seen the sea move away or come forward. Some even said the sea had moved away two kilometres.
On the Mahabalipuram shore, a large temple and archaeological site, for long under water, was exposed by the tsunami.
The study validated some accounts of the sea moving away.
It said there were incursions of about 50 metres to 250 metres along the entire coast, with the severity depending on the topography. At certain points on the Cuddalore coast, the incursion was 500 metres.
The institute conducted a rapid environmental impact assessment exercise for 40 days along the Tamil Nadu coast that was led by its director J.K. Patterson Edward. The study report has been presented to the state environment department.
The study was conducted at 36 locations, including Thiruvallur (the northern-most district), Chennai, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam (the worst-hit area), Ramanathapuram, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari, the subcontinent's last point.
'The assessment showed no significant impact on the status of coral, mangrove, seaweed and sea grass barring minor transitional damages," it said.
Mangroves, casuarina and coconut groves remained standing but palm trees and cashew plantations could not withstand the onslaught of the high waves, it said.
The study recommended large- scale mangrove, casuarina and coconut plantations along the coast.
Paddy fields in Reddiarpettai on the Pondicherry coast, Poompuhar, Tranquebar and Vedaranyam coast too were destroyed.
The study said the unique Gulf of Mannar biosphere did not suffer any damage from the tsunami.
It, however, recommended restoration of coral reefs in the gulf area destroyed by industrial coral mining.
The study said there were morphological changes in the shallow seabed and reduction in marine animals in the shallow part of the sea.
The institute has recommended micro-level studies on biological parameters like plankton assembly and the nature of marine animal population.
The mouth of the Adyar river, flowing into the sea near the Theosophical Society in south Chennai, was blocked by a sand bar. The tsunami washed away the sand, opening the river mouth.
In Nagapattinam, 400 km south of Chennai, the mouth of the Vellar river was blocked by sand after the tsunami.
On the Sreenivasapuram coast in South Chennai, the sea moved away by five metres. On the Thiruvanmiyur coast, a kolimetre north of Sreenivasapuram, the sea covered 50 meters of the beach.
The sea intruded up to 50 metres in south Chennai, on the Kalpakkam coast, Colachel coast and Kanyakumari.
In posh south Chennai residential areas like Kalakshetra colony and Besant Nagar, a study by the state ground and surface water resource data centre found seawater had intruded into the groundwater, making drinking water reservoirs salty.
Source: Team India - India
Clinton: tsunami aid to be model for future crises
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton told business leaders on Monday that the response to Asia's tsunami could serve as a model for future disasters if donors made sure the stricken region recovered.
Clinton, the U.N. envoy for tsunami relief, told a conference of senior American industry executives that the recovery stage from the Dec. 26 tsunami was just beginning in diversifying seafront economies and building schools and houses.
More than 228,000 people were killed or went missing when the underwater earthquake sent huge waves into a dozen Indian Ocean nations. Some $6 billion to $8 billion has been pledged or spent.
'If you do something that works well, then other people will copy it,' Clinton said. 'If you don't focus on doing one project well (then) we won't have a model we can then use to do the same thing in other areas.'
Clinton said he was chosen by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the job because 'he thought I could guilt-peddle my former colleagues better than anyone else he could think of.'
'Countries have a notorious reputation for committing massive amounts of money when people are dying on television,' he said. 'Then when the TV cameras turn off, they don't give the money.'
Hank McKinnell, CEO of pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. who helped organize the meeting, said it was important that the partnerships forged during the tsunami prepared business for the next calamity and that people in the United Nations and in industry knew who to contact.
'I can only say that we in the private sector want to do the right thing and in times of crisis we want to do it quickly,' said McKinnell, who is chairman of the Business Roundtable of 160 leading corporations.
Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, however, tried to harness business participation in the tsunami to other crises in the world.
"For example, each and every day, 1000 people die in the (Democratic Republic of) Congo from largely preventable causes -- a tsunami death toll every few months for years on end," Egeland said.
But McKinnell said the tsunami relief effort included concrete plans that made it easier for people to participate and know where the money was being spent.
"In the Congo, as a business person, it not clear what the problem is, much less the solution," he said. "Absent a roadmap to success, I don't think you're going to get the private sector engaged the way you did with the tsunami."
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
Monday, April 25, 2005
FEATURE-A resort with no beach? S.Lankans flout tsunami buffer
As his beach-front guesthouse rises from the debris of Asia's tsunami, Sri Lankan hotelier Sunil Balage is racing against time to rebuild his business.
He is also breaking the law.
There is no way Balage is going to walk away from a prime spot on one of Sri Lanka's most popular beaches, and scores of hoteliers and home owners like him are openly defying a government ban on rebuilding within 100 metres (110 yards) of the sea.
'This is a resort. Tourists like to be on the beach. What to do?' he asked as labourers mixed cement and shifted bricks and girders at small hotels all along Unawatuna beach, 120 km (75 miles) south of the capital.
'This is my land. I have legal documents. Why should I leave it?' added Balage, who has borrowed 5.0 million rupees ($50,185) from friends because insurers refused to pay out for the tsunami damage and banks will not lend to coastal businesses.
South of Colombo, pale cement betrays new walls built hurriedly to hide reconstruction work going on by beaches.
New walls trace the route December's waves took as they crashed through homes, shops and hotels along Sri Lanka's south, east and northern shores, sweeping around 40,000 people to their deaths. All that was left of many buildings was an empty shell or bare concrete foundation.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga's government has banned rebuilding along the battered coastline as a safeguard against future tsunamis, and in some cases entire towns are being moved inland to be rebuilt from scratch.
THOUSANDS STILL HOMELESS
Around 115,000 homes and business were totally or partially destroyed by Sri Lanka's worst natural disaster and half a million people have no house to go back to.
Most survivors live with family and friends but over 100,000 people are still in cramped, stifling tents or camps for displaced and frustration is mounting at what many see as government ineptitude.
The government says it is only ready now, more than three months after the disaster, to start a national reconstruction plan in earnest, accusing international donors of being slow to make good on aid pledges.
And those who take reconstruction into their own hands and rebuild too close to the coast could end up in court and even face bulldozers.
"We have been told to take legal action and sometimes, if the construction obstructs the beach, it might be demolished," said Kumari Basnayake, Deputy Director of the Urban Development Authority in the badly hit historic southern port town of Galle.
"Most of the people are doing illegal construction ... but the buffer zone allows only vegetation and any infrastructure and activities related to fishing harbours," she said.
Tamil Tiger rebels, who control swathes of the north and east, have imposed a 300 metre to 500 metre (330 yard to 550 yard) coastal buffer zone few, if any, would dare argue over.
The coastal areas there were also less built up than the south, making it easier to increase the buffer.
Local and international relief organisations have built clusters of temporary shelters along the coast, but ironically perhaps the most efficient tsunami reconstruction effort to date is outlawed.
So far Sri Lankan authorities have not acted against anyone building along the coast for fear of a backlash from the survivors. Besides, they have yet to come up with alternatives.
NO OPTION
"Three times the Urban Development Authority came to say don't rebuild again, but we don't care," said Kanchena Piananda, who works at the Banana Garden hotel further along Unawatuna beach. "We will fight if we have to."
"They have threatened to knock down our neighbour's building," he whispered in his native Sinhala, gesturing at a scaffold next door. "But what option do we have? The 100 metre law doesn't work for this industry."
The question is how soon tourists will return in their droves after the tsunami denied Sri Lanka of a peak holiday season and turned some stretches of beach into impromptu graveyards.
Many residents, like mother-of-three Koongahawatta Indrani, now live in constant fear of the sea and are desperate for the state to make good on a pledge to relocate survivors inland.
"I am waiting for the government to build me a house," she said, standing with her children and four other relatives in a wooden shack built on the razed foundation of her former home.
"We need to move away. We are scared of another tsunami," she added. Many families, living in tents and sheds lining the coastal road, live with the same fear.
But hoteliers like Balage are scrambling to finish building in the hope that authorities will turn a blind eye.
"I think the law is stupid," the 34-year-old said. "I don't think another tsunami will come again. I'm very poor now. It is difficult to start up again, but I'm trying."
"The government has to help small businesses like this, without any restrictions," he added, the tapping of hammer on nail resounding all along a stretch of golden sand. "I will keep building -- even if they try to come and stop me." ($1=99.63 rupees)
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
India to get $1 mn from AFC-FIFA tsunami fund
Kolkata, April 24. (PTI): India is to get an assistance of one million dollars from the AFC and FIFA Tsunami Solidarity Fund for rebuilding soccer infrastructure in the Tsunami hit Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The funds would be extended for reconstruction of a 'technical centre' for young people in the Andamans, according to an official release of the Asian Football Confederation.
The AFC and FIFA Tsunami Solidarity Fund would provide an initial amount of $7.6 million to the soccer associations affected by the Tsunami disaster, it said.
Source: Hindu - India
Friday, April 22, 2005
City pushes boat out as £200,000 raised for tsunami
Readers can make donations to the Evening News-Mercy Corps tsunami appeal by phoning this hotline number
MORE than €200,000 has now been raised for victims of the Asian tsunami by city residents, businesses and schools through the Evening News-backed Capital Appeal.
And that total is likely to more than double by the end of June, when the appeal looks set to reach its target of €500,000.
A partnership between the Evening News and Edinburgh-based charity Mercy Corps, the appeal was launched in January to fund five key projects in the devastated Aceh region of Indonesia.
Two representatives from the council's task-force are to visit the Aceh province to report back to Edinburgh fundraisers ahead of a week-long charity push at the end of next month.
Edinburgh Giving Week, designed to renew awareness of the impact of the Boxing Day disaster, will kick off on May 21.
Victor Spence, general secretary of religious group the Edinburgh Inter-Faith Association, and the council's task-force co-ordinator Susan Lanham will fly to Indonesia on April 29 to observe the Mercy Corps projects.
Events have been planned across the city for the week of fundraising, and businesses including Charlie Miller hairdressing and restaurants Oloroso and Town House have offered support.
Scotmid supermarket chain will be holding events at its branches throughout the week.
Lord Provost Lesley Hinds, who chairs the Edinburgh Tsunami Taskforce, said:
'The long-term projects being supported in Aceh aim to bring stability back. The Village Recovery Project, for example, will help to get people back to work and children back to school.
'The people of Edinburgh have to be commended for the level of support they have given.'
Mercy Corps director of development David Welch said:
"With Edinburgh’s support, not only can we help to rebuild communities, but can ensure that they become stronger than before."
One city school has donated more than £11,000 to the appeal.
Corstorphine Primary School raised £11,480 from two sponsored events. Younger pupils took part in an assault course held by the Royal Scots, while around 250 older children ran laps of Murrayfield Stadium, joined by Scottish rugby players.
THE EVENTS
THE week will kick off with an exhibition of photographs by award-winning Evening News photographer Cate Gillon, who spent three weeks in Aceh, documenting the aftermath of the tragedy.
Other events, in addition to hundreds of fundraisers at schools, churches and community centres across the city, include a family fun day featuring Indonesian culture on The Mound and a "Get Edinburgh Giving" seminar at the EICC.
An "It’s a Knockout" tournament will see teams battling it out at Murrayfield Stadium on May 29.
The charity is also appealing for volunteers to take part in a sponsored Tandem Skydive in Perthshire later in the summer.
Source: Scotsman - UK
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives: Earthquake and Tsunami OCHA Situation Report No. 37
Main Highlights
In Indonesia, land ownership and land use must be clarified quickly in order to allow people to rebuild their homes.
In Sri Lanka, the number of temporary housing units constructed to relocate tsunami-affected families has risen to over 15,468.
In the Maldives, a Lessons Learned Workshop will review the national and international response to the tsunami.
FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
Out of USD892 million pledged to the FA by official donors on or after Jan. 11,USD584 million has been contributed ('paid,' 'disbursed'). A further USD229 million has been committed. (584 + 229 = 813, meaning that 91% of official FA pledges have been converted into commitments or contributions.) Private donors have contributed an additional USD362 million,* and UN agencies have allocated USD1 million from their own resources. The rest (USD69 million) remain uncommitted official pledges.
Regarding overall funding in response to the tsunami, according to the information available to the United Nations:
The total amount pledged, committed or contributed to all recipients is USD6.7 billion. Of this, 95 Governments and inter-governmental organisations have pledged, committed or contributed USD5.8 billion. Private persons and institutions have contributed at least USD 882 million.*
*UN agencies are informing FTS of the private contributions they receive, but not all NGOs are; therefore this figure is known to be understated.
INDONESIA
I. SITUATION
BAKORNAS, the national coordination body for natural disasters, stopped issuing daily reports on the number of dead, missing and displaced as a result of the tsunami on 26 March 2005. As of 20 April 2005, the total reported dead as a result of the 26 December 2004 tsunami stands at 128,515 in NAD and 130 in North Sumatra. The number of IDPs stands at 513,278 in NAD and 19,620 in North Sumatra.
Seismic activity has continued in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) and North Sumatra provinces. Between 28 March and 16 April the United States Geological Survey recorded 278 further aftershocks with magnitudes ranging from 4.7 to 6.7. Seismologists predict continued activity along the fault line that runs along the west coast of Sumatra and south of Java. Many displaced people in NAD, North Sumatra and West Sumatra provinces are reluctant to return to their homes as they are afraid of future earthquakes or tsunamis.
The last week has also seen increased volcanic activity on Sumatra and Java islands. In light of the continuing seismic activity in the area and the propensity for natural disasters in other parts of Indonesia, UN agencies are in the process of drafting an emergency response document, including details of stockpiling.
II. OVERVIEW OF ACTIVITIES
The UNICEF measles campaign is nearing completion in NAD, with a total of 994,274 children immunized from a target of a total 1,196,229. The overall campaign coverage for 6 months -15years now stands at 83.1%.
The WFP school feeding programme, which commenced in early April, is now reaching approximately 47,100 primary school children in Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar and Aceh Barat districts. The programme will gradually be expanded in the coming months with the beneficiary number expected to reach 340,000 children by August 2005.
The UNDP Tsunami Waste Recycling Project has now begun, with a team of 18 cash for work employees using six dump trucks and three bobcats to clear areas around Banda Aceh town. Paddy fields in Peukan Bada, Aceh Besar are also being cleared to enable local villagers to begin farming. The waste is taken to the municipal dump where an additional team of 70 cash for work employees separates recyclable and non-recyclable material. Recyclable materials, such as wood, metal and rubble, are being stockpiled for donation or sale. Similar activities have recently been expanded to Meulaboh, and are planned for other cities and to develop larger scale waste management activities.
III. MAIN CHALLENGES AND RESPONSE
UNICEF published the results of the Baseline Nutrition Assessment conducted in 13 tsunami-affected districts. The survey included 3,735 households, 4,024 women aged 18 - 45 years and 4,030 children aged 6 - 59 months. Of the households, 10% were IDPs living in camps, 9% were households hosting IDPs and 80% were residents in households without displaced people.
Key findings from the survey include the following:
In the 13 districts, 11.6% of displaced children, and 11.4% of the remaining children suffer from wasting or acute malnutrition.
There are high rates of diarrhea, fever and respiratory cough amongst under-five year old children for both tsunami-affected and non-affected populations.
Longer-term nutritional issues need to be addressed through poverty relief, education, as well as improved sanitation and security.
IDPs are returning to their place of origin in increasing numbers and erecting temporary structures on the sites of their former homes, as they are afraid to lose their right of ownership or use of the land. UNDP hosted a Land Advisor who has been investigating the possibility of developing a community based land-mapping project that would be implemented in areas where no land ownership documents survived the tsunami. The project would help ascertain who owns the land, and therefore who may rebuild in which areas.
It is essential that land ownership and land use issues are clarified quickly to allow people to rebuild permanent dwellings, and to prevent temporary structures from becoming semi-permanent, creating slum-type settlements that lack proper access to water and sanitation and community infrastructure.
IV. LINK BETWEEN EMERGENCY ACTIVITIES AND LIVELIHOOD RECOVERY
UNDP's cash for work programme, implemented by NGO partners, is now providing temporary employment for approximately 10,000 workers, in a variety of projects across the province. Projects include amongst others small-scale fisheries activities (fishing boats and nets), rehabilitation of paddy fields, and livelihood revitalisation projects for disaster-affected women and children in NAD. Further contracts are in the pipeline and will lead to increased employment of workers.
V. USEFUL WEBSITES
Government:
www.bakornaspbp.go.id (National Coordination Board for Natural Disaster Management)
www.depsos.go.id (Department of Social Affairs)
www.depkes.go.id (Department of Health)
www.lin.go.id (National Information Board-Ministry of Information and Communication)
www.info-ri.com (Information-Republic Indonesia)
Other:
www. coe-dmha.org/tsunami.htm (daily chronology of key events)
www.apan-info.net - tsunami page (Pacific Command)
www.humanitarianinfo.org - Humanitarian Information Centre (HIC)
www.unjlc.org
SRI LANKA
I. SITUATION
According to statistics gathered by the Office of the Transitional Accommodation Project, the number of temporary housing units constructed to relocate tsunami-affected families has risen to over 15,468 (as at 15 April). Work is now in progress to build additional 7,856 units, which are expected to be completed within the next few days. UNHCR reports that as of 21 April, a total of 12,000 transitional shelters have been constructed in tsunami-affected areas of the country, with an additional 7,000 shelters in the pipeline. Overall commitments have been made by various organizations to build a total of 65,000 shelters. UNHCR and the government are planning to meet to reconcile the differing figures regarding transitional shelters.
II. OVERVIEW OF ACTIVITIES
Fifty families have returned this week to Navalady, Batticaloa District. Navalady is the narrow sand stretch between the ocean and the Batticaloa Lagoon that was severely impacted by the tsunami. The displaced families have returned on their own initiative. They will initially reside in two transit centres while they work in cooperation with agencies on the reconstruction of their homes. By the end of this week, a total of 76 families will be accommodated in the transit centres. Critical road repairs and electrical works have yet to begin.
On Tuesday 12 April, World Vision inaugurated 84 completed transitional shelters in Anungulla, Balapitiya Division, Galle District in the presence of the Special Representative of the President and the Deputy Minister for Infrastructure.
III. MAIN CHALLENGES AND RESPONSE
On Sunday 17 April, a large group of displaced persons spontaneously occupied private land, erecting tents on the Fedroo Estate, Aluthuuala (at the border between the divisions of Ambalangoda and Baddegama) Galle District. Local government officials and NGOs are concerned by the presence of these IDPs who could number up to 1,500 persons. It is still unclear whether they are tsunami-affected people. The IDPs are reportedly from Hikkaduwa Division. Both the district and divisional government are aware of the problem. OCHA is assessing the situation.
IV. LINK BETWEEN EMERGENCY ACTIVITIES AND LIVELIHOOD RECOVERY
The Livelihood Task Force in Batticaloa, which includes government representatives, UN agencies and NGOs, has stressed that attention must be paid to the agriculture sector and agricultural-related businesses, given that the focus to date has been on providing assistance to the fishing communities.
FAO recently reported the need for additional inputs of seeds and fertilizer in agricultural areas, and for the replacement of livestock, particularly poultry.
With the planting season in Yala just beginning, FAO is sending 67 tonnes of paddy seed worth USD 22,000 to areas in the south. This will cover 1,668 acres of land, sufficient for tsunami affected farmers in the areas of Hambantota, Matara and Galle districts. At the same time, the farmers will be supplied with 83 tonnes of BASAL fertilizer and another 167 tonnes of urea fertilizer.
V. USEFUL WEBSITES
Humanitarian Information Centre: www.humanitarianinfo.org/srilanka
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): www.ochaonline.org
Sri Lankan Department of Census and Statistics: www.statistics.gov.lk/Tsunami/index.htm
Government of Sri Lanka: www.priu.gov.lk
Recoverlanka: www.recoverlanka.net
Geolanka: www.geolanka.net
Sir Lankan Taskforce for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN): www.tafren.gov.lk
For access to additional informative web links: http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/srilanka/infocentre/links/links.asp
MALDIVES
I. SITUATION
Pursuant to an OCHA recommendation, a national Lessons Learned Workshop is scheduled to take place in Male. Participants include government authorities at the central and atoll level, UN agencies, bilateral donors, the IFRC and national/international NGOs. The purpose of the workshop is to review all aspects of national and international response to the tsunami from an in-country perspective to enable national authorities to improve response coordination in disaster situations.
Findings and recommendations will feed into an OCHA regional workshop that is scheduled to take place in Indonesia in June 2005 and will assist in the formulation of a UN Recovery Strategy and the preparation of a contingency planning exercise later in the year.
II. OVERVIEW OF ACTIVITIES
The Vulnerable Group Feeding Programme has identified 40,296 beneficiaries for the next distribution cycle scheduled to begin on 24 April. Beneficiaries include IDPs, host communities and 'livelihood groups' on affected islands. The food distribution will include rice, pulses, oil and sugar.
UNICEF and UNOPS have reached an agreement on reconstruction in the education and health sectors in the Maldives. The Minister of Education has submitted the UNOPS school reconstruction project to the National Disaster Management Centre for approval.
On 12 and 13 April, the Educational Centre, with technical and financial support from UNICEF, conducted a two-day workshop for 13 headmasters. The objective of the workshop was to brief the participants on the Child Friendly Schools concept and to assess "child friendliness" in their respective schools. Based on the assessment, an action plan was devised for each school highlighting the key areas that would help the schools move towards the child friendly model.
Source: ReliefWeb (press release) - Geneva,Switzerland
Thursday, April 21, 2005
US-based scribe covering tsunami devastation in Andamans dies
Ever since the tsunami struck the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on December 26, 44-year-old Chitra Parayath, a US-based freelancer, had been wanting to visit the islands and report on the devastation that had been caused by the killer waves.
When opportunity came, tragedy was not far behind.
Chitra Parayath, also one of the four editors of 'Lokvani.com', a Boston-based e-magazine, reached Port Blair, the capital of the Union Territory on April 17 to collect materials for a series of articles she was planning on the Island, where she had spent her childhood.
But fate had other plans for her.
On April 18, as she was proceeding by car from Rangat to Mayabandar, in Middle Andaman, some of the worst tsunami-affected areas, the vehicle went out of control and fell into a ditch and she died on the spot, family sources here told PTI.
The car driver also succumbed to injuries. Two others in the vehicle-- P Radhakrishnan, Chief Engineer of Andamans and Lakshadweep Harbour works, and his wife were injured.
Being in charge of the Art and Culture section of the e-magazine, Chitra had interviewed several well known names in Bollywood, including Aishwarya Rai, Aparna Sen, Konkona Sen, Singer Usha Uthup, and cricketer Sunil Gavaskar.
An article written by her in a travel magazine had won her the first prize-- a two-way ticket from any city in the US to any city in India. Making use of it, she had travelled from Boston to Kochi on April 12, her father, P P Nair, retired Director, All India Radio, Port Blair, told PTI.
Nair said Chitra was very keen to visit the islands and see for herself the devastation caused by tsunami and was planning to do a series of articles for various publications.
Her parents accompanied her to the islands, but had not travelled with her on the fateful day, Nair said.
Chitra had taken the necessary permission from the authorities to visit Nicobar Islands, which bore the brunt of the tsunami, and had fixed up an appointment with the Lt Governor of the islands also for an interview.
However, death came calling.
She leaves her husband, Vinod Muralidhar, partner of a Boston-based Software company, and two children-- Siddharth and Nivedita.
