Asians sympathize with Katrina victims
Asians sympathize with Katrina victims
Reuters, New Delhi/Jakarta
Survivors of Asia's deadly tsunami said on Thursday they felt great sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, having themselves felt nature's wrath.
"This catastrophe will haunt them for years," said Ajay Singh, who lost many of his relatives in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago when the tsunami struck on Dec. 26 last year.
"The victims of Katrina must be feeling the same way we did," Singh, who works as a laboratory assistant at a government college in Port Blair, capital of the islands, said.
Hurricane Katrina is believed to have killed hundreds of people in Louisiana and Mississippi when it struck the Gulf Coast with 140-mph (225 kph) winds and a 30-foot (9-meter) wall of water that inundated a wide swath of coastline.
The Indian Ocean tsunami, triggered by an undersea earthquake off Indonesia Sumatra island, killed up to 232,000 people in 13 countries and left over a million homeless.
It hit Indonesia's Aceh the hardest, leaving 170,000 people dead or missing and hundreds of thousands more homeless.
"We feel the same because of what happened in Aceh," said Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of the Indonesian province's reconstruction agency, after visiting the U.S. embassy in Jakarta to express his condolences on behalf of all Acehnese.
Kuntoro said residents of Aceh, the most devout Muslim part of Indonesia, were praying for the victims of Katrina.
In Sri Lanka, tsunami survivors were also touched by the plight of the victims, especially those in hurricane-hit New Orleans.
"I feel really sorry about them, especially those who are depending on tourism like the area where I am from," said Lalith Nagasinghe, who has just finished rebuilding his "Lucky Tuna" restaurant in the popular southern beach resort of Unawatuna.
"We have a lot of Americans working and helping in projects around the country. I've met many nice guys from the States."
But many in Sri Lanka are still living in rudimentary shelters and were unaware of the tragedy on the other side of the world. The tsunami killed around 40,000 people in Sri Lanka.
"Some people don't know because they don't have a television anymore," said Rev. Eraj De Mel of the Assembly of God, who is helping tsunami-hit families near the historic southern port of Galle.
In Aceh, survivors fondly recall the help provided by thousands of U.S. troops in the aftermath of the tsunami. For weeks, U.S. navy helicopters were the main aid lifeline to communities on the battered west coast of Aceh.
"I saw it (Katrina) on TV," said Muzakir, 36, a civil servant in Banda Aceh.
"I could not imagine the impact if that would happen in Aceh. We are sorry that it happened."
U.S. President George W. Bush has said it would take years to recover from Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the United States.