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Monday, October 31, 2005
Tsunami-hit town will host Tests
Sri Lankan cricket chiefs have rejected the suggestion that they will move their southern Test match base from Galle and hope the tsunami-hit town will be again staging internationals from June of next year.
SLC (Sri Lanka Cricket) national development committee chairman Priyantha Algama has revealed that construction work has already started on the venue by the Indian Ocean shore which was severely damaged by the Boxing Day tsunami which killed up to 220,000 worldwide and caused a large loss of life in Galle itself.
A new media centre and pavilion will be part of the new project.
Algama said the existing structures will be demolished and replaced by the new ones.
He said the drainage and sprinkler system for the entire ground will be replaced and the pitches relit. Even the scoreboard is being upgraded and given a new look.
Two thirds of the cost for the rebuilding the venue have been met from overseas donations including sizeable sums from the Victorian Foundation and the Shane Warne Foundation - Warne himself visited the town where he took his 500th Test wicket in March 2004.
Former England allround Ian Botham also flew to Galle to help the effort.
The indoor nets which weres completely destroyed by the tsunami will feature in the second stage of the redevelopment.
Source: Cricket365.com - Australia
After war, tsunami and corruption, they won't vote for anyone
Sri Lanka goes to the polls next month, but in its devastated villages there is only anger and disaffection over unfulfilled political promises
There are no election posters along the rainswept approaches to the fishing village of Peraliya, only roadside pleas for help, crudely painted by locals on the remaining walls of their homes or on filthy bedsheets hung from washing lines.
The sentiments on most are forthright and aimed at the fleets of tourist buses which rumble intently down the winding coast road from the capital, Colombo, to the fortified resorts in the seaside towns of Hikaduwa and Galle.
'Stop - please help us rebuild our homes,' the banners plead. Unsurprisingly, few tourists pause to take in the plight of the tsunami's forgotten victims.
On 17 November, more than 12 million Sri Lankans will go to the polls in what is seen as a straightforward head-to-head between nationalist Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, and left-of-centre opposition leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe.
With more than 60,000 people known to have died here since the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam began their violent fight for autonomy for the island's minority Tamils over two decades ago, both politicians are campaigning on well-rehearsed pledges of lasting peace. But this time it is their promises to bolster an economy struggling for breath under the weight of post-tsunami reconstruction and steadily growing inflation levels that is attracting most public interest.
For the past two decades, politics here have been dictated by the failure of the peace process and, following the August assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, the fragile peace process appears to be in greater trouble than at any time over the past three-and-a-half years. Ceasefire violations are now so common that the country could be on the cusp of further civil war.
But outside Colombo there appears to be little enthusiasm for solving the Tamil issue or following the tedious pre-election political rallies that dominate mainstream television channels here. Amid the devastated remains of once vibrant fishing communities like Peraliya, there is today only anger and disaffection.
Peering out from beneath the bright blue tarpaulin that now protects the remains of her home from the torrential rain, 46-year-old mother-of-three Susila Hava angrily waves an expired yellow ration card bearing the official stamp of the Sri Lankan government. 'This is now useless,' she shouts. 'It gave us food for six months but then we were left on our own by the government. The fishing boats are all destroyed, we have no crops and only the remains of our homes or leaking tents to sleep in with our entire families. What do we care about the election? The politicians make promises they cannot deliver. It doesn't matter who is in power, our voices still won't be heard.'
The indifference of the people of Peraliya and hundreds of other tsunami-affected communities to the election process is of little surprise.
The present government is widely accused of misusing billions of dollars worth of tsunami aid and the argument surrounding just who is entitled to relief funds from international donors has become the subject of an intense and bitter national debate that a number of international charities claim has stalled the flow of help to the victims of the disaster.
Hoping that the tsunami might facilitate a reconciliation between the government and the Tamil Tigers, the President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, entered into a deal to share international aid. But several months ago the deal was successfully challenged in court by pro-Sinhalese nationalist groups, on the grounds that sharing funds with terrorists was unconstitutional. Many contend that the Tamil Tigers reacted by assassinating Kadirgamar.
'There is a lot of disaffection over the distribution of aid and many people are clearly dis-enchanted with the democratic process,' said Jayadeva Uyangoda, who is the head of political science at Colombo University.
'But Sri Lankans will vote. They fundamentally believe economic growth is the key to a better life. Wickremesinghe is the favourite, because he stands for globalisation. He is also more willing to engage politically with the Tamil Tigers to secure a permanent end to the civil war.'
But it is this willingness to engage with the minority Tamils that could still be the opposition leader's Achilles heel. The belief that the presidential election is principally about finding a solution to the Tamil question, without compromising the power and dominant status of the majority Sinhala Buddhist community in the island, is still a very compelling one.
Over the past year Rajapakse has forged electoral pacts with hardline Marxists and Buddhist monks who are virulently against the Tamils' demands for interim self-rule. Analysts say these pacts are scaring off moderate voters but attracting the support of more vocal nationalists. 'The election will be a close call, possibly a photo finish,' believes Jayadeva Uyangoda. 'There is still a great deal of campaigning to be done.'
Regardless of political posturing, the key focus in Colombo is on security. Running for the post of Sri Lankan President is one of the most dangerous tasks in the world. The last two presidential campaigns had bloody endings that overshadowed the political process.