Source: Hindu - India
Sri Lankan Tsunami Accord Will Be Signed in Weeks, Solheim Says
Norway's peace envoy to Sri Lanka said an accord creating a tsunami aid program operated by the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam will be signed in a few weeks.
``We are very close to an agreement and we hope it will be signed in the next few weeks,'' Erik Solheim told reporters after a meeting late yesterday with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse in the capital, Colombo.
Sri Lanka, the worst affected country, behind Indonesia in the Dec. 26 tsunami lost 39,000 people, with just under half of those killed in the South Asian island's northern and eastern regions that are controlled by the rebels.
A joint operation by government and rebel forces to rebuild the areas may break a deadlock since 2003 in peace talks aimed at ending a two-decade civil war and release millions of dollars to rebuild houses, roads, ports and hospitals.
The government's biggest coalition partner, the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, which opposes autonomy for the Tamils, has threatened to quit the government if the joint tsunami program is agreed with the rebels.
``We won't interfere in the internal politics of Sri Lanka, that's a matter for the president,'' Solheim said. ``We are doing our utmost to assist the government and the LTTE in finalizing the joint mechanism because both sides believe that much more assistance can be given through the mechanism to alleviate the suffering of the tsunami victims.''
Tsunami Damage
About half a million people in the country of 19.9 million were left homeless by the tsunami that devastated coastal towns and villages. Damage from the tsunami threatens an economic expansion in Sri Lanka which has benefited from the 2002 cease- fire. Sri Lanka's economy expanded at 5.4 percent last year, down from 6 percent in 2003.
Rajapakse, whose hometown in Tangalle on the southern coast was devastated by the giant waves, said the joint accord may only be signed when President Chandrika Kumaratunga returns from a holiday in the U.K. at the end of this week.
``Look at the political situation,'' Rajapakse said yesterday in his official residence in Temple Trees in Colombo after his meeting with Solheim, ``Nothing can be decided till the president returns.''
The Liberation Tigers have been fighting for two decades for a separate homeland in the northeast. The Tamils make up fewer than a fifth of the island's population.
Sri Lanka needs $1.5 billion in aid to recover from the tsunami, the Asian Development Bank, the World bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation said last month.
Source: Bloomberg - USA
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Charity Single for Tsunami Relief released by "American Idol" finalists
The 12 finalists from this year's 'American Idol' competition have released a charity single, out this Tuesday to benefit the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. The single 'When You Tell Me That You Love Me' a No. 2 hit for Diana Ross in the United Kingdom in 1991 has been recorded by label RCA for the victims of the South Asia tsunamis.
The 12 contestants have all contributed on it: Bo Bice, Lindsey Cardinale, Anthony Fedorov, Mikalah Gordon, Constantine Maroulis, Anwar Robinson, Scott Savol, Jessica Sierra, Vonzell Solomon, Nikko Smith, Nadia Turner and Carrie Underwood.
The viewers of Fox-TV's massively popular 'American Idol' series decided which of three songs would be released as a single. The Hollies' classic 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother' or Ray Stevens' 'Everything is Beautiful' will be also included on the single as many viewers cast votes for all three songs.
Label RCA and show producer 19 Entertainment will donate 50 cents of the proceeds earned by the each single and 21 cents for every digital download sold.
'We are so grateful for the generosity of the RCA Music Group, 19 Entertainment and the talented musicians on 'American Idol',' said Marsha J.Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross. 'Every eight minutes, the Red Cross responds to a disaster with the financial help of supporters like RCA, 19 Entertainment and 'American Idol' We couldn't do it without their help and that of thousands of caring Americans each year.'
Source: ChristianToday - London,UK
Thai police query tsunami aid theft
THAI police are investigating whether government employees on the resort island of Phuket stole $A66,000 worth of tsunami relief funds, police said today.
'We are investigating, we are checking fingerprints,' Phuket police Colonel Korkiat Wongworrachart told AFP.
He said civil servants have yet to be officially linked with the theft or charged with a crime, but the investigation centres on staff at the Phuket provincial hall, which served as an emergency relief centre in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
The Nation newspaper reported that five government employees in Phuket were facing criminal prosecution after authorities allegedly uncovered evidence of their involvement in the theft of two million baht ($A66,000) from a relief fund set up for victims of the tsunami, which killed about 5,400 people in Thailand.
Colonel Korkiat would not confirm the report.
The money went missing from a safety deposit box whose lock had been sawn off at Phuket's provincial hall a few days after the December 26 waves, according to the newspaper.
Source: Daily Telegraph - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Indonesia Tsunami Relief Effort Faces Tough Times
The massive internationaleffort to help victims of the Asian tsunami faces newchallenges in Indonesia, with frustration growing amongsurvivors at the pace of reconstruction.
Nearly four months after the earthquake-triggered wavesswept the northern end of Sumatra island, leaving around160,000 dead or missing in Aceh, many of the half a millionhomeless still live in tents.
Others exist in sweltering, tin-roofed communal barrackshastily built by the government where residents complainsanitation is basic at best, and electricity and water aresupplied only intermittently.
At Lamreh camp just outside the provincial capital BandAceh, 74 families live in tents. During the 40-minute drivenortheast of the provincial capital, hundreds of other tentscan be seen dotting the hills above the coastal plain strewnwith the rubble of flattened homes.
'This is my house,' said Uning, 28, who shares her canvasshome with her husband and small daughter. 'I lost everythingwhen the tsunami happened, but they just give us this,' shesaid.
Another resident, Murniati, 36, who lost a teenage daughterand her own mother in the tsunami, explains how she still hastrouble breathing and feels pain in her head after spendingthree hours in the water on Dec. 26.
'People promise to build houses, but this is the reality,'she said.
Everywhere there is evidence of international aid making adifference -- from new wells to school uniforms. But there arealso communities struggling to get even the basic necessities.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono finallysigned off on Friday on a multi-billion dollar master plan forthe reconstruction of the province that has met the approval of international donors.
But while donors and aid agencies see progress, manysurvivors and some local leaders in Indonesia's most staunchlyMuslim province -- the only one in the country to implementSharia, or Islamic law -- are not so impressed.
Muslim scholars meeting in Banda Aceh last week issued astatement saying the blueprint did not take into account thevoices of ordinary people.
"They didn't involve the Aceh people. Only the leadersdesigned this blueprint," said Tengku Faisal Ali, 35, head ofthe Aceh Islamic students' association, which boasts 65,000members at religious schools across the province.
Some community leaders are also frustrated.
"Whenever the government rebuilds our homes, we will moveback. But we don't know when that will be," said Zulkifli, 50,camp coordinator at Lhong Raya in Banda Aceh, where dozens offamilies live in crude wooden barracks.
"The government is working at about 50 percent," he said.
NEW CHALLENGE
The challenge now, says Bo Asplund, United Nations residentrepresentative in Indonesia, is to translate the governmentmaster plan into new homes and livelihoods as quickly aspossible.
"It's clear that people want the blueprint not just to besigned but to also start making an impact in what's happeningon the ground," he told Reuters.
"Given the publicity and the large amounts pledged toreconstruction, people expect something to come out of it."
The initial emergency response after Dec. 26 was hugelysuccessful, providing food and shelter for more than half amillion people, and quickly reducing the risk of malnutritionand disease outbreaks, he said.
"But the problem now is maintaining the momentum," saidAsplund.
The government's blueprint, which it says was developed inconsultation with local leaders, details projects spanning fiveyears, worth close to $5 billion.
It carries directives for the creation of a special bodythat will administer the projects, as well as building andrepairing tens of thousands of homes.
It also lays down regulations for a buffer zone in citiesand towns, separating residential areas from the sea, whilepromising to implement the plan fairly.
"I think that it gives a lot of freedom to people. I thinkthat all the agencies are fairly comfortable with what ishappening," said UNICEF spokesman John Budd.
"But it can't be done with the wave of a wand. Even in theearly days the government had spoken of three to five years."
In the meantime, survivors are getting on with their lives.
Down in the port area of Banda Aceh, the provincialcapital, fishermen repair their boats with tar and scraps ofwood. Others have set up a fish market.
"One of the things I've found most powerful being in thecamps is simply that people have not let this frustration, thisconcern, stop them from taking the steps they need to regainthe life they had before," said aid worker Bria Morgan of Savethe Children.
Source: Swissinfo - Switzerland
INDIAN OCEAN: Plans for tsunami warning system advancing well, ISDR
Plans for a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean are at an advanced stage, UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) Director Salvano Briceno told IRIN on Monday.
Following a meeting of experts in Mauritius, Briceno said efforts to establish a tsunami early warning system were 'going well', and although the pace of developments around the issue was 'not yet ideal, there was a recognition by donors [attending the conference] that this was an important effort that they needed to support'.
Briceno noted that the plan for setting up the early warning system 'was not yet finalised ... the purpose [of the Mauritius meeting] was to advance on the development of a regional system, that should be adopted in Paris in June'.
'Once the system is adopted by governments, the installation of equipment at regional and national level can begin. That will continue for at least a year, and we expect that the full system will be in place by earliest June next year,' he added.
Donors had already made pledges for setting up the system, but it was still too early to give accurate figures for funding received and expected. 'Today [Monday] is the first working day for governments back from Mauritius and they may be making pledges from today and tomorrow,' Briceno said.
The Second International Coordination Meeting for the Development of an Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System ended on Saturday and focused mainly on the technical aspects of setting up the system.
'In terms of the technical part of it, things are pretty much straightforward - we need sensors in the deep ocean or near the coast of some countries, and then at national level it will depend on each country - some systems just need to be upgraded [while in other cases new systems] must be installed. The difficulties lay in identifying the regional centres for coordinating work in the [Indian Ocean], and that is more a political decision," Briceno noted.
He added that "negotiations would be needed, regarding what role each regional centre will play", and in which countries centres are to be located.
India, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia all wanted to play a key role in "providing that coordination mechanism ... and we don't expect that to be finalised before the end of the year".
"From the UN side we are promoting the idea of providing each regional centre with some function - for example, one will focus on transmission of data, another on research, another on training - so that each centre plays a key role, and the system will be based on several centres rather than just one. India, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia all have good capacity," Briceno pointed out.
Smaller, poorer nations, such as the Seychelles, Maldives and countries on the African coastline, would need additional support to get their national systems up and running.
"Those countries have national capacity development needs that must be taken into account as part of the whole [tsunami early warning] system," he commented.
UN bodies, like the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Development Programme and the ISDR, "have plans to support these national disaster management capacities", Briceno concluded.
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
Monday, April 18, 2005
Seaside Prepares With Tsunami Drill
More than 100 people in Seaside took part in a tsunami evacuation drill Saturday.
Emergency officials tested the warning system, and made sure residents are familiar with escape routes.
Seaside has an advantage over other towns along the Oregon Coast. It has the only full-time tsunami educator, who made this practice run happen.
"This is incredibly important, because of our location on the Oregon coast, we sit at one of the most vulnerable places along our coast," says Darci Connors, Seaside's Tsunami Outreach Coordinator.
Participants in Saturday's drill learned about tsunamis and the damage they can cause, in the wake of the December 26th tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in the Indian Ocean.
When the sirens sounded at noon, everyone walked their evacuation routes and recorded their departure time. Organizers hope the practice will help if and when a real tsunami strikes.
"We want to make sure that if it was a true emergency and we had visitors in the area who didn't know what was happening or scared, that our employees would be educated to give them the proper information to help them get to safety," says Julie Jesse, a local business owner,
Saturday's event was a joint effort between the state and other coastal communities to educate the public on tsunami and earthquake preparedness.
Source: Katu.com - Portland,OR,USA
Tsunami carried bronze Buddha 1,000 kilometres across the ocean
A little bronze-eyed idol to the west of Kathmandu is causing quite a stir.
It's a Buddhist sage, and in mid-December the 5in figure was, like so many in rural Burma, placed in a little decorated kiosk, strapped to a crude bamboo raft and released on to the Irrawaddy river to drift to propitious sites and cast away evil. Down the delta it floated and then, a week or so later, the Boxing Day tsunami struck.
