NevOn

Blogs can help keep the awareness alive

This morning, I was reading Evelyn Rodriguez' latest posts in Crossroads Dispatches following her safe return home. Evelyn was caught up (and injured) in the Asia earthquake/tsunamis disaster and blogged about what she saw and experienced.

One of Evelyn's posts in particular has provoked some thoughts.

In a post entitled A Tsunami Survivor's Perspective: The Press and Blogs, Evelyn writes:

Bringing Story Closer. I didn't realize on Monday when I wrote from Phuket Hospital that scale of the tsunami and numbers of people affected as I only got very sparse news at the time. I didn't intend to blog so much about it except I felt a responsibility to bring the story home. Perhaps many people, especially Americans, could not relate to an event halfway around the world I thought. You might be moved for a few minutes, but eventually you sip your morning coffee and go back to work and the daily routine. In order to help with the relief effort, I thought it was important to bring the story closer to home by sharing the my own story (regular readers already know me and could relate to me) and those I'd met. I'm particularly motivated to help the local people whom have often lost families, their homes and their livelihoods - even though most of the folks I've mentioned thus far are foreigners.

What struck me in particular was Evelyn's comment "You might be moved for a few minutes, but eventually you sip your morning coffee and go back to work and the daily routine."

That's how it is with disasters. I think many people just get numbed by it all after a while. Look at what's happening in Iraq on a daily basis, for instance, or an equally-awful tragedy in Argentina a few days ago (175 killed in a nightclub fire). Such events have momentarily been eclipsed by the tsunami disaster.

The BBC reported some good news today about this disaster:

A dark New Year's Eve

They've got this right. From a detailed Reuters report this New Year's Eve:

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - Aircraft, naval vessels and trucks struggled Friday to deliver aid around stricken southern Asia as the death toll passed more than 124,000 from a tsunami that darkened the world's New Year.

A dark New Year's Eve indeed. Millions homeless in South Asia, thousands still missing (including tourists from over 36 countries), aid organizations trying to do all they can in such a wide area, governments grappling with making unenviable decisions on how to get relief as quickly as possible to where it's needed. (Latest info: BBC News Asia Quake Disaster pages.)

Such a terrible tragedy that, even nearly a week after the event, understanding the true scale of it is still difficult to do.

It may sound a little trite under the circumstances, but I would like to wish every visitor to my blog a Happy and Peaceful New Year celebration.

Companies pledge aid as death toll rises

Apple is the most prominent company I've seen so far in its open and very public support for the earthquake/tsunamis disaster in Asia last Sunday.

As the screenshot above shows, the company has given over its corporate website home page to stating its commitment and support for victims plus links to sites you can go to and make a donation.

This is a fantastic gesture. But Apple is not alone:

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $3 million and Amazon.com has raised more than $3.5 million in online donations to aid South Asian countries (info via Bink)
• Many independent software companies are donating sales revenue to disaster relief - Nick Bradbury (FeedDemon and TopStyle), and Dmitry Chestnykh (BlogJet), to name just two developers
• Microsoft employees in India are donating a day's pay to relief efforts, and employees in many other countries are supporting local aid organizations (info via Scoble)

No doubt there are many more companies* doing similar things. This is all great news.

Now comes the very bad news.

According to a Reuters report a few hours ago, the death toll from last Sunday's earthquake/tsunamis disaster has now passed 120,000. Millions are homeless. And it's looking increasingly likely that the majority of missing European tourists in Thailand I blogged about earlier today are dead, as they probably are elsewhere in the region.

Visit the BBC News Asia Quake Disaster pages for the latest news and information.

*Additional info: Excellent report on CNN Money this evening with details on around 40 US companies and their great contributions to relief efforts.

CNN Money | Corporations give to tsunami relief

Tsunami help campaign

Om Malik is doing a great service in promoting an easy way you can find out how to contribute your help to the victims of the earthquake/tsunamis tragedy in Asia:

I have been getting a lot of email from folks wondering how to help the victims of the tsunami-earthquake tragedy that has taken place in South and South East Asia. I have pulled together a list of organizations which is an easy way to help the folks who have suffered for this most devastating tragedy. I have also this button which I have created with the help of Brian. You can link to the button from my site, and to the page, and help spread the word.