In 1999, Kumaratunga was walking away from her final election rally at Colombo town hall when a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew himself up, killing more than 20 people. The president survived the explosion just five metres away, but it injured her right eye.
Five years earlier, the main opposition United National Party (UNP) candidate, Gamini Dissayanaka, was killed along with 50 others as he was leaving the stage at an election rally in Colombo's suburbs. That attack was blamed on a young female Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.
The police here say that bitter experience has taught them many hard lessons and, despite recent Tamil vows to maintain the fragile ceasefire, they are still expecting the worst in the next few weeks. As a result security has been fanatically tightened at election rallies - often the troops outnumber political activists.
In the middle of the mud and misery in Peraliya stand the dreadful remains of one symbol of the tsunami - the twisted wreck of the Colombo-Galle express train, on board which 1,500 people died when the sea swept violently through it. Today it is a monument to the dead, attracting tourists who gape at the forces of nature.
In recent weeks the locals have started a new enterprise here: charging visitors to enter the site through a hastily assembled booth.
'It is all we have now,' said Sunila, 'We ask people to give us money to climb on board. As a result, we can no longer say that we come from this village, because everyone thinks of people from Peraliya as beggars who make money from the dead, but we have little other choice.'
Source: The Observer - UK
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Tsunami Inspires Holy See's Message to Hindus
The Holy See sent a message to Hindus to propose a common commitment of solidarity, especially for the underprivileged or those affected by natural disasters.
The proposal appears in the message sent by Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, on the occasion of Diwali, the most important feast for Hindu believers. The feast symbolizes the triumph of truth over lies, light over darkness, life over death, and good over evil.
'Religious feasts, recalling to us the spiritual dimension of life and the search for true meaning, provide us with an opportunity to reflect on the significance of tragic events in our own lives or in those of people around us,' affirms the archbishop.
His reflection was inspired by last December's quake-triggered tsunami in South Asia.
'The forces of nature wreaked great havoc, many lives were lost, countless homes were destroyed, sources of livelihood ruined and families, including many children, were left destitute,' Archbishop Fitzgerald recalls.
'Through the bonds of friendship forged by dialogue over the years, we Christians have come to discover that you, as Hindus, are greatly concerned about those who are suffering,' adds the prelate in his message.
'For your part, you may have come to realize that the Christian faith teaches that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God and is thus deserving of attention and concern,' he states.
Reason for hope
The response in the aftermath of the tsunami is a reason for hope for the Vatican representative, as 'solidarity across religious boundaries has helped to bring hope to many of the victims.'
"Teams of relief workers belonging to different religious traditions have been tireless in working to alleviate immediate suffering and to initiate reconstruction," he states.
"At a time when aggressive secularism would seem to be on the increase and respect for basic human values often appears to be on the decline, such cooperation among people of different religions can bring about a new respect for religion in today's world," the Vatican official concludes.
There are 811 million Hindus worldwide. The vast majority live in Asia, especially India, where they constitute 81.5% of the population. Hindu believers comprise 13.4% of the world's population.
Many Hindus will celebrate the feast of Diwali, also know as Deepavali, or "cluster of lights," on Nov. 1. The celebration lasts three days and marks the start of a new year; family reconciliation; and worship of God.
Source: Zenit News Agency - Rome,Italy
Despite post-tsunami shelter progress in the Maldives, a funding shortfall
Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN-HABITAT this week visited Maldives where UNDP and UN-HABITAT are jointly rebuilding homes on 58 islands in the Indian Ocean archipelago devastated by last December's tsunami.
Mrs. Tibaijuka travelled to Meemu Atoll and met with the Atoll Chief and 5 island chiefs in Muli, the Atoll capital. She planted a tree and laid a brick to symbolise a new beginning for these islands.
In the capital, Male, she was also the guest of honour at a dinner hosted by Mr. Ibrahim Rafeeq, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development. Other dignitaries included the Ministers of Planning and Development, Construction and Public Infrastructure, Defence, Finance, Atolls Development and Foreign Affairs.
Mrs. Tibaijuka acknowledged the good progress and emphasized the importance of rebuilding homes in economically viable areas. In her view, a home is the first critical piece of helping restore people's livelihoods. This is especially true in the Maldives, where many people have home-based businesses that were washed away by tsunami.
In the Maldives, it is estimated that that it will cost $19 million to repair and reconstruct the 1,300 homes that the Government of the Maldives has requested of the UN. Currently, the UNDP/UN-HABITAT shelter project faces a US$7 million shortfall. The UN is appealing to donors to come forward to help with the tsunami reconstruction effort. But in the aftermath of other recent disasters, such as the hurricanes in the US and the earthquake in South Asia, the Maldives faces challenges in securing all the funds for shelter recovery that is required.
Ten months after the tsunami, 11,300 people are still waiting to return to their homes. UNDP and UN-HABITAT are committed to continuing their work with affected communities to restore people's lives and livelihoods throughout the Maldives. Mrs. Tibaijuka visited Maldives 21-23 October.
Source: ReliefWeb (press release) - Geneva,Switzerland
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Pandemic would be worse than tsunami
A bird flu pandemic is Indonesia's worst nightmare and would wreak greater devastation than last year's tsunami, according to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Dr Yudhoyono told a World Bank forum in Helsinki via teleconference that the spread of the disease among humans would be physically and economically devastating.
"The pandemic will be worse than the tsunami disaster, which killed hundreds of thousands of people but stopped after a few minutes," Dr Yudhoyono said.
His remarks follow criticism that Indonesia had been failing to take appropriate precautions against the virus.
Around the world, countries needed to upgrade their preventive measures, Dr Yudhoyono said.
The European Union looks set to ban the import of live wild birds as it tries to stem the advance of bird flu.
Britain called for a ban after flu killed a parrot imported from South America which had been quarantined with birds from Taiwan.
In Tambov, 400 kilometres south-east of Moscow, an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu has been confirmed, an official said. And officials have sealed a ship in Malta after wharf workers reported seeing dead birds on board.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (subscription) - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
Fishermen stage tsunami protest
More than 1,000 fishermen have been protesting against the government in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, 300 days after the Asian tsunami
The protestors allege the government has not done enough to help rebuild their industry.
They are also demanding access to the billions promised in foreign donations.
The fishermen and their families were one of the groups worst hit by last year's tsunami on 26 December.
Over 30,000 people died in the disaster in Sri Lanka alone and millions were made homeless.
Forgotten Plight
'We are not from any political party, we are just fishermen trying to tell the government to help us,' said L Jayatilleke, one of the organizers of the protest.
The BBC's Dumeetha Luthra says that with presidential elections due next month, many survivors feel their plight has been forgotten.
Our correspondent says many fishermen have not been able to resume their trade due to the imposition of a minimum 100 metre buffer zone to prevent rebuilding close to the shore.
Although that has now been reduced to 15 metres, it has seriously delayed reconstruction efforts.
Elusive billions
The protesting fishermen accuse the government of inactivity.
'What happened to the money the foreigners gave,' read one banner carried by protesters, referring to the promised five billion dollars in foreign assistance.
They said they had seen little of the billions that had been promised and demanded more.
One protest leader was detained by police.
Last year's killer waves killed over 7,000 fishermen and destroyed more than 22,000 fishing boats in Sri Lanka alone.
Source: BBC News - UK
Friday, October 21, 2005
Need for quake aid bigger than tsunami
The United Nations on Thursday declared the southern Asian earthquake a 'logistical nightmare' that has surpassed the needs of last December's tsunami.
Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, U.N. emergency relief chief Jan Egeland said NATO had begun flying in 900 tons of aid, but said it wasn't nearly enough.
'We have never had this kind of logistical nightmare ever,' Egeland said. 'We thought the tsunami was the worst we could get. This is worse.'
The Dec. 26 tsunami killed more than 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
Pakistan says the official death toll of the Oct. 8 quake is 47,000 but various aid officials claim it is closer to 80,000.
As winter approaches in the Himalayan region, some three million people who survived have no shelter. U.N. officials said 10,000 tents will be flown to Pakistan over the next few weeks although they said there may not be enough winterized tents in the world to fill the need, the BBC reported.
Earlier, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said the international community had only given firm commitments to fund 12 percent -- or $37 million -- of the U.N.'s appeal.
Source: Science Daily (press release) - USA
False tsunami warning shakes Oregon coast -- again
"The National Weather Service shook the nerves of people on the Oregon Coast by accidentally issuing a tsunami warning.
The warning interrupted television and radio broadcasts in Portland, Eugene and along the coast.
The agency was testing its internal systems yesterday and didn't mean for the bulletin to reach the public, said Tyree Wilde, the weather services' warning coordination meteorologist in Portland.
'It was an inadvertent mistake we made,' he said.
The false alarm prompted residents to flood telephone lines at radio and television stations, the Oregon Emergency Management office and police and fire agencies. Hotels in Yachats began evacuation procedures before they learned that the warning was false.
Yachats fire chief Frankie Petrick said the phones rang off the hook all morning.
'They didn't call 9-1-1,' she said. 'They called me, to see if it was in fact a test and whether they should evacuate.'
This is the second warning in six months that didn't produce a tsunami.
The last alert, on June 14, resulted from a real earthquake off the coast of Crescent City, Calif. Thought the quake didn't generate a tsunami, it created confusion and exposed gaps in preparedness at all levels of government and among the public.
Since then, emergency managers have been urging residents to head for high ground if they see or hear a tsunami warning.
"We've tried to tell people if you hear something, don't call the radio stations, don't call the TV, just go,' said Abby Kershaw, section director at Oregon Emergency Management. 'If you're going to tell people that, you can't start putting a bunch of caveats on it. It's definitely frustrating for us."
Source: Seattle Times - United States
Monday, October 17, 2005
Tsunami victims battle the odds
Ten months after the tsunami hit southern India, nearly 2,200 families in Chennai are back to square one - without a roof over their heads, and with many of their possessions destroyed.
The families are paying the price for the tediously slow response to finding permanent housing solutions in the city. After the tsunami ravaged their homes, they have been living in a school for the past ten months.
Hit by disaster
One residential colony in Chennai has experienced a series of disasters. The first time people were rehabilitated, the entire colony caught fire and two people died.
Now, after the rainfall over the past few days, the entire place lies inundated.
'They said 'stay here for three months', it is 10 months now. It's been the same heat and rain for 10 months,' said Amudha, a resident.
'It's a question of wrong planning and not taking proper care before relocating all these people. See, what was actually missing here is, government did not do a feasibility study of Kargil Nagar; whether it is fit for accommodating 2,200 families,' said Paul Sunder Singh, Karunalaya.
