ACEH: Indonesian military continue to attack insurgents despite devastation.
In Indonesia's Banda Aceh - close to the epicentre of the earthquake - the scale of the carnage was so much greater. On Wednesday night the bodies were still lying in the streets, hundreds of them, 72 hours after the earthquake and tidal waves had swept through the city and along hundreds of miles of the adjoining coast. Barely a single neighbourhood had escaped the tidal waves that crashed over the town three or four times and left it several metres underwater for a while.

Guardian Journalist John Aglionby said "It reminded me of the pictures of cities in Germany during the Second World War that had endured a heavy Allied bombing; the odd lucky building had escaped unscathed but the vast majority were unfit for human habitation at best, and only several inches above the ground at worst."

Leupueng, formally a town of 10,000 people, has like scores of other small towns outside Banda Aceh, vanished. The scale of the devastation was so bad that many of the local people who had accompanied us could not even tell where their houses had once stood, let alone salvage any property. There were no landmarks left to guide them, save for the odd palm tree still waving in the breeze. On Dec 30th refugees were leaving in massive numbers.

Indonesia's Aceh province had been under virtual martial law, largely closed to the outside world as 40,000 troops hunted separatists. The Indonesian military have not ceased raids against separatist rebels, despite the devastation of the Acehnese people. Lieutenant Colonel Nachrowi of the military headquarters general information department told The Australian "Our security operations continue... We continue to launch raids into suspected GAM (Free Aceh Movement) areas and our vigilance remains high." The Free Aceh Movement has been fighting for independence since 1976, and the Indonesian Government stepped up its military suppression efforts with a massive operation that began in May 2003.

Amid the apparent calls for ceasefire, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged GAM rebels yesterday to lay down their weapons and join efforts to rebuild Aceh."I call on those who are still raising arms, to come out... let us use this historic momentum to join and be united again,"Mr Yudhoyono said."I call on them all, let us together build an Aceh in line with the special autonomy and according to what we can do together."

As of Jan 2nd, the Government reported that the death toll stands at 80,000. Thousands of injured people are being treated at public and field hospitals. WHO has sent four doctors to Medan, and UNICEF has sent one medical team. 108,000 persons are reported to be sheltering in emergency tents. Some camps have been established but are in a poor condition and are not well managed. The health authority reported yesterday that cholera could reach epidemic proportions particularly in the camps.

Starving people are finally receiving food aid over a week later [ABC Australia story]

INDIA: No public warning - WHY?
For two and a half hours the tsunami sped towards the Indian coast, yet nobody was warned.The waves struck Indonesia, Thailand and then submerged an air force base on the Indian island of Car Nicobar, 1,200 km (800 miles)from the mainland. Finally, minutes before the deadly waters struck, the sea began to rapidly recede from India's eastern shore. In some places, children scurried onto the beach to pick up shells.Faxes were sent between government departments, but still no warning was given to the public. Finally the tsunami struck, with devastating effect."At every stage, there was a shrinking window of opportunity to warn people. But nothing happened," said Barun Mitra of Liberty Institute, a New Delhi-based think-tank.

"The Indian Express Newspaper says the top brass of the Indian Air Force knew their Nicobar air base had been submerged a full hour before the waves struck the mainland coast. The Indian Meteorological Department knew of the earthquake within minutes. Its first fax went out two and half hours later, and was sent to the home of the previous government's science and technology minister, rather than his successor, the paper said. The IMD only informed the Home Ministry itself after the tsunami had struck, a ministry official told Reuters."You have to appreciate that there has been no system like this, and now everyone is getting wiser. In future, I hope, the Indian Meteorological Department will be better."

Seismologist Arun Bapat says he has been warning of the risk of a tsunami for decades, yet no one was listening. "There have been four tsunamis in India in the last 100 years, and it is well-known that an earthquake of such a large magnitude generates a tsunami. There was no system in place."India was not among the 26 countries which were alerted within minutes of the earthquake, using a system of seismic sensors and tidal gauges linked to ocean buoys. Four days late, the government sprang into action. Saying it had picked up a warning "from a number of experts outside country" that another earthquake might be on its way, the Home Ministry issued a tsunami warning.There was widespread panic along the coast and the aid effort was interrupted for hours as coastal areas were evacuated. It turned out to be a false alarm." (Reuters)

So far, the Indian government has declined all offers of foreign help. Representatives of international aid agencies, including Médecins Sans Frontières, which rushed to the Andamans where as many as 15,000 ppl were washed out to sea, have found themselves frustrated by India's legendary bureaucracy. The govt has banned international aid workers or foreign journalists on the island of Car Nicobar, less than 140km away from the tsunami's epicentre, where as many as 10,000 people perished. The shape of the country has changed. Several islands in the 572-island archipelago have disappeared completely; others such as the south Nicobar island of Trinkat is now so waterlogged that it has become two islands.