Eight days on, 1,000 kilometres away, fishermen in Tamil Nadu spotted the raft floating offshore, its foil decorations glinting in the sunlight. Nine men set off in a boat to investigate and brought back a crude bamboo raft, lashed together with plastic clothesline and studded with silver-foil flowers.
Its only passenger was a tiny crosslegged metal figure sitting on a plate inside a wooden hut. Three vases, a candle, some coins and a maroon monk's robe with the word 'Burma' stitched on the tag were stashed alongside it.
None of the villagers in Meyyurkuppam, a small Tamil fishing hamlet in southern India, could identify the foreign statue, but two Western aid workers suggested that it looked like a Buddha. Actually, it was a chubby Jalagupta figurine, held holy by Burmese Buddhists. Everything on board the raft was intact, and its arrival coincided with another extraordinary event in Meyyurkuppam - everyone in the village had survived the tsunami. Hence their insistence on pampering what local Hindus have called 'Buddha-Swami' under their biggest banyan tree. Believers credit this floating statue with protecting all 980 inhabitants of Meyyurkuppam. The first post-tsunami cult was thereby created.
One New Age priest reportedly claimed that its power against evil kept a controversial nuclear reactor from leaking radiation along their coastline, sparing tsunami survivors a slow death from cancer. At least 30 technical personnel living close to the Kalpakkam reactor perished in the tsunami, yet the facility stayed intact. More than 16,000 Indians died or are still missing after the huge waves reshaped the Bay of Bengal. No lives were lost in Meyyurkuppam.
"It is a miracle," said Kuppurswamy, the village headman. "We keep a glass of water and a flower in front of the deity every day. We will worship him like we worship our own gods. Our village has accepted it as its own." Last week, as Buddhist images and relics in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and southern China were ritually cleansed during the three-day Theravada New Year celebrations, the tiny Buddhist sage of Meyyurkuppam received ablutions, along with ceremonial offerings of rice sweetmeats. Fairy lights were strung around the new icon. "He will be kept here," said N Padavattan, a local boatman. "We are very happy with the arrival of this god."
"This is part of a wondrous cycle," said Phra Vivek, a Bangkok monk. "Buddhism arrived in the river deltas of South-east Asia in the third century when the Indian emperor Ashoka sent missionaries to the Golden Land. Now the ocean has carried Buddhism back to its source."
K Gurumurthy, from the Indo-Myanmar chamber of commerce, was sent by the Burmese embassy in New Delhi in February to examine the metal figurine, which was at first rumoured to be a valuable bronze dating from the 17th century. He told reporters it had little intrinsic value, but was a commonplace modern statuette, floated in their scores downstream during the rainy season in the Irrawaddy delta. But never has one travelled so far across the sea, and in India and Burma this little statue is considered auspicious.
The villagers have now agreed to move their Buddha-Swami to a pagoda on high ground, because post-tsunami regulations prohibit any construction within 500 metres of the shoreline. Once the state government donates land for a new temple, the building, funded by the Burmese generals, will get under way. Meanwhile, the fishermen's families offer daily prayers to the new Buddha-Swami.
Source: Independent - UK
Friday, April 15, 2005
Women Emerge Stronger after the Tsunami
On April 14, Sri Lankans will celebrate the New Year, but with a difference. Many of them will be performing the ritual of boiling the rice outside their tents instead of their homes. Thousands of families are still homeless, living in temporary shelters along the roadside. Fortunate are those who have got temporary shelters made of tin sheets and wooden planks. But not many have this comfort. The tsunami that struck the coast of Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004, has had a major impact on the social, traditional and customary role of women in the country.
It has not merely reinforced the traditional role of women as home makers, but also given them an opportunity to play a significant role in rebuilding the family in particular and the society at large. In many cases women now bear the responsibility of being a mother as well as the head of the family, trying to make both ends meet.
So far women had a secure, sheltered life in a traditionally conservative Sri Lankan society, where they were confined to the kitchen and supporting the income of the family by carrying out tasks that were either home bound or in another secured atmosphere like a weaving centre or a small grocery shop close to the house.
This was perhaps one of the main reasons for the large number of women getting killed by the tsunami.
According to rough estimates, as gender disaggregated data of victims the tsunami is still not available in Sri Lanka, almost 80 per cent of those killed in the tsunami were women.
Most people who live by the sea are good swimmers, but a majority of women belonging to the fishing community in Sri Lanka do not know swimming. Women are also not taught to climb trees. The lack of swimming skills and inability to climb the coconut trees resulted in loss of lives of thousands of women and children.
Survivors say that the traditional Sarees and tightly wrapped long skirts that most women wear in Sri Lanka prevented them from running away or even attempting to swim or climb the tree.
According to a press report citing village elder Kanapathipilli Soundararajan of Batticoloa District, women made up the majority of the 1,300 bodies recovered in that area. The account of Daisy Lowe, of the Sri Lankan Association of South Wales, tells a similar story. She conducted a count at a camp in Batticoloa and found 1,589 surviving men and boys present, but only around 1,000 women and girls. ("The tsunami's impact on women" ; Oxfam GB Briefing Note)
Even on March 28, during the mass evacuation of people from the coastal areas of Sri Lanka in the wake of an earthquake in Sumatra, which sparked off a tsunami warning in the South and Southeast Asian region, at least 10 people were in road accidents, a majority of them women.
The traditional role of women in the society made them more vulnerable. Had they been taught swimming or plucking coconut from the trees, some of them women could have used these skills to survive.
Described as the weaker sex, women have been deprived of learning skills that could be life saving in the event of disasters like the tsunami.
IMPACT ON WOMEN
Besides the fact that a majority of the 31,000 killed by the tsunami in Sri Lanka were women, as usual they have borne the worst impact of the disaster.
Women feel safe and secure in the confines of their homes, surrounded by their families. The waves shattered their secure lives. Within a matter of 30 minutes three large waves washed away thousands of houses and rendered nearly half a million homeless all along the coastline of the Indian ocean Island.
Having lost their houses, families moved to public buildings and places of worship in search of shelter. The loss of home made women even more vulnerable. They felt insecure in a new environment, which also lacked basic amenities. However, they had to cope with the situation while waiting for immediate relief that was provided by voluntary organizations and philanthropic individuals.
Life has not been easy for women in these temporary accommodations. Aid agencies tried their best to provide toilets and other basic facilities to the displaced population, but this was barely sufficient.
Saraswathi was displaced from the Dutch Bar area of Batticaloa. She now resides in a school building in the town. "There are very few toilets and women have problems accessing these toilets. Moreover, we all have to sleep together and there's just no privacy."
The biggest fear in the minds of displaced women was the lack of security. Most of the temporary shelters provided to the families did not have electricity. After dusk most women and girls were scared to go to the toilet, which have been constructed away from the shelters. The fear of being violated remains supreme in the minds of women.
Non governmental organizations working with women have come out with reports of violence against women in the camps. Some even reported that women had raped in the camps. There were reports of young girls being lured away from the camps on the pretext of providing them with dry ration and clothes. In the southern district of Galle, a woman lodged a complaint of mass rape with the police, but the police have not reported any action on this matter.
To assuage the fears of camp dwellers, the government handed over the security of these camps to the Army, Navy and the Police Special Task Force. After the security forces took over the responsibility, not many reports of rape or sexual assault have been made.
In many far flung camps, men have taken up the responsibility of protecting the women. At Alles Garden Camp in the eastern Trincomalee district, men take turns patrolling the camp. In spite of these arrangements, women still feel insecure because they have lost their houses and also the livelihood.
Though traditionally men are the breadwinners in the family, women too play a significant role in supplementing the family income, while attending to daily chores. Most commonly women run small grocery shops either at their door step or close to their houses. Many women in the fishing community are involved in drying and packaging dry fish. Similarly women are also into making coir products, lace embroidered products and hand crafted items.
Women along the coastline have lost their shops, lace making units and other livelihoods.
Incidentally, women are also one of the biggest foreign exchange earners for Sri Lanka. Thousands of Sri Lankan women are working mostly in the Middle East as house maids and their remittances support the families back home. Many of these women have also become victims of the tsunami, as they have lost their families while they were away in the Gulf countries. Many of them have returned to their families, who are now in camps and temporary shelters. The money these women had sent home to construct houses and provide better facilities for their children to study have been lost to the tsunami.
Ameena left her family three years ago to work in Kuwait. "I had sent money to build a house. My husband got the house constructed and he lived there with our three children and my mother. We have lost everything, the house has collapsed and my mother was taken away by the waves."
Pregnant women and young mothers are particularly disadvantaged because of the difficulty in access to medial assistance.
The worst affected are those women who have lost their husbands, children and in some cases the entire family.
The loss of head of the family has suddenly catapulted these widows into a new role. They have to fend the family and look for a new livelihood. Women from the fishing community cannot go out fishing so they are trying to find some alternative source of income.
Insecurity has driven these widows to take shelter with their relatives. Some of the widow women have moved to adjoining or far away places to live with their relatives. They have been deprived of compensation and the monthly benefits that are paid by the government to the affected families, as they have not registered themselves with the local government authorities. Some women who have returned have been told that they were not present when the authorities were registering the affected families; therefore they were not eligible for the financial compensation and the monthly support payment.
Palliyamma Sinnaiah is in a camp in Batticaloa. The other survivors in the camp keep a watchful eye on this 60-year-old woman because she is threatening to commit suicide. "I was picked up by some people who were in a boat, but I saw my husband and children getting washed away by the sea. Now I have nobody to live for. I have lost my entire family. I have no reason to live."
Many such widows may not get the permanent houses that the government plans to build for all those who have lost their homes. As they are not registered with the district government as beneficiaries, they would not be provided the alternative accommodation.
Widows are forced to depend on other families for assistance. The dependency has also result in insecurity as women do not feel secure when they are to depend on men outside their family. Also some of these women fear that the properties owned by their husbands may not be transferred to them and that the relatives and unscrupulous people would grab the land and other belongings.
Loss of livelihood and changed living circumstances has also increased instances of domestic violence. With mounting alcohol abuse in the camps, women have become even more vulnerable to abuse at home.
THE CHALLENGE
In spite of these odds, women have emerged stronger than men in the post tsunami situation. They are not merely doing the daily chores in the camps and transitional shelters; women are also taking up the responsibility of rebuilding the lives of their family members.
"In the first shelter we built I have visited a few families and I found two men who were completely disoriented. One had lost three children and the second one had lost two children. The men sat staring blankly. Wives of these men seemed better able to cope as they were able to speak,'' (Reflections by Pearl Stephen, Chairperson Women's Development Centre)
The biggest challenge before these women is to cope with the situation, while being the fulcrum of the family. They have to support the children and other members of the family, in many cases elder parents or in-laws.
Women are the nearest and more dependable counselors a family can find immediately. In many families women have begin playing the role of a counselor for their children. Overcoming their own pain and suffering, women patiently listen to their children and advise them.
Coping with the camp life or life in a small accommodation made of galvanized tin sheets and wooden planks is not easy. Its women who spend more time at home than men and children. While men are away looking for employment, women do the housekeeping.
They are also supplementing the income of their families by taking up work at Cash For Work programs launched by aid agencies that are building temporary shelters.
In many families, young girls have taken up the role of mothers for their siblings. They look after the needs of their younger siblings while doing the domestic chores in the absence of their mother, who either works to supplement the family income or was killed in the tsunami.
Some women have taken charge of children who have lost their mothers, this strengthening the social support structure within the camp society.
In Marathamunai area of Ampara district several Muslim women have returned to weaving cloth. Aided by the Women's Development Centre, these women have been able to reestablish their weaving centre, though at a much lower scale and are producing traditional sarees, sarongs, bed sheets and other material at an affordable price.