Finding land for permanent shelters has been a laboriously slow process.
'Chennai is a metropolitan city. There is always a scarcity for land and that is the fundamental issue, otherwise there is no problem at all,' said Chandramoham, Collector, Chennai.
Meanwhile, from the school the 2,200 families will now move to shelters built by the government. Built on government land, the shelters have cost an additional Rs 4.5 crore.
But the permanent houses for the displaced families will come up elsewhere and they will be asked to move out again.
Source: NDTV.com - New Delhi,India
TSUNAMI IMPACT: Monumental Trouble in Sri Lanka
The twisted hulks of three railway carriages, standing near where they were picked up and slammed against houses in this fishing village by the Dec 26 tsunami, symbolise the power of nature as well as human frailities exposed in the aftermath.
Sri Lankan railway authorities left the wreck--the remnants of a train in which 1,500 people perished--behind as a monument to the victims of the tsunami but, pretty soon, it was attracting more visitors than anticipated.
Foreign relief workers, tourists and pilgrims heading for the sacred city of Kataragama stop by to spend a few minutes at Pereliya and gape at the carriages, the more adventurous pushing open the bent doors and exploring the mangled innards -- ignoring the signs prohibiting entry.
The fresh sea breeze has removed the nauseating stench of putrefying bodies that hung about the carriages but the metal seats, twisted like so much foil by the giant hand of the tsunami, still elicits a sense of horror and catharsis. Drama enough for a group of enterprising villagers to set up a booth hard by and sell tickets to awed visitors.
''We have formed a society and we are selling tickets to raise money for the village,'' said Peter Dharamadasa, self-styled village head told IPS as he stood near the wreck talking to IPS.
The booth was set up a little more that a month ago by a group of enterprising villagers led by Dharamadasa that decided to cash in on the influx of visitors and formed a 'village development fund' taking care to get the customary blessings of a Buddhist monk.
''That man is making money using monks and others and all this is not helping anyone else -- look he is building a house there from all this,'' screamed Anthony Karunawathie pointing at a spanking two-storey that Dharamadasa has constructed barely 50 meters from the carriages.
Dharamadasa is cagey about how he is going to spend all the money rolling in but mumbles something about rebuilding a temple and helping out villagers during funerals. But he admitted to having collected 6,000 US dollars in the first month after the booth was established.
The wreck has been a windfall not just for Dharamadasa. Just down the corner visitors can refresh themselves at the newly opened 'Tsunami Café' -- though this enterprise is legitimate and respectable.
Susila, who lives nearby cadges money off visitors especially dollar- bearing foreigners. ''What can we do, we don't have houses, no jobs, the government is not giving out the relief funds properly. I don't see anything wrong in asking for money and help,'' she said.
Susila's arguments are in line with Sri Lankan policy seeking and receiving billions of dollars worth of tsunami aid which is being misused, cornered by the influential or threatening to re-ignite an ethnic war raging on the island for more than two decades.
In Sri Lanka, just who is entitled to tsunami relief funds from international donors has gained the proportions of a national debate and the Presidential elections, called in November, are virtually a referendum on the issue.
Hoping that that the tsunami emergency might facilitate reconciliation between the government and rebel Tamil ethnic groups in the north and east of the island, which were seriously affected by the disaster, President Chandrika Kumaratunga entered into a deal to share international aid.
But the deal was successfully challenged in court by pro-Sinhalese groups on the grounds that sharing funds with outfits like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was unconstitutional. Some say the LTTE reacted by assassinating the country's foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar precipitating the elections.
In Pereliya, the big debate is on the future of the wrecks with one group seeing it as an asset and pushing for its conversion into a permanent monument and another demanding it's removal because they think it is an eyesore and even inauspicious.
''If you try to move it now, war will break out here,'' warned K. Somasiri, a villager who is in the camp that wants the carriages removed.
Indeed, when Somasiri raised the concern that the village was gaining a bad reputation for profiting out of a tragedy he found himself manhandled. ''At least now the fleecing has become systematised,'' he said philosophically, nodding in the general direction of the ticket booth.
Another advocate for the removal of the wreck, D. Kalupahana thinks that the wreck is unlucky. ''It has to be taken as far away as possible if we are to recover. These are three massive coffins in which hundreds died and it is the first thing I see when I open my front door.''
Kalupahana also finds objectionable the large boards requesting visitors not to give money to children as that might encourage them to hang around the wrecks and stay away from school. ''It is like those signs you see in the zoo warning people not to feed the monkeys.''
To him it is matter of self-respect. ''We can't say that we come from this village, because everyone thinks of people from Pereliya as beggars who make money from the dead.''
On top of all that, the wreck is sitting over a storm drain and with the onset of the monsoons there are fears that Pereliya and adjoining villages could get flooded.
The local administration formally requested the Railway Department in April to remove the wreck but to no avail, reinforcing the belief that there are vested interests higher up. As Somasiri discovered, moving the carriages will not be easy.
Many villagers think that the government could do at least put it under some sort of accountability. ''For now it is okay that we have this ticket business, but this (private money-making) is only going to get worse,'' said Soma Kariyawasam.
The reluctance of authorities to take charge of the wreck is surprising given that Pereliya has received its fare share of aid and help within an overall reconstruction effort -- though even here there are allegations of profiteering.
