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.