Here too, widow women are faced with the problem of rebuilding their lives, but most of them have emerged stronger than expected. They have taken charge of the family and are trying to find a suitable livelihood.
The lack of knowledge of law is turning out to be a major handicap for women. Most of them are unaware of their entitlements and laws of inheritance. They face possible exploitation in the courts by middlemen on whom they would depend for completing the legal formalities.
Source: Global Politician - Brooklyn,NY,USA
Three months after the tsunami, government inaction fuels the flame of protest
Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) and member of the CWI International Secretariat, recently returned to London from Sri Lanka.
He visited some of the areas most devastated by the tsunami and spoke to many whose agony has turned to anger.
The tsunami and its terrible aftermath is the overarching issue that still dominates every aspect of Sri Lankan society.
When you visit the devastated tsunami areas, it is not difficult to see why.
Speaking to the victims, in the East of Sri Lanka, as well as on the South coast in the Galle area, the despair mixed with anger at the inaction from the different authorities to their plight is palpable.
Three months after the tragic events of 26 December, very, very little has been done to alleviate the plight of the tsunami people.
A natural disaster has been turned into a man-made one of even bigger proportions.
Visit to the East
At Pottuvil, at the tip of the East of Sri Lanka – populated by Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese – and I am overwhelmed by the individual accounts of what happened on the 26th.
One young man, a fervent supporter of the United Socialist Party (USP), tells us, almost calmly, that four members of his family were killed on that fateful day.
His house is gone; he recognises, however, that the USP does not have the material resources to immediately help him but has something far more important: a programme and a will to struggle on behalf of all the abandoned and neglected tsunami people.
He expresses the growing anger at the ineptitude, mismanagement and outright corruption of many of the agencies and of the Sri Lankan government in not immediately rushing aid to the victims of the wave.
He is so desperate, that he still approaches me privately to see whether I could “help him” to rebuild his house and his family’s life.
And who can blame him, when confronted with the terrible reality of what is taking place in this region and throughout the tsunami affected areas?
These people feel that they have been stranded by the tsunami and abandoned by “their” government and the major political parties. Some of the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have at least done something, although this has barely made a scratch on the scale of the problem.
Houses have been obliterated, a few remnants of walls remain, tents are pitched amongst the debris and rubbish left in the wake of the great wave is still there.
The ‘fortunate’ few are living in ‘temporary’ accommodation – one-room wooden boxes with wafer-thin roofs - while many are arbitrarily removed kilometres from the sites of their original houses.
The majority don’t even have this protection from the elements, forced to live in tents.
It rained heavily on a number of days I was in Sri Lanka and when this happens the tents are soaked, provide no shelter.
Their occupants are forced to flee to more solid shelter in temples and the remaining intact buildings.
‘Help’ from Big Brothers
In Pottuvil, the Indian Army had come in and rebuilt a bridge partially destroyed on 26 December.
Everybody knows this because a huge sign over the bridge proclaims the achievements of the “Indian Army” and its everlasting friendship with the Sri Lankan people.
But why did it require the Indian Army to come here and not thousands of engineers, architects, builders and others to recreate destroyed dwellings? Was this the opportunity for the ‘Big Brother’ to the North and the capitalist powers in the region as a whole to build a ‘strategic’ and military bridgehead in Sri Lanka? The people of this area certainly think that is the case.
The same applies to the United States military, who also intervened. Their primary concern, it is clear, was not to help the victims, who still remain stranded, some of them literally so, like the fishermen, on the seashore.
One fisherman calmly explained to us that he has lost ten members of his family in the tragedy, his house has gone, as has his boat, which was his only means of livelihood.
He hands us a photo of him standing next to his destroyed vessel.
I am numbed by the thought of his pain but he still manages to smile at us!
People around the world rallied in an unprecedented demonstration of human solidarity to help their brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka and elsewhere with more than 300 million from workers, pensioners and young people in Britain alone.
The government and public relief aid was pushed up to reach a figure of over $5 billion.
And yet, from the evidence of our own eyes, not even a trickle of this money has reached the victims.
Chandrika Kumaratunga, President of Sri Lanka, recently declared that the government had so far “not received even five cents”.
Where is the money then? It is buried in the vaults of foreign governments and of some international agencies and charities, it seems.
Forty per cent of all money collected by charities, in disasters like this, is swallowed up by ‘administration’, which is code for the fat salaries for those who head these organisations.
On the evidence of what I have witnessed, it is a lot higher proportionately than even this figure.
But this is not their money! Donations have been given generously so that help would speedily arrive to these people.
They are already traumatised by personal and family tragedies, but their agony is now being compounded by the outright complacency of the ‘authorities’.
On the evidence here, it will take years, perhaps a minimum of ten, before the problems are fully addressed.
How often before has the conscience of the world been touched by a disaster, only then to be forgotten as ‘disaster fatigue’ sets in? This must not be allowed to happen in this case, which touched the whole of the world in a way that no other previous disaster has.
There is still a determination to help the tsunami victims.
But, left to capitalist governments and organisations, this plea will go unheeded.
Visit to the South
This is underlined by another visit we make to the coast just south of Colombo going towards Galle in the ‘deep south’.
The scenes of devastation along this coastline stretch from the sea for hundreds of metres, sometimes up to a kilometre inland, and is something which even my generation has not experienced first hand.
It conjures up images of war disasters, when cities were razed to the ground or of the television pictures of Grozny, or even the destruction of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Where houses stood there are just foundations, practically every building has been destroyed with just shells remaining, illuminating the colossal power of the tsunami.
We stop at a spot near Galle where the remnants of the Colombo to Galle express was lifted by the great wave and thrown hundreds of metres inland.
A few wagons have been put back on the lines – the track has been rapidly rebuilt – and is a source of curiosity for visitors who have been ferried to the site in buses.
Important as this is to remind people of the tragedy which has transpired, the views of those ‘living’ around the train are more important.
Their plight is both tragic and shocking as an example of the continuing complacency towards those lives which have already been shattered.
Most visitors don’t engage these unfortunate people but we speak to a woman sitting outside her new ‘home’, a shack, albeit of new wood. She speaks very quietly and says her name is KPW Rani, aged 49.
Before the 26 December, there were six members of her family: herself, her husband and four children – three sons and one daughter.
Three of her children were killed on the day of the tsunami: her only daughter and two sons.
We asked her if she had any photographs of her children and she said at first, rather quietly, that the “authorities had asked the victims not to show photographs of those killed in the tsunami”.
She gingerly produces an envelope and shows us the photographs of her dead children, two handsome young men and a beautiful young woman of 17.
‘Compensation’
The government has given a grant of 5,000 Rupees (£25) to the head of every household whose home has been destroyed by the tsunami.
In addition to this, R2,500 (roughly £13) has been supplied to purchase kitchen utensils.
The tsunami victims receive R375 (just over £2) a week for the three people in this household.
It is made up of R200 in cash and R175 in goods.
She complains that she sometimes has to queue for six hours for the weekly rations and then the rice that they are able to buy with such little money is inedible.
They are also confronted with big rises in the cost of living.
An old man joins us, Agossingno aged 85, whose wife was killed and is virtually sleeping out in the open.
Another woman, M.Dulari just over the ‘road’, from a wooden hut joins the discussion.
She had a shop which was blown away in the tsunami and has no means of livelihood, but there are no proposals of any means of compensation from the government. There are “lots of injustices here”, she says pointing to the banner of a building contractor which dangles from a coconut tree and she complains bitterly that the contractors have “not done a good job”. The tsunami did not take members of her family but she was swept one kilometre inland by the wave.
We were joined by her son who complains bitterly that the water supply on the ‘camp’ is not kept clean.
His wife says that loudspeaker vans asked them to go to the banks to receive compensation but when they got there they were refused any help by the banks.
There is a real danger of illness and epidemic in areas like this because of the dead bodies which still remain in the undergrowth as a result of the tsunami.
Mahinda, from the USP, who has played a key role in the launch and success of the “Voice of the Tsunami People” – the newspaper and the movement developing in the South, asked the young man if they have taken any collective action or if a committee exists to represent them and air their grievances.
He says no, but he would be prepared to organise structures like this, such is the anger now felt by the tsunami people.
Devagoda meeting
This is again expressed very forcefully at our next stop, just up the coast in the village of Devagoda, in the region of Ambalangoda.
This is a village of 56 families.
The organiser of the meeting and a key person in the village, is the ex-head of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the party of President Chandrika, in the area.
He has now left this party to join the USP.
One of the reasons for this decision is the inaction of the government and the preparedness of the USP, through the ‘Voice of the Tsunami People’ to mobilise people to achieve their rights.
Following this meeting, he was visited by three SLFP thugs who beat him so badly he was hospitalised for three days.
They told him they did it because he was campaigning against the SLFP with the tsunami people.
The meeting place was charmingly situated under a constructed awning with initially 15-20 people gathered.
But as the meeting progressed it filled out with over 100 there at the end.
The villagers complain loudly that R5,000 had been promised to all those affected by the tsunami yet they have not received it and face discrimination.
Why now are some people inexplicably receiving a grant and others, like them, not? Out of 56 families, 25 have not received any money whatsoever.
The main income of the village is through a cottage industry involving the ‘hairs’ of coconuts that are turned into rope, which in turn are manufactured into mats etc.
On the night following the tsunami, 15,000 people were crammed into the local temple, their houses had been damaged and yet the government refuses to compensate them.
With the help of the USP, the villagers have organised picket lines and are now prepared to take further action in April.
The ‘Voice of the Tsunami People’ will be organising demonstrations throughout the affected areas with a mass march on Colombo later if the government does not act.
Release the funds!
The working people of all countries, who have donated so generously to the tsunami appeal, and in particular labour movement activists across the globe, must support those who are trying to change this shameful situation.
The Sri Lankan authorities should be bombarded with complaints and pressure put on them to release the funds to help the victims.
Foreign governments are quite clearly holding back resources as a means of pressurising the Sri Lankan government to carry through brutal neo-liberal policies, involving privatisation, which ultimately will compound the problems of the Sri Lankan people.
The labour movement internationally should also be prepared to step up help for their brothers and sisters still affected by the tsunami.
It costs £1,000 to replace a fisherman’s boat and there are 1,000 fishermen in the Ampara district, involving the area of Pottuvil, who have been affected.
The transport and maritime unions for instance could a long way to help these victims with funds.
But why aren’t the resources of the Sri Lankan state and society poured into emergency measures and put at the disposal of the people of these regions? They are not begging but demanding that, if necessary, they will rebuild their own houses so long as the government supplies the bricks, the mortar and other resources to do this.
What about the 20 per cent of Sri Lankans unemployed, who could be mobilised in a massive reconstruction programme? This does not take account of the colossal fund of goodwill internationally which exists to help the people in these regions.
Young people, workers and others have volunteered and will continue to do so in order to help the Sri Lankan people.
But rotten capitalism, with its endemic corruption, mismanagement and waste of resources, will not rescue the tsunami people.
Only organisations like the USP, the ‘Voice of the Tsunami People’, the Sri Lankan working class and its organisations can begin to mobilise the victims of this natural disaster to change the situation by mobilising the power of the working class and poor people to force the government to act and free the funds already collected.
These organisations deserve the widest support from the British and international labour movement.
Source: Socialist Party - UK
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Lanka thanks Pak for tsunami aid
Sri Lanka has thanked Pakistan for providing training to its military personnel and assistance during 'moments of great distress'.
Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar thanked Islamabad for its assistance when a 17-member delegation from the Pakistan National Defence
College called on him on Monday, a Foreign Ministry statement here said on Wednesday.
'The Foreign Minister added that Sri Lanka was grateful for the training facilities provided by the Pakistan defence colleges where Sri Lankan armed forces personnel received training every year.