Villagers complain bitterly that housing projects, initiated by ministers Jeyaraj Fernandupulle and Amarasiri Dondangoda, are being badly executed and that houses are being allotted out-of-turn and as political favours to loyalists and party hangers-on.
There are few takers for sustainable, self-help activities in Pereliya. One local NGO, 'Help-O' has trouble setting up self-employment schemes for women while another 'Hela Saranaya' is trying hard to get the villagers interested in casting cement blocks for re-construction.
But none of these schemes match the wrecks for quick money, including dollars. ''The train has turned Pereliya into a village of beggars,'' said NGO activist A. Chandrika.
With the only tangible cash and benefits coming in from international donors and foreigners--like those who stop by Pereliya--the current joke in southern Sri Lanka is that any foreigner contesting the November elections would win hands down. (END/2005)
Source: Inter Press Service (subscription) - World
Thursday, October 13, 2005
A-bomb system can warn of tsunami
Monitoring stations set up to detect atomic explosions could help predict the path of a tsunami, research shows.
Californian scientists have analysed sound waves produced in the Indian Ocean by last December's Asian tsunami.
Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the team says the tsunami produced a 'unique' signal.
This indicates, they say, that stations set up to implement the A-bomb test ban treaty could be involved in the new Indian Ocean tsunami warning system.
Nuclear ban
Adopted by the United Nations in 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty seeks to eliminate experimental nuclear explosions
Although it has not been ratified by sufficient countries to bring it into force, a preparatory commission of the treaty organisation (CTBTO) based in Vienna has already established a global network of monitoring stations that could detect and pinpoint tests.
These work in several ways. Some measure seismic activity - movements in the ground - while others look for infrasound, very low frequency soundwaves in the atmosphere.
A third set use hydrophones, underwater soundwave transducers, which are similar to the detector component of submarine sonar systems.
On 5 Jan, CTBTO reported that it had '...recorded the earthquake west of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, on 78 of its waveform monitoring stations within seconds to minutes of the event on 26 December, 2004.
'Of the 78 stations, 71 were using the seismic, six the hydroacoustic and one the infrasound technologies,' it said in a statement.
Jeffrey Hanson and Roger Bowman from the Science Applications International Corporation (Saic) in San Diego have now analysed the signals coming from the hydroacoustic detectors, or hydrophones.
Tell-tale chirp
"After the quake on 26 December, all geophysical researchers were looking for signals in their data," Roger Bowman told the BBC News website.
"One of the common ways was to make spectrographs - looking at how the spectrum of sound waves developed over time - and in this we saw the unique signal."
The two researchers describe the unique signal found on spectrograph plots recorded by Indian Ocean hydrophones as a "chirp".
What it means is that low-frequency vibrations are arriving before those of higher frequencies, producing a distinctive upward curving slope.
"In this frequency range - and these are very low frequencies, well below 1Hz - this is a unique signal," said Dr Bowman.
Most of the hydrophones are arranged in sets of three, called triads.
This enables them to pick up with considerable precision the direction from which the tsunami is coming, meaning that using several different arrays, the location of the earthquake which caused it could be determined easily, and projections made about which areas would also be at risk.
Predict and survive
In the weeks following the 26 December earthquake, moves began to establish an integrated warning system for Indian Ocean tsunamis, replicating the Pacific Ocean system co-ordinated from Hawaii.
A number of monitoring stations were envisaged, using a mix of water pressure sensors on the ocean floor, tidal gauges, and seismometers, perhaps augmented by satellite observations.
On 20 January, the United Nations agreed to oversee the scheme, and despite some early political squabbling, elements are now being built.
Could the nuclear test-ban stations add anything to what is already envisaged? Roger Bowman believes so, though there may be political obstacles.
"Until this earthquake killed 200,000 people, the data was only made available to the CTBTO itself and to state signatories," he said, "and not to any hazard-warning organisation.
"I think there is going to be a loosening of data restrictions for this purpose, and I think the kind of data interpretation we have done could be folded into a hazard warning system."
Source: addict3d.org - USA
Andaman islanders adjust to tsunami-changed world
Dilip Thar puts the finishing touches to a statue of the Hindu goddess Durga on the porch of his damaged home, now standing forlornly in a small lake that the tsunami left in his village on South Andaman island.
Other half-finished statues, some headless or limbless, are scattered about the property, facing buildings without roofs or walls in the village where sea water ripples in the breeze now instead of wheat stalks.
It's a bleak post-tsunami tableau.
The 9.15 earthquake on Dec. 26 shook India's Andaman and Nicobar islands like never before and was soon followed by 10-metre-high tsunami waves that came rolling up the estuary towards Sippighat.
'There was heavy shaking that day,' Thar said, yellow clay smeared on his hands and face. 'And after that, for an hour the tsunami waves are coming.'
The statue he is making of Durga, mother goddess and demon killer, shows a 10-armed woman riding a lion and wearing a decidedly menacing expression. Thar said it should be ready in time for Dusshera, a major Indian festival celebrating the victory of good over evil.
Thar himself is feeling a small measure of triumph over tragedy. Business for the clay statues is good, with Dusshera coming in mid-October and Deepavali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, in early November.
He spends the night in a corrugated tin shelter at Brichgunj atop a hill in Port Blair, capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. In the morning, he rides a bicycle provided by an aid group a few kilometres down the road to his house, now listing slightly in its watery yard.
'Very good conditions there,' he said of Brichgunj, where 156 families live in 25 barracks and are provided with daily food rations, fresh water and electricity. 'But we need money for permanent homes."
WOOD OR CONCRETE?
That is not going to happen any time soon for the 38,000 people living in nearly 10,000 shelters around the islands.
"The time period for permanent settlements is at least two years," said Lieutenant General Aditya Singh, commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, who headed the tsunami relief effort until the end of July.
The government has been talking for months with islanders and aid groups about what sort of houses to build -- concrete homes with tile floors like those to be built in tsunami-struck areas of the Indian mainland, or traditional wooden houses on stilts.
After the tsunami it allowed non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to work for the first time in the Nicobar Islands -- home to some of the most primitive tribes on earth -- albeit under close supervision.
The discussion with NGOs over home designs is a breath of fresh air in the island group, said Samil Acharya, who heads the Society for Andaman & Nicobar Ecology (SANE), a frequent critic of the government.
"Nicobarese live in stilted wooden houses with thatched roofs. Now they expect concrete houses with tile floors, after seeing some prototypes from the government and NGOs," Acharya said.
Such houses are environmentally unsuitable on islands where the topography has changed drastically in many areas, he said.
The epicentre of the earthquake on Dec. 26, the strongest in 45 years, was just 130-140 km (80-90 miles) from Great Nicobar island and the tsunami followed within minutes.
After sorting out all the missing on the 37 inhabited islands that stretch across 800 km (500 miles), the Indian government puts the death toll at 3,513.
SALT SATURATED
General Singh said in an interview that many islands had sunk a metre or two. One island, Teresa, broke into three. At least 5,000 hectares (12,300 acres) have disappeared under the sea and 3 million trees along the coast have been lost.
Much of the fertile land by the coast, where islanders had their homes and coconut plantations, is still under water or saturated with salt after the tsunami receded.
"The mainstay of the Nicobar island tribes is coconuts. It takes 10 years after planting seedlings before you get full production," Acharya said, adding that restoring livelihoods to coastal residents would be a major challenge.
Sippighat, about 10 km (six miles) from Port Blair on South Andaman island, is one of those waterlogged sites.
The government is building a series of expensive sea walls near the village to keep the waves at bay.
"The sea wall is good," the artisan Thar said. "We can re-establish here. Before the tsunami, there was an old Japanese sea wall but it's gone after the tsunami. It's for our safety."
But Acharya said the new sea walls would not keep out huge waves, or allow salt water ponds left by the tsunami to drain off, or stop rainwater from washing salt off farmland.
"It's a mindless thing," he said. "It increases the danger of malaria. Seawater can't enter, but rainwater can't escape, so large areas get waterlogged and become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
The government says no malaria cases have been reported in the area and suggests the pools of saltwater that dot the islands in areas where crops were once grown can be turned into shrimp and fish farms.
Source: Reuters - USA
Monday, October 10, 2005
Quake echo: Fear grips tsunami-hit villages
Fear gripped people of many tsunami-hit villages of Nagapattinam coast in Tamil Nadu as water level in many tanks and ponds rose rapidly and bubbles emanated from them.
With the December 26 tsunami experience still afresh, a panic prevailed in most parts of the district.
'The abnormality might have been caused due to the earthquake that hit the northern parts of the country,' official sources said.
The ripples and the increase in water level were noticed around 11 am in many water bodies, coinciding with the earthquake in north India. The abnormality continued for an hour, the sources said.
Soon the tsunami fears gripped the entire coastal area.
People were seen calling their relatives and conveying them about the situation, police said.
District Collector J Radhakrishnan, with an aim to allay fears, personally visited many villages and told the people that the abnormality might have been due to the earthquake in the northern part of the country.
He also convened a meeting of revenue officials and ordered the officials in the coastal villages to meet the people and tell them there was no need to panic and that no tsunami warning has been given.
However, fishermen were instructed not to venture into the sea."
Source: Rediff - India
Permanent housing, assistance for livelihood haunt tsunami hit
Thiruvananthapuram: Ten months after the killer Tsunami struck the Sri Lankan coast, the demand for permanent housing, financial and technical assistance to begin a livelihood are the major concerns haunting the survivors in that Island nation.
The December 26 Tsunami survivors living in rehabilitation camps and temporary shelters are perplexed about where they would have their lands and how would they begin a new a livelihood.
These sentiments were echoed by Geeta Galappatty, Atrh, Ramana and Mohammed Rasmi representing various NGOs from the Island nation who were on a visit to the Kerala Capital this week to participate in an international workshop on rebuilding sustainable livelihood of the Tsunami affected people in South Asia and South East Asia.
''The Lankan Government has imposed buffer zones of 100 mts and 200 mts from the coastline in the north and eastern coastal region.
No construction is allowed in this area. It is very difficult to find land. There is a huge demand for land,'' Rasmi who is associated with the relief works in Amparai district said.
There is a need for resolving land allocation policies to enable construction of permanent houses, he says.
Galappatty of the People Rural Development Association also expressed the same view saying, ''the people out in the temporary shelters and in rehabilitation camps are not aware where their houses are going to be. They also fear if they will be able to return back to normal life.'' Above all, the people have not come out of the trauma of tsunami, she said and added whenever the sea gets rough, the people fear yet another Tsunami.