"The islands in the Indian Ocean are closer to Burma and Thailand than they are to mainland India, and successive Indian governments have offered generous incentives for poor Indians from the mainland to live here. Most of them now appear to be going home - having lost everything in the floods.The islands' almost extinct aboriginal tribes are, suddenly and for the first time in decades, the majority population in some areas. The aboriginal tribes originally migrated to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands more than 30,000 years ago. Since the arrival of the British, however, in the eighteenth century their numbers have dwindled dramatically, while most of their territory has been lost to development." (Guardian)

In small towns near Chennai in India, no aid workers were available and bodies were not being removed. Two days ago, when volunteers began lifting bodies, the head and the hands from the corpses began to come apart. In other parts of India volunteers have insufficient fuel to burn bodies of their dead.

In Nagapattinam: More than 500 children might have been orphaned. The Him Jyoti foundation, an NGO started by the Uttaranchal Governor, will adopt 100 children orphaned by the killer tsunami in coastal areas. The foundation will identify 100 orphan children from tsunami-hit areas and will meet all their requirements including food and schooling for the period of five years.

SRI LANKA: Reports of physical abuse of women and girls; Tamil Tiger held region not properly assisted.
A collective of women’s rights groups are calling for a 'refocus' of aid efforts because of risks to women: "In particular, we have received reports of incidents of rape, gang rape, molestation, and physical abuse of women and girls in the course of unsupervised rescue operations and while resident in temporary shelters, particularly in the south. Apart from these incidents (the number of which is not known), these reports have also indicated that women’s mobility continues to be restricted due to the fear of sexual violence. No proper monitoring body has been set up to receive complaints, to take action against perpetrators, or to ensure the safety of women in these areas." ... "The lack of a system that could identify children separated from their families has also hampered efforts to locate families missing children or to resettle children with relatives in the locations where they were found." (Sri Lanka Women's NGO Forum & Women's Alliance for Peace and Democracy, 1 January 2005)

This extract is from a personal letter sent by a Sri Lankan Academic in Colombo to a friend in the United States:“ .Tragically, the areas that have borne the brunt of the civil war, these past twenty five years, are the worst affected with the highest death toll coming from the Ampara region where all villages along the coastline have been levelled, be the houses made of concrete or cadjan. People are still pulling out corpses from under house pillars and from wells. Relief convoys are further hampered by sea and land mines that have been dislodged by the water and are appearing in unexpected places. The rains yesterday have also led to further flooding and displacement as well as made it near impossible to access isolated communities because helicopters and motor boats are in such short supply."

The civil war has meant patchy aid to the region: " the area controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels has had nearly no aid for 20,000 people left homeless by tsunamis that devastated Sri Lanka. The guerrillas admitted on Monday they could not handle the situation alone but the government "has not yet sent the aid it said it would," Elinan said."Help has not arrived because the government has not build a road for it to get here," he added. "That is why we are fighting."Despite the shortages, there is a sense of discipline among the people of Sampur, shattered by 30 years of civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people across the island." (Agence France-Presse)

THAILAND: Racist relief?
Although the tsunami hit rich and poor alike, its aftermath has highlighted the sharp divisions between affluent foreign tourists and poor local villagers in Thailand and elsewhere. Questions have focused on the choice of priorities in the clear-up operation and search for bodies. Hundreds of police and volunteers were swiftly mobilised to sift through the ruins of the Khao Lak resort, which is where most of the foreigners died.

But while they have been working for days alongside a small convoy of earth-movers and tractors in that area, just 30 kilometres north the equally devastated - but entirely poor and Thai - community of Ban Nam Khem has been left virtually untouched. More than 5,000 people lived in the village, many of whom are thought to be buried in the mud that covered most of the homes. ...The exodus of foreigners, their relatively high-level medical treatment and the focus on their needs have prompted a perception among many Thais that the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is unfairly giving priority treatment to foreigners because it is so dependent on the tourist trade.'There has been a huge effort to support foreigners, yet nothing yet for locals,' said Ali Theeranuch Saweangphon, a tour guide who has spent the past week taking visitors around hospitals and mortuaries.'Thaksin is just concerned about his international image. There is nothing wrong with helping foreigners, but everyone should be treated equally.