'He also noted with gratitude, Pakistan's generous and instant assistance during moments of great distress to Sri Lanka, this he said would remain in the collective memory of the Sri Lankan people,' the statement said, apparently referring to Pakistan providing multi-barrel rocket launches and heavy ammunition when Tamil Tiger rebels almost captured the northetn peninsula of Jaffna in 2000.
Source: Hindu - India
Clinton pledges to undertake task of special envoy on tsunami relief
Former US President Bill Clinton pledged at the UN headquarters on Wednesday to work hard to undertake the task of UN special envoy on tsunami relief.
'We have a moral obligation to build these areas back better than they were before the crisis began,' said Clinton, who was originally announced as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery on Feb. 1, but failed to meet the media till now first for his initial mission to the devastated area on behalf of US President George W. Bush and then for the health reason.
Clinton praised UN officials for their 'terrific job' in emergency relief and recovery so far, saying the mission, if done right, could serve as a template for other humanitarian disasters as in Sudan's western Darfur region, where millions faces hunger and disease after being uprooted by fighting, and in Somalia.
'As we move from relief into recovery and reconstruction, the most difficult period is upon us,' he declared, citing the need to rebuild homes, restore jobs, replace fishing boats, reconstruct sanitation facilities and rehabilitate roads.
He admitted that it is more difficult now than it was in the beginning, but pointed out that as these countries come up with their plans.
'My job is to ensure first of all that the money which has been committed by the donor countries be invested, that we assure the donors that it is spent effectively, responsibly and in a transparent manner,' he noted.
But it is also necessary to coordinate the work of the United Nations, governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to build back the areas better than before, and to establish a list of 'best practices' for early warning systems and disaster mitigation, he added.
'Now, if we do all these things then we will have a model which not only the United Nations, but the NGO community and the world can use in future crises," he said, emphasizing that he would make sure the finances that have been promised are provided and that the money is "well spent and accountably spent."
"No one could possibly be better qualified," Annan said when formally introducing to the media his special envoy to head UN operations spurring recovery in the dozen Indian Ocean countries devastated by December's tsunami.
Among Clinton's tasks will be to ensure that donors not only pledge but disburse the money needed for recovery and reconstruction, and that it actually reaches the communities who need it most, as well as mobilizing support for a regional early warning system and disaster mitigation mechanisms, he added.
"It's vitally important that we have someone capable of sustaining international interest in the fate of the survivors and their communities, and someone with vision and commitment to ensure that this time the international community really does follow through and support the transition from immediate relief to longer-term recovery and reconstruction," Annan said.
Source: Xinhua - China
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Royal Watch: Prince Andrew To Visit Tsunami Victims
Britain's Prince Andrew is set to visit areas affected by the Asian tsunami.
The Duke of York, who is Queen Elizabeth's second son, will jet out to Thailand to meet with aid workers who have been helping British and Thai victims of the December tragedy.
The prince is also expected to be introduced to Foreign Office staff and British police officers who have been working on the relief effort in the region since the disaster struck more than three months ago.
During the two-day trip, Andrew will visit coastal resort, Phuket and the Thai capital, Bangkok where many of the tsunami's British victims had been staying.
Earlier this year, the duke's older brother, Prince Charles, also made a brief visit to the region to see how the recovery process was developing. The newlywed prince, who married former mistress Camilla Parker Bowles at the weekend, spent a day touring Sri Lanka to witness the devastation caused by the disaster, as part of a month-long tour of Australia and south-east Asia.
An aide said at the time: "It's a country for which he has a particular affection.
"In the wake of the disaster he has been anxious to do what he can to help. He has been receiving briefings on what's going on and has given generously to the appeals."
Source: FemaleFirst.co.uk - Ashton-in-Makerfield,Wigan,UK
Meeting for tsunami early warning system in Indian Ocean to be held in Mauritius
Representatives from Indian Ocean countries affected by the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami and other countries and experts on early warning systems will gather in Mauritius on Thursday for the second international coordination meeting for the development of a tsunami warning and mitigation system for the Indian Ocean.
The meeting is co-organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).
'We need to act quickly and have an early warning system operational as soon as possible in the Indian Ocean,' Salvano Briceno, director of the ISDR secretariat, told reporters here.
'The earthquake that struck Indonesia on March 28 is a timely reminder of what we might expect in the future. Some geologists are suggesting that these earthquakes along the Sumatra fault line could be part of a domino effect triggering further large earthquakes and tsunami,' he added.
Following the previous meeting held in Paris in March, Indian Ocean countries and international partners have created a partial tsunami early warning system, by beefing-up ocean observing systems and national tsunami warning capacities, and by making specific arrangements for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii and the Japan Meteorological Agency in Tokyo to transit warning information to national contact points in the region.
'The partial system worked well in the March 28 event but a lot more needs to be done to establish a fully fledged system that meets the needs of the participating countries, a point that will be addressed at the meeting in Mauritius,' said Briceno.
'Now is the time to turn the promises to support a tsunami warning system into cash and to build a good system that will be running smoothly by the end of 2006 -- if not before," he added.
The meeting in Mauritius will discuss how national tsunami warning centers can work in a regional operational framework, clarifying the responsibilities of countries and national, sub-regional and regional centers to ensure an effective tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean.
Source: Xinhua - China
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
ADB grants $300 million for tsunami-hit Indonesia
The Asian Development Bank said on Monday it had approved a $300 million grant for Indonesia -- its biggest grant ever -- to help rebuild parts of the country devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami.
The Indonesian provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra were among the areas hardest hit by the massive Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that killed some 126,000 people on Sumatra island alone and left more than 500,000 homeless.
'Restoring normalcy is key to helping people to get over their trauma, but the cost and challenges of rehabilitation and reconstruction are phenomenal,' Shamshad Akhtar, director general of the ADB's Southeast Asia Department, said in a statement.
The damage in Indonesia had been estimated at $4.7 billion in a joint assessment by the government and the international donor community, the ADB said.
The bank said the $300 million grant came from its Asian Tsunami Fund. The money would be used for restoring essential public services, rebuilding infrastructure and reviving economic activity and livelihoods.
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
ISRO readies mapping satellite for tsunami warning system
BHOPAL: By the first week of May, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch Carto 1, a satellite with a unique stereoscopic imaging, which will help with high resolution mapping of the entire continent.
Cartosat, with a capability of 2.5m resolution, will be followed by the Insat 4A, the heaviest launch built by India, ISRO chairman Dr G. Madhavan Nair said on Monday at the inauguration of the Master Control Facility (MCF) at Ayodhya Nagar. "The Ariane will ship it (Insat 4A) by the end of July," Nair said. These will be followed by the launch of PSLV and GSLV from Sriharikota.
Nair added that ISRO, in tandem with other agencies, would try to put in place systems that could provide speedy warning on the tsunami. "Frankly, there is little the ISRO could have done to warn about tsunami.
It is basically the detectors on the ocean or at bottom, which can pick up the signals and relay them on to the satellites so that an effective warning is issued. We are now working in association with other agencies to put in place such a mechanism. Maybe in a year-and-a-half, such a system will be in place," said Nair.
Nair said the MCF here, comprising Satellite Control Centre, Satellite Control Earth Station and a power complex, will complement the MCF at Hassan to support the operational requirements because of increasing number of satellites in the INSAT system.
"MCF-Bhopal will offer the same radio visibility cover advantage as that of MCF at Hassan," said the ISRO chairman. The primary function of MCF-Bhopal, he said, would be continuous health monitoring of the geo-stationary satellites.
"Special operations like station-keeping, management of eclipse operation, payload operations to suit the requirements of the INSAT users will also be carried out from here,” he said.
The location of this facility will enable the in-orbit testing of satellites, especially for their spot beams coverage, he said. Simultaneous satellite-ranging from MCF at Bhopal and Hassan, separated by a distance of 1,000 km, will improve the accuracy from the present five km to about 150m.
“This increased accuracy in satellite organist determination will help in co-locating three or more satellites at the same orbital slot,” he said.
Source: Newindpress - Chennai,India
Monday, April 11, 2005
Donations become mundane but life-saving tsunami aid
Surrounded by wood shavings, a 50-year-old Indonesian named Martunis is busy nailing sheets of tin and spreading tar onto the hull of a wooden fishing boat lying by the Indian Ocean.
All of the materials, down to the tools and the blue tarp shading him from the baking sun - were donated by Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based charity, which is paying him $3.50 a day to mend boats that were damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that struck on Dec. 26.
Martunis, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, is only vaguely aware where the aid is coming from; he can barely pronounce the words Mercy Corps, and doesn't know it's headquartered in the United States and Scotland.
But as he cups an aromatic clove cigarette in his gnarled hands, Martunis says he's grateful.
'We don't know what would have happened if nobody had come to help us,' he said.
From noodles and rice to shovels and ice, the unprecedented outpouring of money for disaster victims is being spent to keep survivors healthy and slowly breathe new life into their crippled economies.
UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund, has vaccinated more than 200,000 Indonesian children against measles and distributed a million sachets of oral rehydration salts to treat diarrhea sufferers.
It has given out nearly 33,000 family sanitation kits, each costing $15, of basics such as soap, toothbrushes and sanitary napkins.
And just as the emergency phase of their work was winding down in Aceh, the hardest-hit province of Sumatra island, UNICEF and others scrambled teams again on March 29, for another huge earthquake that shook northern Sumatra and a string of smaller Indonesian islands.
Aceh, where more than 126,000 people died, tens of thousands are missing and more than 400,000 are homeless, has had help from all over the globe.
A delegation from Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, funded by the city and Turkish citizens, is sweeping streets in the devastated city of Banda Aceh and has even shipped in a bakery that turns out 10,000 loaves of bread each day.
British-based Oxfam is employing thousands in cash-for-work programs in Aceh ranging from home-building to hat-weaving. It distributes women's underwear and teaches villagers to harvest rainwater.
Red Cross staff from Sweden, Austria and tiny Macedonia are helping provide clean drinking water.
Outside the Holy Heart Catholic Church, one of only a handful of Christian churches in strictly Islamic Aceh, an Austrian Red Cross filtration plant pumps murky, gray water out of city pipes and the Krueng Aceh river and turns it into more than 26,000 gallons of safe drinking water each day.
Effective sanitation along with clean drinking water have been key to preventing major disease outbreaks that experts initially feared could double the death toll.
Tanker trucks take thousands of gallons of water each day to outlying villages and survivor camps, and the Red Cross has set up 12 faucets by a busy city street.
Ten-year-old Zulhairian Musfi Kar pulls up on his battered bicycle and begins filling two plastic jerrycans and the discarded jug from a water cooler, which he'll send home in one of the scooters with sidecars that serve as taxis in these parts.
"This is water for my family; we have nowhere else to get it," he says. "I come here every day before school to pick it up."
Some of the help is costly. The Austrian Red Cross, which raised more than $26.5 million, most of it from private donations, reckons its water filtration unit will cost as much as $1 million for a four-month deployment in Banda Aceh.
On the other hand, just $200 enables Red Cross workers to buy and install a well and hand pump that provides water for 110 people.
Often, national arms of the charity apply for government funding for their relief operations, but after the tsunami, many local Red Cross appeals were inundated with private donations.
"In this particular appeal, the outstanding thing is that the majority of funding has come from individuals," said Virgil Grandfield, a spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the umbrella group for national Red Cross and Red Crescent groups.
The suffering in Aceh province is still on an epic scale. Even three months after the disaster thousands of families remain crammed into stifling tents in cramped camps, surviving on water and meager rations.
U.N.-linked organizations are funding their tsunami programs from a $977 million appeal launched by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to which governments sent taxpayers' dollars, but also from private donations.
By mid-March, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF had already given UNICEF $92.6 million, most of which it received in online donations by Americans.
Cash poured into the Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services so fast that it stopped seeking donations for the tsunami in February. To date, the charity has received more than $126 million.
Just outside Meulaboh, some of that money is being put to work helping survivors put temporary roofs over their heads.
