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Thursday, June 30, 2005
Private Sector Takes A Look At Tsunami Reconstruction And The Billions Behind It
Billions of dollars in financing to restore the livelihoods of those affected by December's tsunami are in the hands of donor governments and aid organizations. And as they draw up plans on how to allocate the funds toward long term reconstruction, the private sector is keen to show off goods and expertise they believe could be useful in recovering from the crisis.
'We do know there's a lot of work to be done,' said Edward Farren, a private consultant in Saint John, New Brunswick, whose niche is to oversee that large construction contracts are built to contract specifications and with proper materials. 'But one of the problems is that so many people rushed in to help. Only now are the plans being put forth, and we're trying to figure out if there could be opportunities.'
Dozens of business executives from mostly Eastern Canada, Quebec and Ontario gathered in Montreal last week for the 'Partners in Reconstruction Conference,' tag-lined 'Do YOUR share to help natural disaster victims!' The purpose of the one-day session, organized in part by International Trade Canada, was to educate businesspeople about the humanitarian side of disaster recovery. But it was also designed to introduce aid agencies that received large volumes of cash, such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and World Vision, to corporations hoping to sell products or win contracts.
'I think that we've been largely ignoring each other until now,' said Mia Vukojevic, humanitarian coordinator for Oxfam Canada. 'It's just that for us, it's the people first. And we need them to understand that even though we may need some of their products we are not profit driven. We don't think like that.' She mock confided: 'We don't really trust them.'
Ms. Vukojevic said that copious corporate relief in the wake of the tsunami is appreciated, but that it should come with an understanding that there are no strings attached. "I'm not sure that many of them understand that just because this is Canadian money doesn't mean that the money will stay here. If it's not as effective to purchase here in Canada than we won't do it. And in most cases it's hard to see why we'd buy Canadian when we can boost economic development by getting it [in the affected communities] and it's going to be cheaper. Even if it's from China you can ship it for less."
Still, businesses are putting out their feelers.
Ron MacDougall, owner of MacDougall Steel Erectors in Charlottetown, P.E.I, is shopping around the layout for homes made from a special fibre product native to the island province that, he says, stands up in any weather conditions. He learned from an early age that the private sector has a big role to play in developing nations. He grew up in Africa with his father, a missionary, who built hospitals from materials purchased from private suppliers. "Someone has to get paid for the materials, even if they are donated later along the line," he said.
The market potential for Canadian business is almost impossible to analyze but International Trade Canada is preparing market studies, said Leigh Wolfrom, a trade commissioner with International Trade Canada, and its point person for corporate Canada's involvement in post-tsunami relief.
The launch pad will be "needs assessments" for individual countries, including the hardest hit of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, prepared by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other organizations, he said.
"There have always been parts of the Canadian private sector involved with humanitarian relief. But Canadians generally haven't pursued (post-tsunami relief) as a commercial opportunity," he said. The revival of public service infrastructure is the biggest opportunity for Canadian industry. For instance, Banda Aceh in Indonesia had been closed to foreigners for almost 20 years, and as such there is a need for water and sanitation facilities that didn't exist before December.
"The biggest challenge that Canadians face is that their technology level is more than can be afforded," said Mr. Wolfrom. For instance, initial estimates show that the average cost to build low-cost housing in the region will be about $5,000 (US).
Consider Eli Ronen, president of Can-Do International in Mississauga. Early this year, he dusted off blueprints for garage-size row homes that he'd developed for the Indonesia market in the mid-90s but had been prevented from pursing because of political instability in the country. He said his plan relies on the use of local labour and supplies, which all governments and aid agencies agree is a must, and could produce up to 50 to 75 shelters "affordably."
Or consider Hugh MacKay, a sales rep with Intermap Technologies of Ottawa. He said the development of a database that charts out the geographic changes to the tsunami-affected landscape is an area his company could become involved. Mr. MacKay said he's hoping to balance "serving the public good and being responsible to shareholders" by hanging onto the intellectual rights of mapping information but selling licences to governments at a low cost "It behooves the commercial sector not to be profit driven in a disaster. But we have a role to play (even though) we are looking at commercial value," he said.
Some say the best business Canadian citizens can offer at this stage is tourism through a straight injection of cash into the region.
The $425 million in public funds isn't tied to Canadian procurement.
Louis Musto, program manager in the International division of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, is dealing directly with Canadian building suppliers and manufacturers of factory built homes that "don't know how to access (tsunami reconstruction contracts.) Most market studies indicate that in the short tem the emphasis is on local skills and labour to help rejuvenate the country. But in the long-term there may be opportunities for Canadian companies. We're not sure how or if we can." But he noted that "NGOs are on the frontlines and we're learning from them."
The Tsunami Private Sector Working Group led by International Trade Canada involves numerous federal departments. It is mandated to explore commercial opportunities for Canadian companies. It set up a 1-800 hotline for business inquiries and helped compile sector reports.
Source: Embassy - Ottawa,Ontario,Canada
Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System Taking Shape
Countries around the Indian Ocean are setting up tsunami warning systems to try to avoid a repeat of the massive loss of life last December 26. The United Nations is coordinating efforts to establish a regional network over the next year.
Loudspeakers and shrieks of horror were often the only warnings people had last December when the tsunami engulfed communities and lives along the shores of the Indian Ocean.
A magnitude nine earthquake off Indonesia's Aceh Province triggered the massive waves, which took just 30 minutes to make landfall in Aceh. Two hours later, it had raced across the Indian Ocean to devastate communities in Sri Lanka.
In all, more than 200,000 people died or disappeared in the tsunami, across 12 countries.
Almost immediately, coastal residents along the Indian Ocean questioned why they had not received adequate warning. In Thailand, the chief of the bureau of meteorology was fired and the government quickly joined regional commitments to establish a tsunami warning system.
UNESCO officials recently discussed details of such a system in Paris, with representatives of all the Indian Ocean nations.
Salvano Briceno, who heads up the United Nations disaster reduction unit, says 'It has been agreed so far that it would not be a single center but rather a network of centers - given the complexity of early warning systems.'
Officials hope the network will include centers in all 27 Indian Ocean countries.
Mr. Briceno says good progress has already been made on the technical infrastructure for early detection of tsunamis, but he says there is more to the job. 'Early warning systems cannot just stop at the technical part� but rather they should also help in mobilizing the populations and in triggering all the disaster management capacities in each country,' he says.
Thailand is working hard to do its part.
In May, the Thai government opened a $2.5 million national disaster warning center north of Bangkok, with links to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, Japan's Meteorological Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey.
It is one of several such centers in the region acting together as an interim Indian Ocean network, until the planned one is in place.
Within minutes of an alert from Hawaii's facility, officials in Thailand can warn the public through messages to mobile phones, telephones, faxes, and the news media.
The center is also linked directly to sirens on Phuket Island, which was badly hit in December. There police and navy personnel stand ready to evacuate residents and tourists.
Samith Dharmasaroja, a meteorologist and a government adviser, says the Thai center hopes to sharpen its capabilities. "We are satisfied with our performance right now but we have to improve our center. We have to upgrade our center to become a regional warning center - this is our goal in the future. Right now we can give an early warning 20 minutes after the tsunami occurs, but we will improve our warning to less than 10 minutes, so people have enough time to escape," he says.
The Thai government says upgrading the national disaster center will take six months to a year.
The United Nations says it aims to have all the national warning systems operating as a network by July 2006 at cost of up to $50 million.
But UNESCO's regional representative in Jakarta, Stephen Hill, says that is a bit optimistic. "This is a longer-term project - there are some estimates a basic system may be in place by perhaps the middle of next year, but it is really going to take a bit longer to really put into place and train the people beyond that," he says.
There also has been some division among governments over which country should host the main warning center and how it should be set up. That debate has slowed the project.
Indonesia was the country hardest hit by the tsunami. More than 160,000 people were lost there - most of them in Aceh Province.
Mr. Hill says an effective warning system will go a long way toward easing the public's concerns. "In Aceh, people need to be prepared or feel that they're prepared, to give them confidence. I mean, people are really scared and you can see this - they're really afraid and so it's very easy to generate panic from almost nothing," he says.
Indonesia, he says, remains vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis because it sits near major fault lines in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Those fault lines ensure that it is not a question of "if" another earthquake or tsunami will strike the region - only a matter of "when".
The warning systems now being developed will provide a vital grid of communication that was absent when the tsunami struck six months ago.
Source: Voice of America - USA
Monday, June 27, 2005
Sri Lanka's JVP for legal action against tsunami deal
The JVP or the People's Liberation Front, a former main ally of Sri Lanka's ruling coalition, said Sunday it would take legal action against the government's joint deal with the Tamil Tigers for tsunami relief co-ordination, reports Xinhua.
JVP leader Somawansa Amerasinghe said his party would file a case in court against the government's move.
The JVP had June 16 walked out of the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga protesting against the joint mechanism deal, known as post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS.
Amerasinghe said the P-TOMS agreement was worse than the ceasefire agreement signed in February 2002 with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by then prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
He charged the Kumaratunga government with recognizing a purported administration run by the Tigers in the northeast by its action to enter the P-TOMS agreement.