''Particularly, the girls have the most problem as they do not have privacy,'' Galappatty said. Even though the cases of infectious diseases are reported rarely from these places, she said there are great chances for an outbreak.
Coming to the condition of children and women, the Colombo based worker says that the children were not able to go to schools and also were facing mental strain. To overcome the traumas, she says psycho- social education was being imparted in these places.
Another factor is that the women and the widows are engaged in self-employment which provides relief.
Asked how they felt during their visit to the relief camps in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, she says the difference that she saw here was that the women in the camps here sat idle without doing anything and only cursing their fate. ''This can create more confusion for them. In Lankan camps at least some women are self employed and there is an urge to do something.''
Source: Malayala Manorama - India
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Red Cross helps tsunami victims observe Ramadan
Still suffering from the December tsunami that killed 130,000 people in Indonesia, residents of the Banda Aceh province got a boost from Canadian aid workers at the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.
A Muslim ceremony known as 'meugang' provided a unique opportunity for the Canadian Red Cross to help bring some normalcy to the distraught lives of the tsunami survivors.
Meugang is an Acehnese tradition in which extended family get together to share a meal before the start of the month-long religious daytime fast.
'They want to have at least four kilograms of meat. They want syrup and dates...to end their fast when evening comes,' Canadian Red Cross worker Russ Froese told CTV.ca in a phone interview Wednesday morning.
With many out of work, it has been a struggle for the men to provide meat for their families.
'The head of the household - if he can't provide the meat - it's sort of like 'how we provide the turkey at Christmas?' It's a matter of pride that they do this for their family,' said Froese.
Often, if the man cannot get the meat, he will assume large debts from people who loan money.
'They indicated to us that they really needed help, so we decided that this was something that would really involve the community and get the spirit going,' says Froese.
Canadian aid workers, led by the Red Cross's Lilly Heinrichs, rounded up 14 water buffalo, 100 cows, sugar, flour, and other items to help almost 20,000 people with their celebrations.
There were huge logistics in one area, Lamno, where the roads are still washed out, forcing the Red Cross to barge items in by boat.
Each village has a spiritual gathering place, comparable to a community centre, where the food was brought in and distributed to the families through the village leaders.
One of those leaders is Usman Rahman, from the fishing community of Kajhu, where 80 per cent of the area was wiped out during the tsunami. Rahman lost six of his eight children and most of his extended family as a result.
As village leader, Rahman was given 22 cows and truckloads of other food to distribute to the people.
"There was a tear in his eye when he got this," Froese said. "It's very personal for all of them at this time."
While foreign aid groups are making an impact, it is the resilience of the locals that is proving to be most dramatic.
"It's just the people. The people they amaze me. They are so resilient… they carry so much emotional weight," Froese said. "For us to be able to help in a tradition that is so important to them in this critical time, we at the Red Cross feel very proud to be able to do that."
Froese said Canadians should be very proud about their donation efforts, which initially aided in preventing disease and setting up relief camps.
"Now we're moving into the permanent housing stage and this is something that's going to take a while because the issues are very complex," said Froese.
"So in the meantime for us to bolster community spirit through things like this… we're also bolstering the camps to make them better conditions because some won't be in their housing for another year or so."
With last weekend's Bali bombings some wonder about the reception of the Western aid-workers.
"We stand out but they recognize that we have been here right from the start of the disaster. They know we're here to help them," said Froese.
Housing problems, land rights and lost government records are only a few of the huge issues that officials are facing.
Currently, the Canadian Red Cross is in the process of planning and building 12,500 permanent homes in Banda Aceh.
Canadian Red Cross says sufficient funds have been raised to address the immediate and long-term needs related to the tsunami.
Source: CTV.ca - Canada
Much tsunami clothing aid 'wasted'
Large amounts of clothing donated for victims of the December 26 tsunami went to waste because of poor communication, according to a report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The disaster highlighted how despite a huge international response, duplication of effort and competition caused a chaotic relief effort, the report released on Wednesday said.
'When a big disaster strikes, chaos is almost automatically what follows,' Matthias Schmale, international director of the British Red Cross, told The Associated Press.
'World Disasters Report 2005' is a collection of essays by experts, commissioned and published by the charity.
The Red Cross said aid agencies must communicate clearly to donors and the public what they do and do not need.
In the tsunami response and others, unsolicited aid clogged up the relief supply line and caused problems, it added.
Relief agencies should in future make joint assessments to avoid such duplication, said Alastair Burnett, a senior official from the Asia office of the British Red Cross.
International donors raised more than $11 billion for tsunami relief in the nine months since it struck the Indian Ocean region, the United Nations' emergency coordinator said.
More than 226,000 people were listed as dead or missing, while 1.7 million were displaced and more than 500,000 lost their homes.
Much used clothing was either dumped in warehouses or by roadsides because it failed to meet survivors' needs, the British Red Cross said.
'People sometimes give tatty, worn out clothing. There are issues of the dignity of the people we serve,' Burnett told AP.
The charity also urged the creation of early warning systems to prevent the kind of massive death tolls the tsunami created.
Juan Manuel Suárez del Toro, President of the International Federation, said: "Early warning is the most obvious way that information can help save lives.