In a field close to the remains of dozens of shattered homes, workers from CRS and another Catholic group, Caritas Australia, are assembling kits made up of 20 bags of cement, corrugated zinc sheets, a saw, shovel, carpentry tools and boxes of nails which families can use to build temporary shelters. They cost $450-$500 each.
Indonesian authorities controlling long-term reconstruction are going to need a whole lot more help in coming years.
Private U.S. donations have topped $1 billion and President Bush has asked Congress to provide $950 million.
But former President Bill Clinton, a special U.N. envoy for tsunami recovery, has said reconstruction costs could reach $12 billion — several billion dollars more than the total donations and pledges by governments and citizens.
Jan Egeland, emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations, said 90% of the money Annan asked for in January has been received and mostly spent providing food, shelter and medical help for tsunami survivors. The U.N. World Food Program gives survivors rations of rice, noodles, fish, cooking oil and fortified biscuits.
"It is the first time in the history of U.N. flash appeals that we have got the money so fast," said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman in Geneva for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "We had a really quick response and real generosity."
It doesn't always work that way.
When a powerful earthquake killed 26,000 people in the Iranian city of Bam in December 2003, donors promised $1 billion. A year later, Iran said it had gotten only $17.5 million.
While the vast majority of aid is getting through in Aceh, there have been isolated allegations of supplies going missing — some families not getting enough rice, officials inflating casualty lists to get more government money and soldiers illegally charging fees to escort relief convoys. There are rumors that government officials will award lucrative reconstruction contracts to relatives.
"I think isolated is the key word," U.N. envoy Erskine Bowles said of the corruption claims after a recent visit to Aceh.
"I think any time you had a disaster of this magnitude, affecting this many people and with the great outpouring of support from the world community, whether it happened here or in Europe or in Africa or other parts of Asia or Latin America or North America, that you would have some isolated incidents of money not ending up where it was intended to," he added. "The key is, are you setting up the right accounting, the right transparency so that you can prevent the vast majority of it?"
Indonesia has sought to allay suspicions by using international accounting firm Ernst & Young to watch over its spending. The company declined to comment on its work for the Indonesian government.
PricewaterhouseCoopers says it has donated 8,000 hours of advisory services to the United Nations to ensure the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by the world body are not wasted or siphoned off.
"The U.N. expects to direct most of these services toward following up on credible allegations of misuse of the funds," the company said in a statement.
"I'm sure there will be cases of possible mismanagement, mishandling, but I'm sure also there will be many allegations that may not be correct and that's why it's so good to have this kind of investigative tool, because we can quicker, I think, confirm whether there is something wrong or we can confirm that it's actually nothing wrong," Egeland said.
Cash-for-work programs are springing up all over Aceh. Survivors whose livelihoods were destroyed are earning a few dollars a day clearing streets, picking up corpses, rebuilding homes and planting coconut trees. Oxfam has paid villagers $4 a day to clear the remains of their settlement, still littered with the remains of lives snuffed out — CDs, a pink satin dress, splinters of wood that once were homes.
Mercy Corps is employing about 4,500 survivors in and around Meulaboh — getting the region's fishing fleet back on the water and putting fresh fish on dinner plates.
Its next step — to buy a $28,000 ice-maker to preserve fishermen's catches.
Source: USA Today - USA
No tsunami after Indonesia earthquake
A 6.8 magnitude e earthquake struck Sunday about 70 miles from Padang, Indonesia, but it did not trigger a tsunami.
People on the island of Sumatra, which was one of the hardest hit areas from the massive Dec. 26 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, felt several aftershocks following the Sunday earthquake, but all had magnitudes lower than the original earthquake, according to Indonesia's meteorological agency.
A spokesman for the meteorological agency said the earthquake and aftershocks caused panic, but there were no reports of deaths or injuries, CNN reported.
The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake occurred at 6:29 EDT, and was centered 570 miles west northwest of Jakarta.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not issue a tsunami warning, but said in a bulletin, Earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a few hundred kilometers of the earthquake epicenter.
Source: Big News Network.com - Australia
Friday, April 08, 2005
Thais may take 5 years to identify tsunami victims
It may take up to five years to put names to the 2,547 unidentified victims in Thailand -- half of which are believed to be foreign tourists -- of the December 26 tsunami, a senior official said on Thursday.
An international forensic team, undertaking what is believed to be the biggest victim identification project in history, had identified 1,176 bodies since it began work on January 13, police colonel Pornprasert Ganjanarintr told Reuters.
'It will take at least another two to five years to finish identifying these bodies,' said Pornprasert of the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification centre on the resort island of Phuket.
Thailand's official death toll from the Indian Ocean disaster stands at 5,395, of which 1,953 are believed to be foreigners. A further 2,929 people are listed as missing.
The forensic operation, involving Interpol and at least 20 other national police forces, uses fingerprints, dental records and DNA put names to the bodies.
Pornprasert said families of people reported missing were being slow to come forward with sufficient 'ante mortem' data for matching against samples taken from the corpses.
'We are slowing down now as it is getting more difficult due to insufficient information from the relatives,' said Pornprasert, who told Reuters in February it would take up to six months to identify 4,000 tsunami victims.
The pace of releasing identified bodies has dropped to about 10 a day from 20 to 40 over the last few weeks, he said.
Decoding DNA from tsunami victims in Thailand, many of them tourists, has been harder than expected, Derek Forest, a British detective in charge of the operation, said last month.
Forest said labs in China, which took the first batch of samples for genetic fingerprinting, and then Europe and the United States, were struggling because decay set in so fast it had damaged the genetic data in tissue samples.
Pornprasert declined to break down the identified victims by nationality but another official at the centre said Swedes were the largest group with 351 victims, followed by 323 Germans, and 105 Finns.
Source: New Zealand Herald - New Zealand
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Tsunami Relief Concert to Benefit CARE
The Owls Head Transportation Museum and Island Institute in Rockland have announced that proceeds from the upcoming ?Tsunami Relief?A Benefit Concert? featuring Livingston Taylor will be donated to CARE. The concert will be held Saturday, April 23 at the Owls Head Transportation Museum. ?Our goal is to put funds raised into the hands of an organization where it will have the most direct and long term impact,? said Owls Head?s Executive Director Charles Chiarchiaro. ?CARE meets that criteria.?
Livingston Taylor has agreed to donate his performance fee to the fundraising effort. One hundred percent of all ticket proceeds will go toward CARE?s on-going tsunami relief and reconstruction programs.
?It's appropriate that the working waterfront communities of Rockland and Owls Head are reaching out to help those who make their living on the water in similar island and coastal communities thousands of miles away,? said Philip Conkling, President of the Island Institute. ?The need is great, and we are grateful to Livingston Taylor for providing such a wonderful opportunity to help in a meaningful way.?
Following the December 26 tsunami that caused massive devastation in the coastal areas of countries in the Bay of Bengal, CARE established an Earthquake and Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation Fund with a fundraising goal of $50 million.
Monte Allen, Senior Director of CARE?s Boston office, noted his agency has more than 50 years experience responding to large-scale natural disasters. ?We?ve had programs in the tsunami-affected countries for decades,? he said. ?This enabled CARE to mobilize quickly and to deploy resources wisely.? Allen went on to say, ?CARE has made a long-term commitment to the people of those countries and will continue to work with them long after the cameras have left. He added, We are very grateful to people of coastal Maine for their solidarity with the coastal people of South Asia during their time of need.
Tickets for the concert are $20 each and are available at the Owls Head Transportation Museum, the Island Institutes Archipelago gift shop in Rockland and Harbor Audio Video in Camden. Tickets may also be purchased by phone by calling the Owls Head Transportation Museum at 207-594-4418.
Livingston Taylor began performing in the early 1970s. He has produced a number of albums as well as a couple of top 40 hits including I Will Be in Love With You and First Time Love. He is presently a professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
The Owls Head Transportation Museum is located on Route 73 in Owls Head, three miles south of Rockland. For information call 207-594-4418 or visit www.owlshead.org. The Island Institute is located at 386 Main Street, Rockland. For information call 207-594-9209 or visit www.islandinstitute.org. For more information on CARE visit their website at www.care.org.
Source: Waldo Village Soup - ME,USA
World Bank tsunami aid
The World Bank is ready to provide $553 million for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of tsunami-hit areas in India, the bank's country director Michael Carter told reporters today.
Addressing a meeting of the Financial Writers' Forum, Carter said disbursements of the assistance are expected to begin in May this year. "It would take two or three years to complete the reconstruction and rehabilitation work," he added.
Carter drew a parallel with the rehabilitation of the Gujarat earthquake victims, which had also taken two to three years to complete.
He said the bank had in conjunction with the government of India, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and UNDP carried out a an assessment to evaluate the level of assistance required for reconstruction. While a summary of the report had already been submitted to the government, a more detailed report would be submitted this month.
Immediately after the tsunami, the Indian government had announced that that it was not seeking any outside help with immediate relief. It had mobilised major relief operations and also extended help to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.
On January 10, the government wrote to the World Bank and to ADB seeking support for rebuilding infrastructure, both public and private, for the rehabilitation of the affected areas and developing disaster prevention and management systems for the future.
Source: Calcutta Telegraph - Calcutta,India
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Thousands gather in Indonesia to remember tsunami
Thousands of Indonesian survivors of the Asian tsunami joined a prayer ceremony yesterday to mark 100 days since a massive quake and the huge waves it triggered left more than 220,000 of their countrymen dead or missing.
More than 5000 people gathered for Muslim prayers and Koran readings at a mosque in Ulee Lheue. The seaside residential area on the outskirts of Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh province, was almost completely washed away by the December 26 waves.
'For me, this ceremony has an important meaning because I lost many relatives. This is also a tradition for Acehnese people to pray for those who have died,' said Ismail, 34, a survivor of the catastrophe.
Officials said thousands more were expected at the mosque at the ocean's edge in the province, where about 500,000 people lost their homes and many now stay in makeshift camps.
Teuku Pribadi, head of the committee organising the event, told Reuters 25,000 invitations had been sent out.
'With this ceremony, we pray for those who died in the tsunami and we pray for the living to have strength,' he said.
Daily aftershocks have rattled the region on Sumatra island and on March 28 another massive earthquake struck.
Although there was no tsunami this time, the 8.7 magnitude quake devastated a string of islands off Sumatra's west coast and is believed to have killed as many as 2,000 people, according to officials.
Much of the aid focus has shifted from Aceh to the new emergency.
The US navy hospital ship Mercy, which had wrapped up operations off Aceh and was in East Timor waters, arrived off the coast of hard-hit Nias island yesterday, joining the supply vessel USNS Niagara Falls, an Australian navy ship and a host of others from Indonesia and various International relief agencies.
"We have returned to Sumatra to help our Indonesian friends in any way we can," said Captain Mark Llewellyn, commanding officer of the Mercy's medical treatment facility.
On Nias, more government offices and private shops reopened yesterday, in signs that life was slowly returning to normal despite the lingering stench of death in some areas.
But many people, even those with their homes intact, continued to sleep outdoors, worried about aftershocks.
In one marketplace surrounded by rubble in the centre of Gunungsitoli, the island's main town, some meat and vegetables were on sale.
"We're trying to get a clearer picture on the road network, which ones we can use," Francois Desruisseaux, a United Nations logistics coordinator, told Reuters.
Until it was known which roads were passable, priority would still be on air and sea transport to distribute aid, he said.
More heavy equipment was arriving to help clear the rubble but there were few hopes of finding survivors.
"The longer you go, the slimmer the chance of finding anyone," Peter Scott-Bowden, UN team leader in Nias, told reporters on Monday.
The latest official government count of the dead from the quake is 564, more than 500 of those on Nias. Official figures count only recovered bodies. Many of the areas affected are isolated and it could be weeks before final figures are known.