The Sri Lankan president has withstood mounting opposition from the JVP and the Buddhist clergy against her move, which she says would form the basis for resumption of the stalled peace negotiations with the LTTE.
Norway has been brokering a peace process between the government and the LTTE but the talks were stalled in April 2003 after six rounds.
Source: Webindia123 - India
Asian Tsunami Survivors Look Back at 6 Months of Suffering
Nations around the world are remembering the catastrophic tsunami that devastated a string of Indian Ocean countries six months ago Sunday.
The event was touched off December 26 by an enormous underwater earthquake off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island. The quake triggered massive waves that pounded coastlines in scores of countries, including Thailand, Sri Lanka and India and as far away as Somalia.
The disaster claimed more than 175,000 lives and left nearly 2 million people homeless.
Indonesia, which suffered the worst damage and heaviest casualties, held a ceremony Saturday to mark the half year since the earthquake and tsunami.
Elsewhere, survivors are recalling their stories and mourning those who lost their lives in the event.
The United Nations says the next six months will focus on reconstruction in affected countries - including rebuilding thousands of homes, buildings and infrastructure. Aid efforts will also look to putting thousands of people back to work.
U.N. estimates say reconstruction will take five to 10 years.
So far, the international community has pledged about $7 billion for reconstruction efforts.
Source: Voice of America - USA
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Tsunami donations break record
The unprecedented public response to the Asian tsunami has led to the Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal reaching a record-breaking €400 million, it was announced yesterday.
The amount is eight times greater than the previous record of €50 million raised for Kosovo six years ago. Although the appeal was closed in February, money is still being donated. It will be spent over the next three years, with €150 million allocated to this year and €250 million for the next two.
Charities working in the affected regions urged patience yesterday, saying there was still 'a mountain to climb' as they moved from providing emergency relief to the long-term reconstruction phase.
This year, €57 million will be spent in Indonesia and projects will include constructing safer permanent homes, providing health care and counselling, operating clinics and helping vulnerable people, such as orphans. In Sri Lanka, €44 million will be spent on projects that include the reconstruction of communities and roads. In India, €36 million will be spent.
A feared downturn in donations from the public for other disasters in the wake of the tsunami had not materialised, the charities said yesterday.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk - London,England,UK
Tsunami girl home after 6 months lost
THE last time Muhammad Ali saw his daughter, she was heading off to visit relatives in the Acehnese coastal town of Meulaboh. Then the Boxing Day tsunami struck and the wiry, balding carpenter did not know whether she had lived or died.
Living in a refugee camp after his home was destroyed, Mr Ali spent months wondering about her fate and weeping. But then yesterday, Sri Handayani, 16, walked into her father's arms, sobbing.
Six months after the disaster struck, government welfare workers and the UN children's agency, UNICEF, had helped track down father and child for an increasingly rare reunion.
In the chaotic aftermath of the tsunami, thousands of children were separated from their families. Currently, UNICEF has about 1,900 children registered who remain separated from their parents. Most are living with extended family members, but about 100 are with strangers who are fostering them, said a spokeswoman, Lely Djuhari.
A database was created to help keep track of children affected by the tsunami and, when possible, reunite families. UNICEF plans to keep tabs on all the cases until the children are 18, but special attention is being focused on the children who are without family.
Cases of reunification with parents are very rare, said Ms Djuhari.
In the case of Sri Handayani, she went to Meulaboh to visit her aunt's family a week before the disaster. When the earthquake hit and the tsunami crashed into the house, she ran outside, only to be swept into the pounding water which carried her to the second floor of a neighbouring house. She regained consciousness to find the body of her four-month-old cousin beside her.
'At the time, I thought the tsunami had only attacked Meulaboh. I didn't know my village near Banda Aceh was destroyed too ... I was crying all the time and tried to find my family," she said.
Most of Meulaboh was levelled and about a quarter of its 100,000 residents killed.
Mr Ali was on his way to work in Banda Aceh when the tsunami struck. When he returned home, he found only shattered remains. He later located his two sons, aged six and 11, who had been carried to safety by neighbours. But his wife and another daughter are still missing, feared dead.
Source: Scotsman - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Thai tsunami orphans crave love and affection
Six months after the Indian Ocean tsunami swept away her parents and home, Suwanee Maliwan has a new one-room house courtesy of the Thai army, but is still too scared to live in it.
'I don't want to move back to my house by the beach because I'm afraid of another tsunami,' said the shy 12-year-old, who lost 21 relatives in the Dec 26 disaster. 'People have been saying another one will come by the end of the year.'
Instead of moving back to the concrete buildings hastily thrown up by Thai troops in this devastated fishing village, she and hundreds others are chosing to stay far from the sea in a shanty-like temporary housing camp.
More than 1,000 people share just 20 toilets in the former tented village, where thin plywood walls are all that seperate families and corrugated iron roofs all that protect them from the blazing sun or pouring monsoon rains.
At night, the air is thick with mosquitoes and fresh water is scarce, but fear of the sea is too strong for both Suwanee and her 61-year-old grandfather, Hin Temna, a fisherman who says he will never again return to the sea.
'I'm too scared to fish. If I get some money I would like to open a convenience store in my house,' said Hin, who is trying to shepherd his granddaughter through the trauma and loneliness on the money he earns as an odd-job man in the village.
Suwanee and her grandfather received 40,000 baht ($1,000) from the government in compensation for the death of her parents, and an additional 20,000 baht for property damaged by the waves.
The pair have put the money aside for Suwanee's education, for which they will also receive from a special Thai army scholarship programme for orphans who lost both their parents.
MEMENTOES
But her mind is still stuck on the past, in particular her parents, who went to sea one morning six months ago never to return. Their bodies have never been recovered.
Suwanee has tried to keep mementoes of her mother and father -- floor tiles from the family home, a notebook with jottings about her loved ones. Unfortunately, these too have disappeared.
"I'm really upset that I lost the tiles from my house because they were chosen by my mother and they really reminded me of her," she said.
"I'm afraid that over time I will forget things about my parents. I want to remember everything. I used to write things down in a notebook but I lost that too."
At a children's centre in the temporary housing camp, Suwanee joins in the singing and dancing lessons but -- more than the other children -- craves the love and affection she can never again get from her parents.
"She is very quiet and withdrawn," said Rotjana Phraesrithong of the Duang Prateep Foundation, a charity working with tsunami victims in Thailand, where 5,395 people are thought to have died.
"When she sees me hugging other children she comes to hug me because she misses her mum. She craves warmth and wants me to talk to her and show her affection," said Rotjana, who is trying to coax her out of her shell.
Occasionally, she smiles and gives glimpses of hope that one day she might fulfil the wishes of forever absent parents.
"I would like to study hard and be a doctor. That's what my father wanted me to be," she said.
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
Tsunami Twenty20 sells out
Big stars unite again
Tickets for all public sections have sold out for Monday afternoon's Twenty20 match between an Asian XI and an International XI at the Brit Oval, which was set up to raise money for victims hit by last December's Tsunami.
The game should bring in a record crowd since the ground's redevelopment at the Vauxhall end in which the capacity of the new OCS Stand was boosted from 18,500 to 23,000.
Sales and Marketing Director, Paul Blanchard said:
'It's great to see so many people wanting to see top class cricket. We experienced excellent crowds last year but now, with all improvements in the Brit Oval finished, which include the new OCS Stand at the Vauxhall End, crowds will only get better.'
Souther Africans Graeme Smith and Heath Streak have been forced to pull out of the match due to injury.
Both men were set to play in the International XI but have been replaced by other southern-hemisphere stars. New Zealand all-rounder, Scott Styris comes into the team along with Australian Test and One-Day player, Greg Blewett.
The International XI will be captained by Brian Lara who will play against an Asian XI lead by Rahul Dravid.
The match is raising money for the Oval Cricket Relief Trust, which has been set up with the intention of donating money to the rebuilding of a village in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami last December.
Brit Insurance, sponsors of Surrey County Cricket Club and the Brit Oval have been instrumental in the setting up of the event, donating half a million pounds to make the event possible.
Surrey County Cricket Club held a successful Asia against the Rest of the World game on 29 July 2000.
Asia team: Rahul Dravid (captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara (wicket-keeper), Mahela Jayawardene, Virender Sehwag, Mohammad Kaif, Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralitharan, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble.
World XI team: Brian Lara (captain), Andy Flower (wicket-keeper), Stephen Fleming, Greg Blewett, Adam Hollioake, Scott Styris, Shaun Pollock, Shane Warne, Chris Cairns, Makhaya Ntini, Dominic Thornely.
Source: Cricket365.com - Australia
Monday, June 20, 2005
Sri Lankan children to see performance of 1854 tsunami tale
Three members of a Kobe-based volunteer group will visit primary schools and temples in southern Sri Lanka in areas hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami caused by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra to perform a story based on the real events of an 1854 earthquake off what is now Wakayama Prefecture.
Akitoshi Gion, 71, and two other members of the volunteer group Warabe will leave for a seven-day trip to Matara and another city in Sri Lanka on July 7.
They will show illustrations and tell the story of a man who saved his fellow villagers from a tsunami that occurred after the 1854 earthquake. The man, who lived on a hill, burned hundreds of bales of harvested rice plants to attract the attention of villagers and warn them to escape from the coming tsunami, which swept away their village after they had safely escaped up the hill.
The volunteer group performed the story in December and January as part of a series of events related to the U.N. World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe.
While the group members were considering performing the show in tsunami-hit areas, they were introduced to Gnanalankara, a Sri Lankan priest who lives in Itami, Hyogo Prefecture, in April through a nongovernmental organization in Kobe. The encounter helped make their idea a reality.
Source: Daily Yomiuri - Tokyo,Japan
Tsunami aid may help resurrect peace talks, says LTTE official
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka's plan to share $3bn in international tsunami aid with the Tamil Tigers could help jumpstart peace talks that broke down two years ago and left the island's two-decade civil war in limbo, the rebels say.
But the government - which senior officials say will formalise the aid-sharing pact in days - must also agree to discuss the Tigers' long-standing demands for interim self-rule in the north and east, S P Thamilselvan, the leader of the rebels� political wing, said.
"Most certainly we welcome such a gesture from the government to sign (the joint mechanism)," Thamilselvan said in a weekend interview in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) northern stronghold of Kilinochchi.
"But having said that, just signing the agreement is not going to pave the way for peace talks. Implementation is the most important aspect," he added.
"Immediately after implementation, if sincere action is taken, well and good, it will open the way for the peace process." His comments were in stark contrast to rebel warnings earlier this month that government delays in signing the aid pact, which is still pending nearly six months after the tsunami hit, risked plunging the island into a - very serious and dangerous - situation.
Resumption of peace talks would be the most significant step in Sri Lanka's protracted peace process since talks broke down in 2003, just a year after the warring sides agreed to a ceasefire.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga's government split in two over the aid plan on June 16, when her hardline Marxist ally quit the ruling coalition in protest and reduced it to a hamstrung minority in parliament. But the government is expected to limp on for now.
The Tigers have signed off on a draft of the Norway-brokered aid pact — under which committees comprising rebels, government officials and Muslims can recommend, prioritise and monitor projects — and say there will be no more negotiation.
“It has taken a final shape. It has taken so much time ...
If this is going to be again subject to negotiation, of course that will be futile and would be wasting time,” Thamilselvan said.
Tens of thousands of tsunami survivors on both sides of the island’s ethnic divide are still living in tents and shacks and surviving on food handouts, and donors want some of the aid to be spent on repairing ruined towns and infrastructure flattened by years of endless shelling.
Aid-sharing will also help build confidence between the state and the Tigers, whose war for self-rule killed more than 64,000 people up until the 2002 truce, ravaged swathes of the island and choked the $18bn economy by scaring off foreign investment.
Such confidence building could help eventually bring the rebels into Sri Lanka’s political mainstream, analysts say.
“The tsunami (pact) as we see it, is only a mechanism intended to deliver immediate humanitarian relief,” Thamilselvan said. “But this can definitely help build confidence.” “If that could lead to going into mainstream politics, well that’s a welcome sign,” he added.
The aid mechanism will initially last one year and can be extended later if both sides agree. LTTE have asked Sri Lanka not to "politicise" tsunami relief, but said working with Colombo to distribute foreign aid could help build confidence among the warring parties.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they invited Colombo to jointly distribute relief to survivors of the December 26 tsunami but regretted that six months later the government has still taken no action.
"It is purely for the administration of post-tsunami aid. If they try to introduce politics or politicise it, we are afraid the mechanism will get disrupted," Thamilselvan said.
Source: Peninsula On-line - Qatar
Friday, June 17, 2005
Sri Lankan Lawmakers Quit Over Tsunami Aid
Marxists lawmakers quit Sri Lanka's governing coalition Thursday over the president's plan to share tsunami relief with ethnic Tamil rebels, weakening the ruling party's hold on power, although it was not expected to cause an immediate collapse.
The deal supported by President Chandrika Kumaratunga would set up a government-rebel body to ensure billions of dollars in aid is distributed to all tsunami-hit areas, including in the Tamil-majority north and east, parts of which are controlled by the rebels.
The Dec. 26 tsunami killed more than 31,000 Sri Lankans and displaced about a million. While a 2002 cease-fire is still largely holding, the rebels have complained that tsunami assistance has not reached Tamil areas quickly enough.
The People's Liberation Front opposed the joint aid plan, arguing it would legitimize the rebels' agenda for a separate Tamil homeland on this island nation just off India's southern tip.
``We leave with a sense of deep regret for work not completed,'' Somawansa Amerasinghe, the Marxist party's leader, said in announcing the decision to drop out of the governing coalition. ``Our earnest request to safeguard the integrity of the country fell on deaf ears.''
The Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam began fighting in 1983 for an independent homeland for the Tamil minority in the north and east, claiming discrimination by the Sinhalese majority.
Kumaratunga contends the aid deal presents a golden opportunity to forge a lasting peace with the guerrillas and permanently end a war that killed about 65,000 people.
Senior presidential officials said Kumaratunga planned to refer the aid-sharing proposal for a vote in Parliament as early as next Wednesday.
The Marxists' withdrawal of 39 lawmakers left the ruling coalition with just 81 votes in the 225-member Parliament.
But analysts predicted the main opposition group, the United National Party, would not try to bring down the government soon and force elections.
Kumar Rupasinghe, who heads an independent research institute, said the UNP probably would wait at least until November, when the next budget is to be presented to Parliament. But he said no major government business will get done, which could hurt the tsunami recovery effort.
The UNP urged Kumaratunga on Thursday to go ahead with the aid-sharing deal, although it declined to say whether it would vote for the plan.
``She must have the courage to follow her convictions,'' said the party's spokesman, G.L. Peiris.
Source: Guardian Unlimited - UK
Quake spurs brief Calif. tsunami scare
SAN FRANCISCO -- A powerful earthquake jolted the ocean floor off the northern California coast, triggering a brief tsunami warning that saw thousands of residents evacuate a community hit by a killer wave four decades ago.
The feared tsunami did not materialize, and there were no reports of significant damage or injuries.
The 7.0-magnitude quake struck at around 7:50 p.m. Tuesday, 300 miles northwest of San Francisco and about 90 miles southwest of the coastal community of Crescent City, where a 1964 tsunami killed 11 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
A tsunami warning was briefly in effect from the California-Mexico border north to Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
The tsunami siren system in Crescent City was activated at 8:14 p.m. and continued for about 40 minutes, Del Norte County Sheriff
Dean Wilson said. About 4,000 people -- mostly from Crescent City -- were evacuated.
Wilson reported some minor traffic accidents but no injuries. He said it was the third evacuation he has taken part in during his 27
years in law enforcement.
1 resident stays put
The evacuation served as a tsunami drill for Crescent City following December's devastating wave in the Indian Ocean.
''You have a short time frame to deal with it,'' Wilson said. ''We had approximately 20 minutes to evacuate, and we cleared out about 4,000 people. There was some disruption of phone service, which hampered the effort. But we had a great response from volunteers, local enforcement and the CHP [California Highway Patrol].''
The only tsunami on record that has caused deaths on the West Coast struck Crescent City with 20 feet of water and leveled 29 city blocks on March 28, 1964.
That tsunami, caused by the Good Friday quake in Alaska, also was blamed for more than 100 deaths in Alaska and four people in Oregon. The wave also caused damage in San Francisco Bay and at the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors.
Some of the evacuees Tuesday were tenants at the Surf Apartments, a senior housing complex that once was a hotel badly damaged by the 1964 tsunami. At least one resident chose not to leave.
''I told them I'd stay with the ship,'' said Jack Wheeldon, 77. ''I stayed right in my room and watched my movie.''
Wrong motion
Witnesses felt buildings shaking along the northern California coast.
The quake didn't have the right motion to cause a tsunami, geologists said.
It appeared to be a ''strike-slip'' type of quake, ''so the motion was horizontal, not the vertical displacement that typically leads to a tsunami,'' said Ved Lekic, a seismologist at the University of California Seismographic Station in Berkeley.
The area hit is where the North American, Pacific Ocean and Juan de Fuca plates converge, and it generates earthquakes of this magnitude about once a decade, said Lucy Jones, scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey office in Pasadena.
The USGS reported many aftershocks in northern California following the initial quake, but none were significant.
The quake was similar in strength to the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake of 1989 that killed 40 people and caused about $6 billion in structural damage in the Bay Area.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago,IL,USA
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
If big quake hits off coast, tsunami could be gigantic
If a giant magnitude 9 earthquake strikes someday along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, or if, against all odds, an errant asteroid plunges into the ocean many miles off California, a monstrous tsunami could drown low-lying lands all up and down the continent's western edge -- and now a UC Santa Cruz scientist has calculated the sweep of such an event.