'More than half of the 4,500 casualties in Thailand came from a single stretch of beach on Khao Lak, a resort area north of Phuket island which bore the brunt of the tsunami's impact. [Observer Article]

BURMA: Military junta hides true death figures.
According to its military junta, Burma is a lucky country. Last week Burma had only a few dozen dead to mourn.Indeed, for the first three days, the official version was that Burma had survived without a scratch.. A meteorological officer from Rangoon explained the miracle. The border with Thailand may only be 150 miles north of the devastated hotels of Phuket, but Burma was fortunate to have a coastline which rose from shallow seas. These drained the tsunami of its power before it reached land. The enfeebled waves washed ashore with more of a splash than a roar.

The line sounded plausible, but couldn't hold. In the surreal way of tyrannies, the Burmese dictators were asserting that there had been no loss of life at the precise moment when the rulers of the neighbouring dictatorship of China sent them their public condolences for the loss of life.On Wednesday the "New Light of Myanmar", the junta's mouthpiece, admitted that 43 people had died and 25 were missing. Few believed them. Ever since Boxing Day, opponents of the regime who produce the "Democratic Voice of Burma" website have been receiving leads from scattered sources. One rumour doing the rounds says that 500 died in one district alone, and it sounds plausible. Like everyone outside the military, the opium barons and the Chinese plutocrats who have bought up much of the country, the inhabitants of the coastal districts of Burma are desperately poor. Their flimsy shacks never looked as if they could withstand a raging sea. [Democratic Voice of Burma article]

It will take weeks to find out if the real death toll is anywhere near as bad as in Thailand - if, that is, we ever find out. The junta has an interest in maintaining the illusion of total control. A public admission of weakness makes it seem vulnerable and plants the dangerous idea in people's minds that it may one day be weak enough to overthrow. (Guardian)

MALDIVES: See President rides out tsunami in safety while country floods [Melbourne Indymedia]

Aid: The newly announced US aid package of $350M came after some critics claimed that the initial U.S. contribution of $35 million was meager considering the vast wealth of the nation.

France has promised $57 million, Britain has pledged $95 million, Sweden is sending $75.5 million and Spain is offering $68 million, although that pledge is partly in loans. Japan pledged $640 million. The World Bank $320 million.Individuals in Australia have so far donated $50M.With the global death toll continuing to rise, European governments discussed holding an international donors conference Jan. 7.

A warning network: that protects the Pacific nations from Tsunamis has been in place since the 1990s. A series of pressure sensors on the sea bed detect changes in the weight of the water above them caused by shifts in sea level as small as one centimetre (0.4in), and send updates through cables to buoys on the surface. The information is transmitted by satellite to a control station in Hawaii.

In November last year, the system was able to give the all clear after a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck deep beneath the ocean off the Alaskan coast. A tsunami warning was issued within 25 minutes of the quake, and then withdrawn an hour later when a pressure sensor hundreds of miles to the south indicated the resulting wave was only 2cm high.Each sensor costs about $200,000 (£104,000) and data from the Indian Ocean could be relayed by existing satellites. Poverty has been the only barrier to connecting the Indian Ocean nations to this network.Observations of wild animals, or rather the absence of them previous to many natural disasters has also suggested to some that we are ignoring the natural warning system of the planet that other species seem attuned to. [Reuters Story] [Anarchist Commentary]

The Future:The cooperation of nations to deal with this huge tragedy is an indication of how we might respond the future expectation of weather-related disasters from climate change. It provides an opportunity for donor nations to install technology and expertise that may help in future natural disasters, but more importantly it provides a learning experience about where the bureaucratic state fails, how vulnerable we really are to the 'forces of nature' and what we might have done to exacerbate things. The pressures of tourism, global capitalism and the resulting poverty and pollution may have exacerbated the toll of this tsunami disaster:

Research suggests that the best protection against tsunamis is not manmade constructions but coastal mangrove forests and coral reefs which absorb the energy of the waves.
[Rachel Carson article] http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?050103fr_archive03 [The Hindu Article] http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200412281528.htm

UK MP Hilary Benn:"The terrible images of the past week have brought home our vulnerability to the forces of nature. But they have also brought out in all of us a compassion for others with whom we share this small and fragile planet. This is 'one world', and a disaster for one is a disaster for all."

links: blog sites developed to network NGO & govt aid efforts in the region & disseminate news: desimediabitch.blogspot.com
www.wavesofhope.org/
tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/\
Guardian Tsunami special: testimony of witnesses

Relief Web http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf