ASIA:
Biggest Relief Operation Underway for Tsunami-Hit Areas
IPS Correspondents
BANGKOK, Dec 29 (IPS) - The biggest humanitarian relief operation the
world has ever seen is underway in Asia, as international aid agencies
supported by foreign troops race to provide emergency help in the
aftermath of a massive earthquake and the huge tsunamis it unleashed.
As the number of dead continue to increase by the hour, foreign
governments, international aid agencies and international organisations
have dispatched personnel, medical supplies and survival kits to help
tens of thousands of people in the region.
Japan sent a Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) convoy, including a
helicopter, to waters off Thailand to help search for missing people
following the Dec. 26 earthquake and subsequent tsunamis in the
South-east and South Asian region.
As of Wednesday evening, the death toll passed the 60,000 mark, with
victims from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia,
Maldives, Bangladesh and as far away as Africa. Indonesia's number of
dead stood at nearly 33,000, while Sri Lanka was reporting nearly
22,000. Tens of thousands are still missing.
The Japan Defence Agency did not specify how long the mission will
last, but said the ships and their 580 MSDF crew are expected to begin
activities in the devastated areas on Wednesday.
These 580 MSDF will also be joining 15,000 U.S. troops on two
flotillas of warships that the Pentagon has deployed to the region -
one from Guam, in the Pacific and the other from Hong Kong.
The United States has more than doubled its emergency funds to the
region to 35 million U.S. dollars to help aid agencies and governments
cope with the catastrophe still unfolding.
With deadly diseases now stalking the survivors of the massive Asian
tsunami, U. N. agencies are turning to the urgent task of providing
clean drinking water and health care for millions of people.
'In the coming days, additional threats to human life such as
diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections can be expected to
arise from contaminated water sources,'' the World Health Organisation
(WHO) said of the disaster which struck 10 nations around the Indian
Ocean.
The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) on Tuesday committed up to one
million U.S. dollars and additional staff for rapid health assessments,
hygiene needs and health supplies, including water purification
tablets. The agency urged that the special needs of women and girls be
factored into all short- and medium-term relief planning,
'While the magnitude of this disaster may be unprecedented, we
already know from our experience in previous crises - such as last
year's earthquake in Bam, Iran, and the hurricanes that struck the
Caribbean earlier this year - that women and girls will be hit
especially hard,'' UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid said in a
statement.
For Bekele Geleta, an Ethiopian heading the International Federation
of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in South-east Asia,
responding to tragedies is part and parcel of his daily working life.
But never has he seen such massive devastation, like that caused by
Sunday's tsunami. 'The enormity of the disaster is just
unbelievable,'' Geleta told IPS. 'Never in my working career with IFRC
have I seen anything like this.''
The IFRC issued a flash appeal on Sunday for 7.5 million Swiss
francs (6.57 million U.S. dollars) for survivors following the massive
9.0-magnitude earthquake under the Indian Ocean off Indonesia's Sumatra
island.
'But we realise there is a big gap between the funds sought in the
appeal and the actual amount needed on the ground, after we made our
emergency assessments,'' said Geleta. 'I would not be surprised if
Geneva increased the flash appeal by three times or more.''
In a phone interview, Carolyn Green, a spokeswoman for the British
aid agency Oxfam, said: 'We're looking at 10 countries across two
different continents. It's very difficult to get supplies to all those
in need. Some of them are in very remote towns."
Oxfam has sent relief supplies to help 175,000 people across
Indonesia and Sri Lanka and dispatched 27 tonnes of water and
sanitation equipment. - Relief supplies are now coming in,'' added
Green.
For UNICEF Australia, the provision of safe drinking water is
crucial at this juncture.
'Local water supplies are contaminated and damaged. Without safe
water, people will start drinking from unclean sources and that will
lead to disease,'' said Carolyn Hardy, the chief executive of UNICEF
Australia, in a phone interview.
From New York, UNICEF issued a statement Wednesday warning that
millions of people were at risk of water-borne diseases without
immediate wide-scale action to provide safe water in affected
communities.
''The floods have contaminated water systems, leaving people with
little choice but to use unclean water. Under these conditions, people
will be hard put to protect themselves from cholera, diarrhoea and
other deadly diseases," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said.
So far UNICEF has provided shelter supplies, providing more than
100,000 blankets and sleeping mats, shelter equipment such as tents,
hundreds of thousands of water purification tablets, thousands of
community water tanks of 500 litres each, hundreds of thousands of
sachets of oral rehydration salts for sick children, and medical
supplies to places like Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Somalia.
In Thailand, the government now puts the number of casualties at
more than 1,500 and more than 1,000 people still missing. In the island
resort of Phuket, bodies are still being pulled from wrecked structures
and mud-covered areas, four days after the disaster struck.
'For the first couple of days, the relief efforts here have focused
on search and rescue. Now the relief efforts are focusing on those who
have survived,'' said a local aid worker.
Many children were separated from their parents when the waves
struck. Hospitals have posted their pictures on the Internet in an
attempt to find their families. It has drawn thousands of locals and
foreign tourists to the hospitals, desperate to be united with their
loved ones.
The Thai government has appealed to the international community for
forensic equipment to help identify the victims and refrigerated
mortuaries to store the corpses while the identification process takes
place.
Airlines in Thailand have arranged flights back to the capital, are
allowing relatives to go and find missing kin. Travel associations are
pitching in by issuing updates and missing-persons bulletins, including
on the Internet, on the situation in tsunami-hit areas.
In the meantime, while relief supplies are being flown in the
region, the mass evacuation of tourists continues in the opposite
direction. Swedish holidaymakers appear to be among the worst affected,
with among 1,500 of them unaccounted for mainly in Thailand.
(END/2004)
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