Spurred by the tragedy of December's great Sumatra quake and the hundreds of thousands of deaths claimed by the waves that swept across the Indian Ocean, geophysicist Steven Ward has estimated the heights that a similar quake-spawned tsunami would reach, running up along the shores from British Columbia as far south as the tip of Baja California.
'We need to know what the tsunami dangers are along any coastal area,' Ward says, 'and as our instruments and technology and modeling techniques improve, so we can refine our ability to forecast what might happen.'
Using knowledge gleaned from evidence of a magnitude 9 quake in the Cascadia subduction zone some 300 years ago, the behavior of last December's Sumatra quake, careful scrutiny of detailed ocean bottom data all along the Pacific Coast and what he calls 'the laws of water physics,' Ward has created a hazard map that shows what may happen should another major quake hit the same area in the future. The Cascadia zone is a region where the eastern edge of a great undersea slab of the Earth's crust, called the Juan de
Fuca Plate, is continually diving beneath the west edge of the North American Plate and thrusting the continental side of the crust upward.
To model the event's effects, Ward assumes that in a huge quake on the Cascadia subduction zone, the two crustal plates would abruptly slip apart vertically by at least 50 feet in three successive blocks from south to north, generating a 9.2 magnitude quake. Aside from enormous quake damage on land for hundreds of miles, Ward estimates the resulting tsunami would pile a wave more than 20 feet high crashing onto the Oregon-Washington coast, inundating Seattle and the entire Puget Sound region as well as Portland and the mouth of the Columbia River.
Crescent City in California's Del Norte County -- where a smaller tsunami killed 11 people in 1964 after a magnitude 9 Alaska quake -- would see a wave of more than 11 feet, and the tsunami sweeping the coast at the Golden Gate and Monterey Bay would be more than 10 feet . At Santa Barbara, Ward calculates, the wave height would be 6.5 feet, and smaller waves would crash against the shore as far south as the tip of Baja California.
"These calculations are still rough," Ward concedes, "but they do indicate a level of danger that needs to be considered."
The evidence of the great temblor 300 years ago was discovered along the coast of Washington and Oregon by Brian Atwater, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist in Seattle. And Japanese scientists deciphering old tsunami records in their coastal towns calculated that the event had sent a major wave speeding across the Pacific in 10 hours to damage many coastal villages on Honshu, Japan's main island.
Another giant earthquake is nearly a certainty in the unstable coastal regions of Oregon and Washington, but many scientists are also considering the effect of an event that would have no precedent in recorded history -- and have concluded that an even greater tsunami might be generated if an asteroid were ever to plunge into the ocean off the West Coast.
Russell "Rusty" Schweickart, the Apollo 9 lunar module commander who is now a retired businessman in Tiburon, has created a foundation with the intention of persuading government agencies to plan for the possibility of an asteroid impact in the ocean -- admittedly, the astronaut says, no more than a 10,000-to-1 chance, but one that could wreak havoc on coastal communities. The specific asteroid that worries him most has been designated by NASA astronomers as 2004MN4, and it is expected to pass within 26,600 miles of Earth less than 25 years from now.
Scientists at NASA's Near Earth Object Program, which tracks the course of some 70 comets and asteroids that appear to be headed somewhere within thousands of miles of the Earth, calculate that 2004MN4 should make its closest approach to Earth on April 13, 2029, when it will be vividly in sight for everyone on Earth to watch. But a collision with Earth is impossible that year, they have reported -- and, they say, "no subsequent Earth encounters in the 21st century are of concern."
Schweickart, however, has concluded there is a remote possibility that the asteroid would collide with Earth in 2036. He and his foundation are urging Congress to send a spacecraft to the asteroid before 2014 to put a radio transponder on the object, which would define the asteroid's trajectory far more accurately than any other technique.
"While the probability of a highly destructive impact in the immediate future is slight," Schweickart says, "the consequence of such an occurrence is extreme, and mitigation efforts should begin now."
Schweickart enlisted Ward to determine what kind of tsunami might be created if the asteroid did crash in the Pacific in 2036.
And Ward's calculations indicate a tsunami from the crash would be far more devastating than anything known in history: Peak wave heights, he said, would reach 17 feet in southern Alaska, more than 55 feet all along the California coast, 15 feet in Hawaii, and 20 feet at Puerto Vallarta, the Pacific beach resort in Mexico.
Schweickart maintains that if the transponder were to indicate the object's course makes a collision more likely, there could then be time to conceive, plan, design and launch some kind of unspecified "deflection mission."
"Either way, our course of action is clear," he says. "We either plan another series of cocktail parties to watch the asteroid go by in 2036 -- as we will have done in 2029 -- or we mount the most important space mission in human history."
Source: San Francisco Chronicle - San Francisco,CA,USA
FEATURE-Countries work on different plans to escape tsunami
The next time monster waves tear through this quiet little village on Sri Lanka's ruined southern coast, the man who runs the local cafe is poised to sound the alarm.
In Indonesia's devastated Aceh province, authorities are planning 'escape hills' or mammoth, manmade mounds where people can run up to if there is another tsunami.
And Thailand is building 15-metre (50-foot) tall warning towers along its southern coastline that will broadcast evacuation orders in six languages.
There were no early warning systems or evacuation plans when one of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history set of a tsunami that killed 228,000 people and left more than a million homeless in a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean rim on Dec. 26.
Tsunami-affected countries are taking various routes to deal with the next one which residents, unnerved with every big aftershocks, fear can happen at any time.
While the United Nations is spearheading an effort to set up early warning centres around the Indian Ocean rim, experts say it's the 'last mile' -- when centres cascade the alarm down to remote fishing villages -- that is key to blunting the impact of the next tsunami.
Walagedo, a tidy little hamlet about 80 kms (50 miles) south of Colombo, is the first of Sri Lanka's Tsunami Protection Villages.
Chandrasana de Silva is in charge of sounding the horn, when the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau calls to warn of an approaching tsunami.
The horn sits atop a thin pole planted in a boulder on the beach behind his house and cafe on the main road. A twisted blue wire snakes out from a window by the phone, across the grass and palmettos, through coconut trees and over the beach to the pole.
TEMPORARY SOLUTION
De Silva acknowledges this is not an ideal arrangement. For one thing, he takes tourists on adventure excursions around Sri Lanka and is not home a good deal of time.
"This is just temporary," he explains. "Next month Colombo wants to connect direct to the siren."
Walagedo is meant to be the first of many villages with a tsunami protection plan - robust sirens on the beach, evacuation route signs posted on utility poles, public awareness campaigns.
It took the tsunami two hours to reach Sri Lanka's coastline. Indonesia was hit within a half hour.
Indonesia's reconstruction master plan proposes the construction of escape hills, scattered along Aceh's coastline on the northern tip of Sumatra. Made of concrete and covered with grass, the hills would be capable of accommodating 1,000 people at the flat top.
The hills would be situated to allow people to reach them within five to 20 minutes. The government is also planning three-storey earthquake resistant "escape buildings".
"They can choose the escape hill, the escape building or the escape roads," Ibu Chairani, head of the provincial public works department in Aceh, said in an interview.
"The priority is escape roads and then the buildings. The hills need a lot of land and that's expensive. Maybe an NGO (non-governmental organisation) has a budget for that."
One aid consultant working in Aceh was sceptical, saying the hills would have to be the size of a city block at the base to accommodate so many people at the top and would be impractical in an urban setting.
"The construction costs, even by cheap Indonesian standards, would be huge," the consultant said.
THAILAND MOVES FAST
Thailand which staged the region's maiden evacuation drill on its tourist mecca of Phuket island has moved the fastest.
By the end of the year, Thailand intends to put buoys on the sea bottom that would transmit data of an approaching tsunami to the new National Disaster Centre, which will send out alerts to media, text messages to vast mobile networks and trigger sirens on 50 warning towers.
Foreigners spent $1.8 billion in Phuket last year and Thailand wants to broadcast a message that it is safe to stay on the tsunami-battered island.
The March 28 earthquake on Sumatra tested India's preparedness. Central and state governments issued alerts, and people fled risk areas as soon they saw or heard the first news flashes. The army, navy and air force went on alert.
But coastal communities along the Indian Ocean rim are often poverty belts with poor access to technology that could miss out on warnings, experts say.
So Sri Lanka is working on a "buffer zone" 100-200 metres (yards) from the sea, where no new building will be allowed, including for those who used to live by the beach. The decision has upset fishermen and hoteliers alike.
Indonesia considered its own building exclusion zone along the Aceh coastline, but abandoned the idea after public resistance.
An interim warning system for the Indian Ocean should be in place by October, mainly by upgrading an existing network of tidal gauges, Patricio Bernal, head of the U.N. Oceanographic body charged with that task, told Reuters.
A more sophisticated system using undersea buoys transmitting tsunami data to national warning systems should be ready before the end of next year, he said.
Then it is up to individual governments to plan their own emergency responses.
"Detecting a tsunami is only part of the problem," Bernal said. "The big problem is how to prepare societies and local populations so they can act appropriately to a warning."
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
Monday, June 13, 2005
Tsunami Trujillo' looks likely to sink the notion of separation
SOL Trujillo is an eerie combination of the two men who were key forces in causing the vacancy at the top of Telstra that he filled - Nine Network chief Sam Chisholm and Coles Myer boss and Telstra director John Fletcher.
Trujillo will also embrace tantalising characteristics of Ziggy Switkowski when he first came to power - characteristics that were beaten out of him. But the new Telstra CEO has a weakness common in many chief executives.
First, I must make a confession. About two months ago I committed to go to a football game last Saturday with a group of interstate bankers.
Rather than meet Trujillo in person I honoured my commitment to the bankers. But while they watched the game, I listened to Trujillo on the phone. (The match was one-sided after half-time, so we spent much of the time discussing the attributes of CEOs.)
When he was a director of Telstra, Sam Chisholm crystallised the doubts the board had about their CEO. And the Chisholm criticisms struck a chord with Fletcher. Chisholm is no longer a Telstra director and at Nine he is now known as 'Tsunami Sam' and the network is bracing itself for enormous change. But his decades of experience in television gain him a respect that his predecessors did not enjoy.
Trujillo pointed out that he had spent 30 years in all aspects of the telecommunications industry 'to prepare' for this job. He says: 'the learning curve will not be long'. In a few months I suspect the tag 'Tsunami Sol' may be appropriate.
Meanwhile, Chisholm would be pleased to learn that while Trujillo sees Telstra as a long-term content provider in directory and classified advertising (Sensis), in areas like television he has a traditional telecommunications view and aims for joint ventures with existing content providers.
Movies will soon be transmitted via the copper phone wires, so other telecommunications executives see phone companies as potential rivals to media groups.
Trujillo will get the views of his executives, customers and suppliers and then prepare a way forward which locks in his senior people. There is enormous emphasis on delighting the customer and delivering rewards to shareholders.
Fletcher required a new team to achieve his goals. Trujillo could follow that path, but, given the impending T3 issue, I think he'll first try and redefine the roles of his executives and lock them into performance criteria and group aims.
The recent infighting between Telstra executives will end on July 1 – just at it did at Coles Myer the day Fletcher walked in the door. Fletcher created a sense of total corporation. Trujillo has the same aim because he believes customers prefer to deal with the company as a totality.
He will not be keen to sell Sensis because he wants to use its customer base to sell other Telstra products. He repeatedly emphasised that the unique strength of Telstra was that it had a full suite of products which could be worked together. This is what he successfully did at US West with less product areas to work with. It's too early to tell, but I don't think he will take too kindly to the current plans to separate out the network. He will take Telstra down the path of Internet Protocol telephony despite the costs to the existing network because of the extra products he will be able to offer customers.
When Ziggy Switkowski first became CEO, he believed the company could be a growth powerhouse. For a variety of reasons, including the attitudes of institutions and the failure to deliver big sales increases, he abandoned big growth targets and Telstra became a cash cow.
Trujillo talks about a mix of immediate shareholder reward and growth. That's a diplomatic American way of saying that he is coming to Australia to show us how to grow a telecommunications company in the modern world. He will sell that growth story to the staff and the shareholders. He will need his chairman to shepherd it through the regulation traps.
And his weakness? I asked him what were his best achievements and worst mistakes at US West. He said his proudest achievements were wonderful shareholder returns and increased customer satisfaction, but then quickly moved to the next questioner rather than admit to mistakes.
Even though there is a good chance that he will unlock Telstra's growth genie, inevitably in Australia he will make mistakes. He is lucky to have John Fletcher on tap to explain the differences between managing in Australia and the US.
Source: Australian - Australia
Sri Lanka president firm on joint tsunami deal with Tigers
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has assured the Tamil parties that she would go ahead in signing the proposed joint deal with the Tamil Tigers for tsunami relief distribution despite opposition, a spokesman for the main Tamil party said Sunday.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) legislators met Kumaratunga Sunday morning for talks on the joint deal.
TNA spokesman Rajavayothi Sampanthan said the Tamil party had backed Kumaratunga's resolve to set up the mechanism notwithstanding all political problems she was likely to encounter.
Kumaratunga maintained that the proposed joint mechanism is a pure administrative structure which would in no way impinge on thecountry's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The Sri Lankan president has come under fire from nationalist groups including powerful Buddhist monks and her main coalition partner for her determination to enter a joint deal with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels.
Kumaratunga said the purpose of the deal was to ensure an equitable distribution of relief to the victims of the tsunami in December last year.
Two-thirds of the country's coastal line was devastated by the disaster, which turned out to be the country's worst natural disaster killing nearly 40,000 people.
Her main coalition partner, the JVP or the People's Liberation Front, has given a June 15 ultimatum. They vowed to leave the government on June 16 if the president did not abandon the plan. Enditem
Source: Xinhua - Beijing,China
Friday, June 10, 2005
Mismanagement, inequity plague tsunami relief efforts, report finds
Doling out tsunami relief funds to survivors of the horrific natural disaster has been rife with corruption, mismanagement and favoritism, according to an international team of researchers directed by the University of California-Berkeley.
'What we found across all the countries is inequity in aid distribution,' said Eric Stover, director of the university's Human Rights Center, which issued a report this week calling on overseas governments to distribute funds more fairly.
Stover, a professor of public health, was one of eight researchers who spent two weeks in five countries devastated by the December 2004 tsunami. According to the United Nations' Web site, the tsunami left an arc of devastation from Thailand to the Horn of Africa, killing at least 270,000 people and injuring another 500,000. Untold numbers were left homeless.
Billions of dollars were raised across the globe to help. And agencies such as the United Nations' World Health Organization also recently asked similar questions about whether the funds were distributed effectively and efficiently.
The UC-Berkeley research was conducted by the school's Human Rights Center and the University of Hawaii's Globalization Research Center. Researchers who visited India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Thailand each wrote about 40 pages of findings, which are expected to be published in September.
On his visit to Thailand in March and April, Stover interviewed about 60 people in 18 coastal communities. There, he discovered that several women had received the equivalent of about $500 for the loss of their husbands, who earned the sole family income by fishing, but then never received any government assistance or support again.
Stover's interviews also revealed that while one fishing village would receive aid, another one would not. "Sometimes it's because the local government favors that group; other times it's lack of coordination," Stover said.
Some preliminary report recommendations, presented June 3 and 4 at a Thailand conference organized by the East-West Center in Honolulu:
_Establish a human rights monitoring project in each country for the next two years.
_Survey local people to ensure the money is distributed equitably.
_Make sure the communities themselves are involved.
Each of the countries affected by the tsunami had its share of problems.
In Sri Lanka, researchers said children are being abducted by the Tamil Tigers to become foot soldiers in the country's continuing armed conflict. In the Maldives, security at the displacement camps is poor, causing people to fall prey to attacks by drug abusers. Stover said he wished that the various South Asian countries had "slowed down and managed things better."
"What we're worried about in the future is that they don't repeat these measures in the reconstruction phase," he said.
Source: Bradenton Herald - Bradenton,FL,USA
SA players in tsunami match
London - Four senior South African cricketers will play in the tsunami appeal match between an MCC XI and an International XI at Lord's on Tuesday.
Six of the top ten batsmen and three of the top five bowlers in the world will take part in the match.
South African skipper, Graeme Smith and fast bowler, Makhaya Ntini will appear for the International XI which will be led by former West Indies captain, Brian Lara.
All-rounders, Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis will play for the MCC XI under the captaincy of the Indian batsman and former captain, Sachin Tendulkar.
United Cricket Board Chief Executive Officer, Gerald Majola, said on Wednesday that he was happy that South Africans could help the East Asian nations that were affected by the natural disaster last December.
'We are most pleased to provide some of our top players in support of the MCC's initiative to hold this international cricket match in aid of the Tsunami Benefit Fund.
'Our national team has played many matches in some of the countries affected by the tsunami. We hope this and the other funding raising efforts by South African cricket will make a difference to the families of the victims."
Source: News24 - Cape Town,South Africa
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Japan gives $100 mn in aid to Lanka
Tokyo: Japan said on Wednesday that it was lending close to $100 million to Sri Lanka to help the island rebuild livelihoods, after the deadly tsunami.
The two nations exchanged notes for the 10.06 billion yen in low-interest loans, which Sri Lanka will have to repay within 40 years, a foreign ministry statement said.
The loans will fund projects to rebuild infrastructure, such as roads and clean-water facilities, and to help the fishing and tourism industries badly hit by the seismic waves, which killed 31,000 people in Sri Lanka.
Japan was a top donor after the December 26 tragedy, disbursing $500 million in grant aid to affected nations and UN agencies, including about $75 million to Sri Lanka.
Japan is the biggest aid provider to Sri Lanka and hosted a 2003 fund-raising conference that pledged $4.5 billion to help the island reconstruct from its three-decade Tamil separatist war.
But those funds have repeatedly been thrown into doubt amid tension between the Tamil Tiger rebels and Sri Lankan government even though a ceasefire has been in place since February 2002.