Source: Stuff.co.nz - New Zealand
Dirty face of tsunami relief
There is an overriding sense of being hard done by. "Why can't they provide the same relief - at least the rice and cash - to we Dalits as they have to the fishermen?" asks a Dalit woman in Nagapattinam, the Tamil Nadu district worst hit by the December tsunami.
The woman, her face shrunk and wrinkles all over her forehead, is one of the hundreds in the coastal tract who were dependent on inland fisheries. They now barely manage to eke out a living by "catching prawns with their hands" while the males in their families work as daily wage labourers for the upper-caste fisherfolk.
"If anything, our votes are much more than the fishermen and yet nobody from the government has bothered to come to us," the old lady fumes.
These scenes are part of Caste 'e' Away, a 30-minute documentary on the discrimination against Dalits during tsunami relief and rehabilitation.
The scene then cuts to a desolate long culvert on which a state transport bus whizzes past. The commentary by actor-turned-filmmaker Revathy zooms on another tragic facet of exploitation of Dalits in tsunami relief works - transporting thousands of Dalits from all over Tamil Nadu as conservancy workers to remove the dead from the devastated hamlets of fisherfolk.
The film, produced by the Chennai-based Dr Ambedkar Centre, aims to highlight the ugly side of tsunami relief and rehabilitation in the state to sensitise the administration at Fort St. George and in New Delhi to the caste-based discrimination even in a human tragedy of mammoth proportions.
The Tamil Nadu government should first redefine the concept of "affected person" in the context of the December 26 tsunami, said Ilango, the president of the Dr Ambedkar Centre.
Fisherfolk are identified as the affected people. Other groups dependent on mainstream fishermen were given initial relief of Rs 2,000 in cash and 60 kg of rice for “livelihood loss”; but they are poorer than the fisherfolk and are mostly Dalits.
“There are also hundreds of landless agricultural labourers among these Dalits,” asserted Ilango. Coastal cultivated lands have become unfit for cultivation until salinity levels are brought back to normal, which can take up to five years. The government must “enlarge the scope of the definition of affected people” and also extend the same concessions to them — such as construction of houses — as are being given to fishermen, he said.
The fishermen were given subsidy for buying new boats and other affected Dalit groups should also be provided with various means of livelihood, he said.
Ilango said copies of the film will be sent for screening before the state and national-level scheduled castes and tribes commissions to seek remedial measures.
Source: Calcutta Telegraph - Calcutta,India
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Chan to visit tsunami-hit areas in Indonesia; celebrity show raises US$4.8M
Jackie Chan said Monday he will visit tsunami-hit areas in Indonesia this month, as he announced that a star-studded charity show he helped organize raised $4.8 million US for the aid effort.
Chan and his entourage hoped to tour hard-hit Aceh province on April 18-20, but details of his itinerary weren't available, said actor Eric Tsang, who planned to travel with Chan. A separate celebrity group planned to visit Sri Lanka at an unspecified date.
The Jan. 7 charity concert featured Hollywood action star Jet Li, Hong Kong singers Jacky Cheung and Andy Lau and Taiwanese pop diva Chang Hui-mei.
Donations poured in for more than two months after the show, organizers said in a statement.
Chan said he was impressed with the result and proposed making the show a permanent annual event to start up an emergency fund for other disasters.
'I'm very happy and proud that small Hong Kong captured the attention of the world this way,' he said. 'Some Hong Kongers didn't just donate once, they donated more than three times.'
Tsang said the donations would be evenly split between five charities: the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the United Nations Children's Fund, Oxfam and World Vision.
The money will fund projects including reconstruction, helping fishermen and orphans, as well as psychological counselling for people who lost loved ones, Tsang said.
Chan vowed to closely monitor how the funds are being used. 'We will follow up ... We won't just call it a day after donating the money. This is a 10-year project,' he said.
The Dec. 26 tsunami, the result of a massive quake off Indonesia's coast, killed more than 126,000 in Indonesia and at least 48,000 others in 10 other countries on the Indian Ocean rim.
Source: National Post - Canada
Kerala : Film on tsunami completes trial in Thiruvananthapuram
A short film on the Asian tsunami named "The Waves" which captures the horrors of the aftermath of the disaster was screened on Saturday here.
The film portrays the December 26 tsunami tragedy through the eyes of a teenaged girl orphaned by the colossal killer waves.
The one-and-a-half hour long movie has been directed by Mohan Roop and features in Malayalam.
Roop said that it was a tragedy that the mankind was going to remember for years to come and the thought about the victims moved him to make a story of the disaster.
"We had not even heard about the tsunami before December 26. After the disaster we visited all the places in Kerala. That time people came out in large numbers to help them but we find that after one or two weeks nobody is there to help them. We visited some schools also. We found some students who had lost their kith and kin. We thought about them and from those thoughts the film came out," Roop said.
The story unfurls through the eyes of Ammu played by Muktha, a14-year-old who loses her parents and friends in the disaster. The film begins with a quick look at Ammu's life, the daughter of a fisherman.
On the day the disaster struck, Ammu is away from home and learns of the massive destruction from television. The film courses through the subsequent life of Ammu and several others like her.
Mary John, an actress in the film, said that the movie gave her a chance to portray a character defeated by fate, which provided her an opportunity to satisfy her creative urge.
"This is my first film. I liked the theme very much. I feel that my character is very good, but ultimately the people will judge my performance in the film. I am very much satisfied with the film," John said.
The December 26 tsunami triggered by an earthquake measuring more than 9.5 on the Richter, off the Sumatran coast near Indonesia, left behind a swathe of death and destruction across South and South East Asia with more than 16,000 dead in India alone. (ANI)
Source: New Kerala - Ernakulam,Kerala,India
Monday, April 04, 2005
Temporary tsunami alert system goes live
A temporary tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean came into operation yesterday.
So far only six countries in the region are in a position to receive the information from the new system. The six have not been named, but are believed to include Singapore and Sri Lanka. The plan is to extend the system to 25 countries, including Australia, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
In the aftermath of the December 26 tsunami the Indian Ocean countries agreed to set up their own early warning system.
But that could take years to set up, so the two most experienced existing tsunami warning centres - Japan's Meteorological Agency and the US' Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre - have stepped in and said they will provide temporary cover.
Source: New Zealand Herald - New Zealand
Quake, tsunami can hit Asia again
Sydney: Whatever happened to last Monday's dreaded tsunami?
According to Keiji Doi of the Tokyo University Earthquake Research Institute, the size of a tsunami depends essentially upon two factors: the volume of seawater above where the quake occurs and the extent of the movement.
"This quake occurred in much shallower waters because the area is a continuation of the Sumatra land mass, so less water was displaced," according to Doi.
The epicentre of Monday's earthquake, that measured 8.7 on the Richter scale, was about 90 kilometres South of Simeulue, off Sumatra's western coast and just north of Nias.
Doi says the waters there were probably about 100 to 200 metres deep, compared to the ocean above the December temblor off Sumatra's Aceh, which is about ten times that depth.
He also says the ocean floor heaved across a much larger area in the December quake - about 2,40,000 sq km compared to 30,000 sq km in last Monday's quake.
"The amount of water impacted was on a completely different scale," Doi says.
The December magnitude 9.0 quake spawned killer waves, with a height of over 30 metres, that hit a dozen countries and left more than 2,80,000 dead or missing.
According to seismologists at Northwestern University in Denver, USA, last year's temblor measured 9.3 on the Richter scale, was more than twice as powerful as originally estimated and the second biggest quake ever recorded.
The highest wave recorded on Monday was off Salalah in Oman, and measured 30 centimetres.
According to the Tokyo Earthquake Research Institute, other quakes of magnitude eight or higher had occurred previously in this region in 1833, 1861, 1907 and 1941.
"Along such an active fault line,” according to Doi, “there is always the possibility of another big one — a tsunami.”
The Australian newspaper, The Australian has quoted tsunami expert Ted Bryant of the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, as saying that the Indian Ocean region could be rocked again “within days ... sending a tsunami surging towards Australia, and elsewhere.”
Source: Mid-Day Mumbai - Bombay,India
Friday, April 01, 2005
Southern California tsunami could cause $42 billion damage
A new University of Southern California study, which appears in the April edition of Civil Engineering magazine, finds that the potential damage from a tsunami in Southern California could range from $7 billion to as much as $42 billion. The report is the first attempt to calculate possible losses from tsunamis, as opposed to earthquakes, in the Southern California area.
Entitled "Could It Happen Here?" the article builds on research by Jose Borrero, assistant research professor of civil engineering, and Costas Synolakis, professor of civil engineering, at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering regarding tsunamis caused by underwater landslides in unstable sediments off Palos Verdes peninsula. Synolakis is director of the USC Viterbi School Center for Tsunami Research.
A tsunami in this area could inundate Terminal Island and much of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, as well as producing substantial run-up on Orange County beach cities, with maximum waves arriving only one minute after the slide. Municipalities potentially affected include Carson, Long Beach, Wilmington/San Pedro, Palos Verdes Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes, Seal Beach, Westminster, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Hawaiian Gardens, and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
The study uses methodology co-created by one of the authors, Harry W. Richardson, who holds the James Irvine Chair in Urban and Regional Planning at the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development, with a PPD colleague, Professor Peter Gordon. This scheme breaks down Southern California into 308 zones, whose individual contribution to the area's economy is noted in detail, along with their economic connections to other zones.
Researchers used an improved version of the system, called the Southern California Planning Model, to incorporate effects caused by damage to the highway system. James Moore II, who is a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Civil Engineering and Public Policy and Management at the Viterbi School, worked with Richardson on the application of the model to a tsunami.
"We have not attempted to account for the cost of fatalities in our estimates," said Moore. "We chose not to model fatalities because we were being deliberately conservative, and because we wanted to avoid contentious assumptions about the economic value of life." Moore noted that "the Papua New Guinea tsunami of 1998 was generated by a mechanism similar to the one modeled here, and that event cost over 2,000 lives. The toll here could be much higher."
The study assumed four possible scenarios, of increasing severity. In scenario 1, losses were confined to inundated areas, with no freeway links closed, and no crippling damage to the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach.
The following 3 scenarios assumed escalating problems, with a worst case being closure of critical freeway links and the ports for one year, forcing the shipment of $83 billion in exports now going through these facilities elsewhere.
The study also breaks down direct losses by municipality, with Long Beach suffering some $3.6 billion in damage, by far the largest for any single city.
The authors note that these losses, significant as they are, would be only a part of a general picture of damage. The most likely trigger of a landslide off Palos Verdes would be a large earthquake -- which itself would produce billions in damage.
"However, it is important to remember that these tsunami costs would be incurred in addition to earthquake costs," the authors note.
Source: PhysOrg.com - Evergreen,VA,USA
Japan starts tsunami system for Indian Ocean countries
Japan on Thursday launched a stop-gap plan for alerting Indian Ocean nations of impending tsunami: it will send them a fax within half an hour, an official said.
After the December 26 Asian tsunami, Japan and the United States - the world's most advanced in tsunami warnings - have said they will monitor earthquakes and tsunami in the Indian Ocean and notify countries until a new regional network is up and running.
Using data from its seismographs and buoys in the Indian Ocean, Japan's Meteorological Agency has agreed to fax to Sri Lanka and Singapore information on quakes bigger than magnitude-7 and possible tsunami within 30 minutes of the initial tremors, an agency official said on condition of anonymity.
The network, which may be expanded later to include a total of 25 countries, was being tested when a magnitude-8.7 quake hit off Indonesia's Sumatra island late Monday, the official said.
The agency managed to fax information to 11 Indian Ocean countries and local authorities then ordered residents in coastal communities to flee to high ground, the official said.
Among the countries and territories to which Japan's Meteorological Agency has offered to supply information are India, Australia, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mozambique, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Tanzania and Thailand.
Indian Ocean countries and territories will receive a separate alert from the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. They are trying to build a system by mid-2006.
Source: The Hindu News Update Service
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