Here’s the button:

 

Om’s post includes a list of organizations accepting donations. They’re all in the US, so if you want to contribute elsewhere, I suggest visiting the make a donation page on the website of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Many European tourists dead and missing in Thailand

There is simply no escaping thinking and writing about the awful earthquake/tsunamis tragedy in Asia.

Reading a BBC News report just now that focuses on probable casualties among foreign tourists especially from Europe which speaks of “Hundreds of tourists from northern Europe and Scandinavia are among the missing and dead following the Indian Ocean sea surges, say Thai officials. Around half of the 4,100 listed as missing by the Thai government are reported to be foreign tourists who had been holidaying at beach resorts.”

The BBC report says:

• 26 Britons and 26 Germans are confirmed dead in Thailand
• 1,000 Swedish tourists are missing
• 930 Norwegians are believed to have been in Thailand at the time and are still unaccounted for
• France has confirmed 20 dead and there were also victims from Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and Russia
• Thai authorities said 473 foreigners from 36 nations were confirmed dead from Thailand's southern resorts alone

BBC News | Europe | Europeans high on missing lists

Update 30 Dec 13:50 CET: BBC News report -

The missing include some 1,500 Swedes, 1,000 Germans, 600 Italians, 464 Norwegians, 219 Danes and 200 Finns.

About 2,000 bodies have been recovered, but Thailand has appealed for foreign forensic experts to help identify them. The victims were at resorts along Thailand's south-western coast and on outlying islands, with Phuket and Khao Lak especially hard hit by the devastating waves.

The Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, says he believes around 80% of the missing are dead.

BBC News | Asia-PAcific | Nordic tourist death toll climbs

The tragedy really begins to unfold

Reviewing my various RSS feeds, I'm literally taken aback by the sheer volume of commentaries about the Asia earthquake/tsunamis disaster by bloggers.

One feed in particular captured my imagination - first-hand accounts by Evelyn Rodriguez in Crossroads Dispatches. Evelyn was in Thailand on holiday and was caught up (and injured) in the tsunami there. She reports that she's ok.

There are many others blogging, too, far too many to mention individually here. Here's a blog set up in the aftermath of the disaster that's a central point of much information - The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog. The visitor counter shows over 100,000 hits already.

Sri Lanka has the second-highest death toll (after Indonesia), according to the BBC. And there I have a personal connection - Gill and Roy Owen, two long-time friends of my parents who have lived in Sri Lanka for many years, can't be reached. So we have no idea whether they are alive and well or not.

As the scale of this disaster unfolds - over 67,000 dead now, according to CNN this lunchtime - one harrowing element is reports saying that at least a third of all the deaths are children.

This comment on the BBC website today from D. Indika in Colombo, Sri Lanka:

These figures about deaths are only count of bodies in hospitals, but we can see bodies everywhere on roads, inside buildings, buses, trains and even in the sea. Thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles are in the sea and we can still see floating buses in deep sea.

The body count will increase substantially in the coming days, undoubtedly. Truly a tragedy.

Statistics matter little to the bereaved

Back in Amsterdam after spending the Christmas break with family and friends in the UK, and my first post is concerned only with the deepening tragedy in Asia following Sunday’s earthquake and resulting tsunamis.

This has been widely reported just about everywhere.  The best online reporting I’ve seen is on the BBC News site – In Depth: Asia Quake Disaster.

According to some reports, the death toll has now reached 50,000 and undoubtedly will increase significantly. In addition, there are the thousands injured as well as millions now homeless.

Watching a CNN TV report last night about the disaster, the news reporter spoke about this tragedy as being by no means the worst natural disaster we have seen in recent years (which I would define as within the past 50 years). You could think about the Bangladesh cyclone in 1970, which killed half a million people. Or the China earthquake in 1976 which killed a quarter of a million people. Or the 30,000 killed in the Iran earthquake in 2003. Or even the 25,000 animals killed in the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980.

None of these statistics matter a damn if you’re a villager living on the coast of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, India or any of the other places devastated in this tragedy (see the appeal for help by the Red Cross), and you’ve lost your family. Your whole world, in fact, has been simply destroyed.

It’s impossible to imagine what that must be like if you haven’t experienced it.