Japan, which became pacifist after World War II, has long used aid as a main outlet of its foreign policy and is banking on support from the developing world as it seeks a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
But it has also been trying to raise its profile outside of aid and deployed 950 troops -- its biggest military mission since 1945 -- to Indonesia to help with tsunami relief.
Source: Sify - Taramani,Chennai,India
Sumatra Poised for Another Tsunami, Study Says
The earthquake- and tsunami-battered region of Sumatra, Indonesia, is at risk for more temblors and killer waves, seismologists cautioned today in a new study.
Study co-author John McCloskey, a seismologist at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, said the finding adds urgency to the push for greater earthquake and tsunami preparedness in the Indian Ocean region.
'We should assume it will happen in the near future and do as much as quickly as we can,' he said. 'For governments to take their eye off the ball of preparedness would be irresponsible.'
The seismologists calculated the stress changes induced by the March 28 earthquake - the second giant quake within three months along the Sunda trench west of Sumatra. Their findings are reported in tomorrow's issue of the journal Nature.
The calculations suggest the region of the Sunda trench that is beneath the Mentawai islands is now at the greatest risk of rupture. This section is south of the epicenters of the December 26, 2004, and March 28 earthquakes that rattled the region.
The magnitude 9.1 December earthquake triggered the tsunami that killed an estimated 300,000 people in Asia.
According to McCloskey and colleagues, stress changes induced by the December earthquake caused a magnitude 8.7 earthquake in March, killing about 2,000 people on the island of Nias, west of Sumatra.
'The chance of the earthquakes not having been related is vanishingly small. There's no doubt one was caused by the other,' McCloskey said.
Greatest Threat
According to the latest calculations by McCloskey and colleagues, the stress change at Nias induced by the December 26 earthquake was tiny: between 0.07 and 0.17 bars. One bar of stress is equivalent to atmospheric pressure at sea level - about 14.7 pounds per square inch (6.7 kilograms per every 6.5 square centimeters).
"There are many examples of a very small stress triggering a large earthquake. This was one of them," McCloskey said.
This concerns the seismologists. Their calculations show that the stress change beneath the Batu and Mentawai islands, caused by the March quake, is similar to the earlier change in Nias that triggered the March event.
The Batu section of the Sunda trench, south of the Mentawai islands, last ruptured in 1935 and has slowly slipped ever since. As a result, McCloskey said, the total stresses there are probably too low to cause a giant rupture.
Of greater concern to McCloskey and colleagues is the section of the trench south of Siberut, which is at the northern end of the Mentawai islands.
This section last ruptured in 1797, which means it has more than 200 years of accumulated stress waiting to be released. The seismic history of this section indicates that major quakes strike there about every 230 years.
According to the seismologists' calculations, the stress buildup south of Siberut is sufficient to produce an earthquake of magnitude 8.5, with a high potential for a tsunami, McCloskey said.
Banda Aceh
In addition, the new calculations show that the March earthquake expanded Sumatra fault' stressed section by about 125 miles (200 kilometers).
The fault runs the length of Sumatra. Previous calculations from the stress induced by the December earthquake suggested the region immediately south of the hard-hit city of Banda Aceh was at great risk for further temblors.
"That [threat] hasn't gone away," McCloskey said. "There's no sense [that the March event] has relieved any stress there. Rather, it has increased the area of stress along the Sumatra fault."
Roger Bilham, an earthquake hazard specialist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said McCloskey and his colleagues are doing the right thing by making their findings public. But he cautioned that the findings are not a prediction of when the next earthquake will occur.
"There's no question the strain changes have increased in the region on the faults they mention," Bilham said. But, he added, seismologists lack sufficient knowledge of how the Earth moves beneath its crust to predict when the next earthquake will occur.
The Mentawai section of the Sunda trench might rupture next week, or it might rupture in 50 years. "Basically, we'd be fools to ignore this" stress buildup, Bilham said.
Source: National Geographic - Washington,D.C.,USA
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
CENTRE UNVEILS RS 9870 CRORE PLAN FOR RECONSTRUCTION OF TSUNAMI AFFECTED STATES
The Government of India has unveiled a comprehensive plan for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Tsunami affected States/UTs, with a financial outlay of Rs.9870.25 crore. The plan seeks to put in place a level of infrastructure and services in the affected areas; a level which would be far higher than that destroyed by the Tsunami. The rehabilitation and reconstruction plan outlay includes Rs.4,084.79 crore for Tamil Nadu, Rs.1,470.46 crore for Kerala, Rs.138.11 crore for Andhra Pradesh, Rs.487.44 crore for Pondicherry, Rs.2,614.22 crore for Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Rs.775.23 crore for Shipping sector.
Sector wise - housing and internal infrastructure water and power distribution, roads and sewerage is a priority with the outlay being 34% of the total.
The Government has decided to set up a Tsunami Early Warning System in the Indian Ocean on its own. The Department of Ocean Development is the nodal agency to set up the Early Warning System, with active participation from (a) Department of Science and Technology, (b) Department of Space, (c) Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and (d) Universities/Departments. With the commencement of the Rs 125 crore Project, operational warnings of Tsunamis and Storm surges with their likely landfall inundation could be provided by September, 2007.
Source: Press Information Bureau (press release) - India
CM seeks excise sops for tsunami-hit areas
Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has urged Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to grant exemption from excise levies for a period of 10 years on all excisable goods manufactured by the new industrial units to be established in tsunami-affected districts in Tamilnadu. This has been demanded to promote infrastructure development and growth in these areas.
In a letter to the Prime Minister yesterday, the Chief Minister also requested him to grant full exemption from excise duties for all the construction materials such as cement, steel, pipes to be used in building infrastructure such as roads, ports, etc and establishing new industrial units in the tsunami-hit districts.
'These measures will attract large scale investments from corporate industrial houses to restore and improve the infrastructural facilities in the above areas'.
In this connection, the Chief Minister pointed out that the Centre had granted excise duty exemption for goods manufactured by new industrial units in Kutch, Gujarat, which was devastated by a massive earthquake in 2001. She also cited how the Union government extended a similar gesture to Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal with a view to accelerating industrial development in these States.
Stating that her government had already initiated various measures to accelerate the process of reconstructing infrastructure and restoring livelihoods in the tsunami-affected districts - Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari, Jayalalithaa said the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development were all providing assistance in this process.
However, the Chief Minister pointed out that 'the process of reconstruction of infrastructure and revitalization of the economy of these districts alone can ultimately bring real normalcy back to these areas', and sought the personal intervention of the Prime Minister in issuing a notification for granting exemption excise levies.
Source: News Today - India
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Tsunami scientists look beyond India
Peeved at the perceived indifference of the Indian scientific establishment, the electrical engineer and his architect son, who had claimed to have developed an indigenous tsunami warning system, are ready to offer their design to Sri Lanka or Indonesia.
Madan Prasad, who retired as a professor from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Sindri, and his son, Rahul, had come up with the device soon after the devastating tsunami that hit the coastlines of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India in December last year.
They had sent the design to the President and the Rashtrapati Bhavan acknowledged receipt and informed that the design had been forwarded to the science and technology ministry.
But since then, no reminder sent by Prasad has elicited any reply from any quarter, complains Prasad, though he wrote to everyone including the Union science and technology minister Kapil Sibal and the Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda.
Unlike the conventional warning device devised by the United States, explained Prasad, the system developed by him does not require satellite coordination and high-frequency vibration modes.
It is a simpler and cheaper alternative made for all the nations to use, he insists, which could be replicated all along the coastline.
A sensor on the sea-bed, he explains, will record the tremors caused by tectonic movement of the earth plates.
The signal then will be transmitted to a floating receptor on the surface of the sea and placed on a float.
There will also be a pipe 3 to 5 feet above the surface with a piston that, as and when pushed up, will complete an electrical circuit.
The water level, says Prasad, will rise every time there is a movement on the sea-bed and push the piston up, completing the circuit and setting off a sound and light alarm.
In cases of tsunami, the system would work fast, Prasad hoped. Whenever there is a tsunami, Prasad claimed, the water in the high seas is displaced by only 3 to 5 feet.
It is when the waves reach the shore that their height increases and the speed slows down.
The high waves cause disaster as the fateful ones did on the morning of December 26.
The entire warning system, he said, will be powered by a solar panel, hence not a single unit of electricity would be consumed.
Admitting that much work remains to be done, Prasad estimated the cost of developing the system in the region of Rs 10 lakh.
Since it is based on well-established scientific principles, he hoped, the time to develop it will be relatively shorter.
Source: Calcutta Telegraph - Calcutta,India
Sri Lanka in political showdown over tsunami aid
Sri Lanka's government scrambled on Monday to convince its Marxist ally not to topple it over plans to share tsunami aid with Tamil Tiger rebels, as a top Buddhist monk began a fast-to-the-death protest.
Senior government aides said President Chandrika Kumaratunga and her cabinet were in crisis talks with the ruling coalition's Marxist partner, the People's Liberation Front (JVP), to avoid a defection that could force the second snap poll in just over a year.
Both the United States and India have backed a proposed pact to ensure that $3.0 billion in international tsunami aid is distributed on both sides of Sri Lanka's ethnic divide, and some officials say a definitive announcement may be just days away.