"In the Caribbean, during the 2004 hurricane season, most countries in the region successfully alerted their populations of approaching storms and many lives were thus saved. The key to this success was putting people, and not only technology, at the centre of warning systems."
Source: CNN International - USA
Monday, October 03, 2005
A tree of life for every tsunami death
Almost a year after the Asian tsunami wreaked havoc in 14 countries, 300 people in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district planted 1,74,542 saplings-one for every life lost.
The marathon effort in Naaluvedapatti and Pushpavanam hamlets took 24 hours-and bettered the 2002 Guinness record when the then Nagapattinam District Collector, Sudeep Jain, planted 80,244 saplings in Naaluvedapatti over 23 hours.
The latest initiative was flagged off at 3.41 pm on Saturday, and the group-including volunteers of Azim Premji's Wipro-worked through the night. Nagapattinam District collector J Radhakrishnan spearheaded the effort.
Tamil Nadu, the worst affected state in India, lost 8,010 lives, of which, 6,025 deaths were recorded in Nagapattinam district alone.
The plants chosen- casuarina, palm and coconut- are expected to create an ecological wall.
"The casuarina and eucalyptus trees planted in Naaluvedapatti in 2002 bore the brunt of the killer waves. Only seven people died in the village," Radhakrishnan told this website's newspaper over phone from Pushpavanam.
Pushpavanam, about 60 km from Nagapattinam town, with a population of about 6,000, was saved by its green barrier and lost only 19 lives.
Source: Newindpress - Chennai,India
Newfields resident back from South also helped in the tsunami recovery
Peggy Kimball's career as a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital has taken her to far-off places.
Kimball recently returned from a trip to the South where she helped victims of Hurricane Katrina. The 51-year-old mother of three also used her 30 years' nursing experience earlier this year when she spent a month on a Navy medical ship on the coast of Indonesia after last December's tsunami.
'I love volunteering,' she said from her home in Newfields this past week. 'When you are able to give something you know, it's very fulfilling.'
In early September, she traveled with about 30 other medical clinicians from Massachusetts General Hospital to work on the USNS Comfort, a Navy medical ship docked in a shipyard on the coast of Pascagoula, Miss. The volunteers responded to an invitation from Project HOPE, an international organization that coordinated health professionals to provide medical aid to both victims of the hurricane and the tsunami.
Since local hospitals were operational at the time of her trip to Mississippi, many of the staff left the ship to try and set up health clinics, providing various medical aid and vaccines, she said.
Kimball assisted the American Red Cross, riding on an emergency-relief vehicle, or ERV. These vehicles went throughout devastated communities providing food and medical assistance, if needed. She said she checked on a few wounds, referred some patients to other doctors, spoke with the elderly, and provided medical advice.
Kimball recalled meeting an elderly man who was trying to help an elderly woman. The man was so concerned that he just kept saying, "Just make sure you check on this woman."
This was what she experienced throughout the communities left ravaged by the storm: neighbors and strangers working together to help one another.
"There was just that sense of community," she said. "Everyone pitching in to take care of their neighbors and looking out for each other."
She recalled driving along the waterfront and seeing the devastation from the tidal surge. Some homes were literally pushed right off their foundations, landing in neighbors’ lawns.
"There was so much work to be done down there," she said.
Just two months before her trip to the South, Kimball was recognized with 200 other volunteers by President George Bush at the White House. She was recognized for her work in Indonesia after the tsunami. She said all the volunteers and organizers of the project gathered on the South Lawn to hear the president.
It was February when she was aboard the USNS Mercy ship on the coast of Indonesia with about 100 other volunteers from throughout the country. This 900-foot Navy medical ship was essentially a floating hospital.
This volunteer effort was also established by Project HOPE. Kimball worked in the recovery room and the intensive-care unit.
"That experience was wonderful," she said. "I feel privileged that I was allowed to go over there and help out."
The ship was like a little functioning community, she said. The staff stayed on the ship and for one day she made it on land to work in another emergency room.
"We flew in halfway across the world and then took a helicopter to the ship," she recalled. "You could see the change in the (landscape). A lot of the shoreline was destroyed."
Kimball said the people in Indonesia were wonderful.
"They were the kindest, warmest people," she said. "Just wonderful to be in contact with."
She said medical staff managed to break the language barriers and really get to know the patients and their families.
"Aside from the language barrier and being on a ship, we were taking care of people, which is what nurses do," she said. "Everyone is treated as individuals."
Kimball said both experiences were very important. Both areas were, and still are, in need of help. Both areas were destroyed and the people devastated by the destruction around them. But they all seemed to pull through.
"I saw a lot of the community (members) getting together - a lot of family and friends getting together just trying to get back on their feet and move forward," she said. "I feel fortunate that I have a job that I’m able to do this, able to go out and help people. I think we need to give back for what we (have) and I’m pretty lucky (from) where I sit."
While she said others may not be as lucky as she is and have a job in which she can take time off to volunteer, both these areas need help, even if people can only donate money.
"If people have the time and energy that they could (volunteer), it’s just a wonderful thing to do," she said of volunteering. "But I also understand a lot of people’s time is valuable, so if you can’t give time, money is always good.
"These stories we heard about people just trying to put their lives together, it’s just going to take a long time before they can get back on their feet."
Source: Portsmouth Herald News - Portsmouth,NH,USA
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