The Tsunami Disaster

[Closed Account 2]

A few things....
3) Hopefully some warning system will be put in place, but terrible as it was, this is a once in 700 years event in the indian ocean - you can't really blame such a system being top priority.

Actually the time frame is more akin to every 100 years rather than 700. Geologists and Seismologists often talk about the "one hundred year rule" whereby a very major seismic incident takes place about every 100 years at plate boundaries. The last comparable seismic incident in the region was Krakatoa in the 1880's, the force created when it erupted was greater than anything man-made before or since (inc Atomic Bombs etc) it also created similarly strong Tidal Waves. Although the number of recorded deaths was around 36,000; it is likely that in excess of 100,000 died as thousands of deaths in Sumatra went unrecorded and unreported.

I'd like to see an Early Warning System, but it could only be part of the solution - having a precise evacuation plan is almost as important when trying to minimise casualties.

[patsh]

The US, British and West help out and ye accuse them of doing it to become known as "saviours" for their own glory. If they don't do anything then it's the "Wicked West" bullying everyone or ignoring everyone once again.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't

Well lets be fair, the US have said this themselves. Part of a report below, one of many, which confirm this.

US realises late that aid to Muslims enhances its image

The US response to the tsunami disaster is of strategic importance.
The surprising thing is that the Bush administration did not see right from the start the public relations benefits of pictures of American helicopter crews distributing fresh water to Muslims in Indonesia rather than firing bullets at insurgents in Iraq.

But it was unquestionably tardy in its initial response to the biggest natural disaster for decades. US officials themselves admitted this and were quoted saying that the belated decision to send Colin Powell and Governor Jeb Bush to the region was partly to defuse hurt feelings.

During the first three days after the December 26th tsunami slammed into Indian Ocean coasts, Mr Bush had remained secluded in his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in contrast to the instantaneous response of many world leaders to the September 11th attacks on the US.

Critics began complaining that by not speaking out he was missing an opportunity to show goodwill at a time of worldwide opposition to his policies in Iraq.

Much was also made of the comment by Jan Egeland, UN emergency relief co-ordinator, the day after the disaster, that rich countries were "stingy", which stung the Bush administration particularly and set off a debate about America's role in providing aid worldwide.

The New York Times said Egeland was "right on target" and pointed out that the $15 million first proposed by Washington was less than half of the cost of the Bush inaugural festivities this month and that the subsequent increase to $35 million remained "a miserly drop in the bucket" in keeping with the pitiful amount (less than a quarter of 1 per cent) of the US budget allocated to non-military foreign aid.

A Democratic senator, Pat Leahy, commented witheringly that the US "spends $35 million before breakfast every day inside Iraq" and that by missing an opportunity America would have to play "catch-up ball".

US congressman Albert Wynn of Maryland weighed in, saying the president needed to show the world "that Americans do care, that Americans are compassionate, to put a different face on America from what people have been seeing as result of the Iraq war".

The strategic importance of the US response were spelled out by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who argued that the image of American power solving problems was the best antidote for America's global difficulties.

"An unpopular America has to seize every opportunity it can - to 'walk the walk' about our values, instead of just talking the talk," he said. "It's a moral duty, but it's also a national security requirement."

The White House was in fact fast coming to the same conclusion by the middle of last week. The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln battle group was deployed to the region, followed by a Marine amphibious group and a 1,000-bed hospital ship, and fleets of helicopters and C130, C17 and C5 transport planes.

Bush dispatched Colin Powell and his own brother, Jeb, to the Indian Ocean, raised the amount of government aid to $350 million and on Monday, appointed his father, George H.W. Bush, and former president Bill Clinton to encourage Americans to dig deep to help the victims.

********************
This is from the IT, but there are similar articles in quite a few papers.

[Closed Account 2]

There was a medium sized one in Papua New Guinea, I think it was around 1998 and about 3,000 died. That was on a different plate margin to this recent one.

[Macy]

I was just going on the reports I'd heard, of the indian ocean, for the once in 700 year arguement. Think there was one since then (70's spring to mind) in Alaska - killed about 30 people, as it's so sparcely populated, so it didn't really make the news.

[Jim Smith]

Its not so much the early warning systems that are important but the evacuation procedures.

Most geological surveys will pick up and pin-point the location of a potental tsunami producing event fairly quickly. I believe that the Hawaii station was aware of the event in about 15 minutes but were unable to contact anyone in authority in the areas under threat.

Once you have an evacuation you then have the long term logistical problem of looking after the people - no easy task. I suspect that the shelf ecosystems that much of the fishing in the area is based on have been more or less destroyed by the back-wash from the tsunami. Unfortunately the death toll has a way to rise yet.

[mypost]

Bang on. Bertie was extremely quick to decide on a whole day of mourning for the 11 of September victims, so why only 3 minutes for a much larger loss of life?
Why not a second of silence for Bam, Iraq, Darfur, Honduras etc. etc?
Whether it is deliberate or merely simple ignorance, there is a definite value judgement on what is deemed worthy of silence and what isn't, and it appears that the loss of "white"/"first world" lives is the main criteria.

Why 3 minutes?? Why not an hour? The Brits had a 2 minutes silence at their new year celebrations, and another 2 minutes of silence at every football game that week. How many more times to we need to stay quiet for a couple of minutes as a mark of respect?

Minute silences are no use to the people directly affected by the disaster, who lost their livelihoods, and saw their loved ones die. They're more interested in getting food, and aid from those that are there to help them, instead of worrying about which countries held minutes' silences for them. The only reason we had a national day of mourning after the massacre in New York, was to keep the American companies located here onside.

We don't hold minutes' silence for all the people killed in hurricanes, typhoons, monsoons, earthquakes, and other disasters around the world do we? Are their lives not as important? The only reason we had one this time was because Westerners were involved, and killed. If only ordinary citizens of Indonesia, and Thailand were killed, would we care?

This summer, the citizens of India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh will suffer their annual monsoon season. Many thousands of them will be killed, lose their homes, and livelihoods, amid widespread devastation. Will RTE, BBC, ITV, and SKY send reporters for special news programmes from Dhaka, Delhi, and Colombo to cover the disaster? Will they heck! They'll be busy preparing to go on their summer holidays instead. They won't care. Life goes on.

[dahamsta]

Summit approves tsunami warning

World leaders have pledged to set up an Indian Ocean early warning system which could save lives in the event of a repeat of December's tsunami.

A declaration at the end of the aid conference in Indonesia also urges the UN to mobilise the international community for the relief effort.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged donors at the conference to convert aid pledges into $1bn cash for urgent use.

Pledges exceed $3bn, but promises have not always been fulfilled in the past.

The leaders said it would take 5-10 years to fully rehabilitate the region.

[...]

(The pledges have actually reached $4bn now; the IMF pledged $1bn today.)

[Risteard]

I don't want to come across as tasteless but $4 billion seems a brilliant amount to have been raised.
Could this actually be 'enough'?

[mypost]

True, but a few hundred people die on Irish roads every year and we don't hold minutes silences for them either. Is that to say noone cares at all? If there was a train disaster involving 300 caucasian Australians would it be such a big deal? No? Is that because we would value 150,000 Asians over 300 Australians, or are lives to be measured out in media print.

We are talking about a global disaster here in fairness, but if we had minute silences for road deaths, we'd have one (or several) every day. Last March, we had a minutes silence for the Madrid train bombings, but we didn't have one for the Bali bombings 2 years ago. A similiar number of people were killed in both incidents because of the same reason, and many of them were Westerners. So what's the difference between them that decides which tragedy gets a minutes silence? Do we care about one, but not the other?