'Hectic backroom work is going on,' a top government aide said on condition of anonymity. 'It's an alliance and a coalition and they'll have to work things out... internal politics... There are a lot of talks.'
Kumaratunga was meeting all key players within the coalition, which has been plagued by political bickering that has hampered wider efforts to convert a three-year truce with the Tigers into lasting peace after two decades of civil war.
Sri Lanka's stock market fell a provisional 1.88 percent on Monday as investors stayed away, worried about how the political spat would pan out.
'If the President signs the joint mechanism, the JVP might walk out from the government, they have already said that. Then we will have a minority government and it might collapse,' said another top government official who didn't want to be named.
GOVERNMENT IN PERIL?
Kumaratunga may be left with no choice but to invite the main opposition United National Party (UNP), ousted at a snap poll she called in April 2004, to form a government, the official said.
The JVP has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from Kumaratguna's coalition government over the aid issue, calling the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fascists who don't deserve tsunami aid or their central demand for self-rule.
"It is serious, but I do not see an inevitable collapse of the government," said Kethesh Loganathan, an analyst for independent think-tank the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
"The issue is whether the JVP will stick by its warning, and if the joint mechanism is signed will pull out," he added, saying the Marxist party could choose to withdraw from the cabinet but still support legislation from outside to avoid their Nemesis, the opposition UNP, from coming to power.
The JVP, whose own armed rebellions against the state in the 1970s and 1980s killed an estimated 50,000 people Sri Lanka's third biggest party, with 39 seats in the 225-seat parliament.
Without their support, Kumaratunga's government would lose its slim majority and struggle to pass legislation or govern.
Hundreds of monks in saffron robes protested against the proposed aid sharing deal in the ancient hill capital of Kandy on Monday, as a top member of Sri Lanka's all-Buddhist monk party -- which is rabidly opposed to the rebels -- began his fast.
"The Party's general secretary venerable Omalpe Sobitha Thero started a fast unto death today," said Venerable Athuraliye Rathana Thero, parliamentary group leader of hardline monk party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU).
"We will do anything, even put our lives on the line, to stop the President from agreeing to a joint aid-sharing deal with the Tigers," he added. (Additional reporting by Arjuna Wickramasinghe)
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
Friday, June 03, 2005
A new loan system for the tsunami-affected businessmen in Sri Lanka
Pressured by the heavy criticism of the local trade chambers and the small businessmen who could not find their feet after the tsunami the Government of Sri Lanka announced on Wednesday that it will launch a new loan scheme for the businessmen battered by the tsunami.
Under the new loan facility called Credit Guarantee System, the government of Sri Lanka will provide guarantee to the commercial banks on behalf of the affected businessmen and the industrialists.
A Central Bank official said that the new loan scheme is being prepared
The new Credit Guarantee System will be launched soon by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka under the supervision of the government.
At present, the local commercial banks are still fighting to acquire their existing loans from the individuals in the tsunami-affected areas.
Earlier the Government of Sri Lanka introduced the low interest SUSHANA loan scheme to assist the tsunami-affected businessmen and the industrialists. However, the banks had asked for collateral and other documents from the businessmen and the entrepreneurs. The banks also investigated the loans given to some of the entrepreneurs.
'The commercial banks refused to grant business loans for some of the existing loan defaulters,' said the trade chambers.
'However, the business community has forced the government to assist their members to obtain loan facility through the commercial banks,' said an official of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
Speaking to the 'Asian Tribune,' a South-based businessman said that they are still expecting bank loans to re-start their damaged businesses.
"Most of banks are waiting to meet their requirements," said a leading businessman in Matara.
Top officials of the commercial banks said that they have approved over Rs. 1.2 billion for the tsunami-affected businessmen.
According to the Central Bank, it has allocated over 2 billion of Rupees for the tsunami-affected businessmen.
"Some loan defaulters may have problems to obtain the credit facility," said an official of the Central Bank.
According to Nimali Sirisena who was a victim of the tsunami and obtained housing loan from the leading commercial bank said that the commercial banks and the state banks do not rescheduled their loans, decrease the interest rates or grant concessionary period for the loan holders.
"When we argued with them, they said that that they cannot reduce the loan interest rates or reschedule the existing loans," said a tsunami victim who is still residing in the Peraliya village, Galle. "The banks never follow the government rulings over the existing loan holders who were the victims of the recent tidal waves," the loan holders said.
Meanwhile, Minister of advancement technology and entrepreneurs development Rohitha Bogollagama announced that the government has allowed importing machineries for the local industries under the BOI tax concessions.
"This decision would assist the businessmen to re-launch their industries with new technology," said the Minister at the monthly Exporters Forum held on Wednesday in Colombo.
He said that the tsunami-affected businessmen also could use this concession to re-start their industries.
Source: Asian Tribune - Bangkok,Thailand
Police "tsunami" engulfs Zimbabwe's urban poor
Officials call the campaign 'Operation Restore Order,' but residents of Zimbabwe shantytowns have another name for the blitz that has left thousands homeless and destroyed livelihoods for countless more: 'The Tsunami'.
In a clearing in one Mbare' one of the most crowded shantytowns, stunned families stand watch over their possessions as bulldozers rumble through the wreckage of a once-thriving neighbourhood.
Piles of rubble line the streets, where houses and shops have been ripped apart in a campaign by President Robert Mugabe's government to clean up urban slums it says are a haven for black-market traders and other criminals.
'Everything was destroyed without notice,' said Ernest Rutsvaro, standing in front of a half-demolished concrete building which was once a vegetable market.
'This is the true meaning of tsunami ... what happened is the true meaning of tsunami and what is happening right now is the true meaning of tsunami.'
The crackdown comes as poor Zimbabweans struggle with an economic crisis analysts blame in part on Mugabe's policy of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks -- a move which gutted commercial agriculture and led to sharp drops in foreign investment.
Fuel shortages cripple transportation, while foreign exchange and some other key commodities are also in short supply, increasing frustration for ordinary Zimbabweans who are also coping with a drought that aid agencies say could leave one third of the country needing food aid.
The United States on Wednesday warned that the new crackdown could lead to a violent backlash -- although there has so far been little sign of open defiance in Zimbabwe's shattered slums.
Police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said the campaign -- which has seen some 22,000 arrests -- would continue and that after a bout of violence last week people were cooperating, often going as far as to rip down their own houses.
"We haven't had any negative reports or any acts of resistance," Bvudzijena told Reuters on Thursday.
"It would be foolhardy for any one to incite people into acts of resistance ... this is for the benefit of Zimbabwe, and it is for the benefit of everyone, including the ones who are affected."
DISASTER BY GOVERNMENT
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has accused the government of using the campaign to target its largely urban support base following disputed elections in March which it says were stolen by Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party.
The government denies the charge, and says it is merely trying to restore "sanity" to urban areas.
Residents said whatever the rationale, the devastation in Mbare and other urban townships hit by the clean-up campaign rivals that of a natural disaster -- albeit one organised by government.
Where police went in and torched illegal structures, burned and twisted wreckage remains.
Rows of unapproved houses have been ripped out like teeth. Large covered market places have been cleared and stand empty, while mountains of scrap metal and wood await clearing, picked over by desperate men eager to salvage pipes, car parts or other items of possible value.
At a bus terminal, people lash household furniture to the tops of busses, joining a growing exodus of families who prefer to return to the countryside rather than risk another encounter with police demolition crews.
Some of the tens of thousands made homeless by the campaign are spending nights in the open even though winter is setting in.
"We are suffering, we have nowhere to go. Our houses were destroyed," said Victoria Muchenje.
"Our children are not going to school, we are sleeping outside everywhere ... if you walk, everywhere you see people sleeping in the road."
Others, who have either no money or nowhere to go, sit guard over their possessions and ponder the future, turning Mbare's open spaces into giant storerooms of housewares salavaged before the police tsunami hit.
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
Thursday, June 02, 2005
HK, S'pore have best judicial systems in Asia: PERC survey
Hong Kong and Singapore have the best judicial systems in Asia, while those of Indonesia and Vietnam suffer the worst, according to a survey of expatriate business executives working in the region released on Thursday.
Hong Kong pipped Singapore for the top spot in this year's survey by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), toppling the rival city-state from its pole position in 2004.
Foreign business leaders's perception of Indonesia's judicial system worsened this year from a year ago, despite efforts by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to fight corruption, putting the country in the bottom of the rankings.
PERC noted a 'huge gap' between what countries say is the level of independence of their judicial systems and what foreign investors think.
In the PERC rankings, countries and cities were graded on a scale from zero to 10, with zero being the best grade possible and 10 the worst.
Hong Kong emerged on top with a grade of 1.73, improving from its 2.55 rating last year.
Singapore, which had an overall grade of 1.25 in 2004, fell to a close second place with a score of 1.75.
Vietnam was in 11th place, its score deteriorating to 8.40 from 8.04, while Indonesia was graded 8.85, worse than the 8.0 it got in 2004.
Indonesian President Susilo is fighting an uphill battle in efforts to clean up the judicial system, PERC said.
'The problem of corruption is too pervasive, and so many people and groups would be threatened by a thorough crackdown that it would probably be more destabilizing than helpful for the country,' it said.
However, PERC said Susilo's efforts have caused it and other observers 'to believe that the status quo might be changing.' (*)"
Source: Jakarta Post - Jakarta,Indonesia
Aceh tsunami chief welcomes, cautions NGOs
Unlike some Indonesian officials who wanted foreign aid groups out of tsunami-hit Aceh sooner rather than later, the man now running the province's recovery programme says he is happy to have them.
But Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, who delivers blunt messages in a soft spoken manner, also criticised NGOs for sometimes getting into turf wars instead of concentrating on the main goal of helping people.
Kuntoro heads the Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction agency, which has the formidable task of coordinating the rebuilding of the area worst damaged by the massive Dec. 26 earthquake off Sumatra and the Indian Ocean tsunami it triggered.
The disaster left some 160,000 dead or missing in Aceh -- which had a population of about 4 million before the tsunami -- and destroyed the homes of another half a million. Reconstruction costs are estimated at around $5 billion.
Despite that dire situation, some Indonesian politicians and officials have sporadically suggested most foreign government agencies and NGOs who rushed in to help should leave the province by various deadlines.
Asked about such talk, Kuntoro told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday: 'I don't know what's the root of that actually, but for myself we are so grateful with these NGOs.
'They're coming with the money here ... They don't ask how Aceh looks like, how are the people, what religion they are.'
He said in practical terms he was working with various government ministries to ease visa requirements and otherwise make things easier for foreign aid workers in Aceh, Indonesia's western-most province located on Sumatra's northern tip.
That didn't mean Kuntoro thought NGOs were perfect. He took them to task for sometimes getting carried away by rivalries, citing a case where one had built housing in an Aceh town and another wanted to construct a water tower in the same area.
"... the first NGO says no, no you don't enter to my territory," said Kuntoro, sitting barefoot and in rolled-up shirt sleeves on the back terrace of the modest house that serves as his agency's headquarters in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital.
Kuntoro, a Stanford University-trained engineer and a former minister considered clean in a country where corruption is endemic, said Indonesian NGOs could be equally jealous of turf.
STUPID
He said one such group had blocked an area as its own, saying: "'This is our territory. It's only us who can build a house here.' This is stupid, right? If they are here to help people why do they have to do those sorts of things?"
Only in office a month, Kuntoro has already taken on more than just NGOs zealous of their turf.
He is trying to enforce tough anti-corruption provisions in the disbursement of billions of dollars in aid, pressing Indonesian politicians to follow through on the country's own funding pledges, and trying to coordinate dozens of foreign and domestic government agencies and NGOs involved in the rebuilding effort.
The latter goal is where he sees his most important accomplishment in his first month.
"I can say that now we are in the position (to) coordinate all those activities. That's a major achievement."
"There's been confusing policies. There are so many agencies giving directives that have their own operational guidelines", and the recovery effort hasn't been well-ordered, said Kuntoro.
He conceded that wasn't the kind of achievement that would blunt the criticism that too little is being done to improve lives of tsunami victims, and that recovery is moving all too slowly.
Such criticism is understandable "because what people see is something that's concrete on the ground. If they don't see anything, then there's no progress," Kuntoro said.
But better coordination would speed such concrete achievements, he said. He forecast visible evidence would come by the end of June in the form of nearly 2,000 houses under construction.
Another area of concern raised by some analysts, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton who visited Aceh this week in his role as U.N. tsunami relief envoy, is the conflict between the government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels.
A series of peace talks is underway in Helsinki in an effort to end the three-decade war that has killed some 12,000 people, mostly civilians, but in the meantime the conflict sparks questions over security and access to all parts of the province.
While agreeing that "if there's peace then I can do my job better", Kuntoro said: "The GAM are also people, and they know if we are here to help the people they won't disturb us."
Source: Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
KOICA donation to rebuild tsunami damaged schools in East
The Korean International Co-operation Agency (KOICA) under the guidance of the Korean Government has initiated action to refurbish school buildings damaged in the East by the tsunami.
A financial donation of Rs. 6 million (60,000 US Dollars) was handed over by the Korean Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Lim Jae-Hong to Minister of Housing and Construction Industry, Eastern Province Education and Irrigation Development Mrs. Ferial Ashraff recently to construct new buildings for two schools damaged in Sammanthurai in Ampara district. The function was held at the Ministry Auditorium at 'Sethsiripaya', Battaramulla.
Minister Ashraff accepting the donation said the Ampara district was the most affected by the tsunami.
We are now receiving the much needed foreign aid and assistance for reconstruction. We are engaged in resolving the problems related to finding of suitable lands for re-settlement of displaced and for construction of schools and are very appreciative of this donation granted by the Korean government.
She said they are also grateful to the KOICA Fellows, the organization formed by a group of government and other officials who have been to Korea for study Courses and Training Programmes, for having facilitated this donation.
Korean Ambassador Lim Jae-Hong said Sri Lanka and Korea enjoy a longstanding friendship. Sri Lanka is a major beneficiary in various study Courses and Training provided by the Korean government for which many Sri Lankans visitKorea annually Economic cultural ties between the two countries are very strong.
National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) General Manager Piyal Ganepola made the welcome speech representing the KOICA Fellows in Sri Lanka, while President of KOICA Fellows, Buddhi Passaperuma also spoke. KOICA Representative in Sri Lanka, Han Young-tae and large number of members of KOICA Fellows including former Inspector General of Police, Indra de Silva were present.
Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Construction Industry and Eastern Province Education and Irrigation Development, Mrs. Mallika Karunaratne Chairman, NHDA, Parakarama Karunaratne and several officials were also present.
Source: ReliefWeb (press release) - Geneva,Switzerland
Financial skills prove essential as tsunami aid
Nigel Cohen was among the millions shocked and moved by the devastating Boxing Day tsunami that shook southeast Asia. In its immediate aftermath, floods of donations swept into the relief campaign. But Cohen, a chartered accountant from Burnham, was determined that the compassion and support should not dry up once the powerful images disappeared from the media.
Cohen, 45, qualified as a chartered accountant in 1982. For the past five years, he has been involved with the Maidenhead Interfaith group, which brings together representatives from the major faiths.
The group has a strong community focus and promotes respect and harmony among the eight major faith groups in the Thames Valley area. It was this group that met, in the wake of the tragedy, to design a plan for sustained long-term help for an area where generations had been wiped out and that will be haunted by the disaster for generations to come.
'It is easy to get totally overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster,' Cohen says. 'There are a huge number of people affected, there are massive geographical distances involved and there is virtually no organisation at all.
'But we were determined to remain focused. Just because we could not help everybody, did not mean that we could not help anybody. We decided to focus on a village, Ban Laem Pom in Thailand, with which the Interfaith Movement had connections. We maintain an ongoing dialogue with them so that we can accurately assess the villagers' needs.
'We can't undervalue the importance of compassion and human care. Others need financial help, many need homes. We have several ideas of how we can help the victims.
The orphans of the village produced batiks, helping them to express their feelings about the tsunami through painting.
'The finished products were incredible - they were colourful, bright and attractive and we will be bringing these back to the UK to sell for £1 each - money that will go a long way back in Thailand.'
Cohen's qualification as an accountant has prepared him well for helping with a task of this magnitude.
'This is an extremely challenging environment and handling a crisis of this nature is outside the skill level of most other professions,' says Cohen.
'There is a compulsion to know that the help provided, financial or otherwise, is being properly applied. There have been so many stories of resources being siphoned off. An accountant's presence helps put a stop to this.
'We are putting systems in place to identify the villagers' needs, the range of resources at our disposal and to ensure they are properly applied. Having accountants on board this kind of project is invaluable. Accountants are able to set up procedures for gathering capital, authorise expenditure and maintain feedback on the application of resources. They can also apply their expertise to the unusual challenge of setting up systems for non-financial accounting.'
Cohen is adamant that other accountants, who want to get involved with charity work in general, or in helping the tsunami victims in particular, should come forward and do so.
'Throughout my professional career, I do not know a single accountant who hasn't been involved in some kind of charity work, voluntarily or as part of their job.
'The trouble is, they do not sufficiently value the substantial help they give. Accountants' skills can make the difference between success and failure. With the tsunami it will mean the right help, going to the right people, at the right time - it may well mean a difference between life and death.'
Cohen is one of the applicants to the Everybody Counts awards scheme, an initiative run by the ICAEW giving members the opportunity to win a financial donation of £2,000 for the voluntary project they have been working for.
For the Maidenhead Interfaith group, this kind of boost would be invaluable. Cohen says: 'Winning the award would enable us to reach outside of the village we're working in now to other areas. We must remember the effects would be amplified in Thailand since money goes 10 to 20 times further over there.
'It would also enable us to raise awareness among other accountants of how valuable their skills can be to others who are in need of human care and kindness.'
Source: VNUNet.com - Haarlem,Netherlands
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