Saving the Asian tsunami survivors

Amando Doronila, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

World leaders converge in Jakarta for the Asian tsunami disaster summit tomorrow to launch the largest international humanitarian relief effort ever. The immensity of the operation was described by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan who said up to five million people who survived the tsunamis in at least 10 countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa face disease and starvation.

Worldwide government pledges to aid the victims have topped US$2 billion, after a week of slow response by donor countries which were put to shame by the more spontaneous donations coming from ordinary people around the globe, responding to the acute distress of similarly ordinary people.

The death toll has climbed to 160,000, more than half of whom perished in Aceh province in Sumatra, Indonesia, which is hosting the relief summit tomorrow. The recovery of the dead has slowed, and relief effort has now shifted toward a more immediate priority, which is saving the survivors from another menacing disaster: Another wave of death from the outbreak of diseases and hunger.

The UN has warned that five million people are without food, clean water and adequate sanitation. Emergency relief organizations have reported outbreaks of contagious diseases, including diarrhea and cholera, arising from decaying corpses and polluted water.

Annan has urged international donors to keep on giving to stave off another humanitarian disaster, not to mention the huge funds needed to rebuild devastated infrastructure.

World leaders at the summit will be headed by Annan, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, along with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and leaders of ASEAN, including President Macapagal-Arroyo.

Among the slowest to respond to the global tragedy, the Philippines nearly missed the bus. It sent a small team of forensic experts and medical workers at a time this types of aid were badly needed and most useful to identify the dead, and to give medical services to the injured and the dying.

Since the Philippines is hard-pressed for funds to take care of its own disaster victims in recent typhoons and flooding, it can at least join an international effort to establish a worldwide tsunami early warning system, a proposal being pushed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, who chairs the summit.

Of the 160,000 deaths (as of latest count), 80,428 were from Indonesia, 4,500 from Thailand, 72 from Malaysia and 36 from Myanmar, all members of ASEAN, which collectively forms the hardest hit region and which, in an act of solidarity in time of regional distress, have been thrust into the center of the global relief effort although they have meager financial resources.

The Philippines has said it is prepared to back Indonesia's proposal for a tsunami early warning system and to contribute a staff of volcano and earthquake experts to a warning center. Filipino experts form part of the Philippine ministerial delegation to the summit and are more useful than bureaucrats.

Indian Ocean delta countries have rarely been struck by tsunamis, and this is the reason for the absence of a warning system, exposed by the Dec. 26 disaster. The Pacific Rim countries are covered by warning systems on earthquakes.

Most tsunamigenic earthquakes occur in the Pacific and rarely in the Indian Ocean because under the Pacific lies the earthquake zone known as the Ring of Fire of which the Philippines is part. The Pacific is laced by networks of seabed pressure detectors.

The Philippines has a stake in a wider earthquake monitoring system not only because it is in the Ring of Fire but more so because on Aug. 23, 1976, a tsunami in southwest Philippines killed 8,000.

As international agencies raced against time to ward off a new death wave, donor countries bumped up their aid to $2.57 billion. The leading donors were Japan which gave $500 million: the United States, $350 million (from $15 million at the beginning); Asian Development Bank, $325 million; World Bank, $250 million; Britain, $96 million; Italy, $95 million; Sweden, $80 million; China, $60.42 million; France, $56.18 million; Denmark, $54.88 million; Australia, $46.48 million (later increased to a $500- million aid package as Howard announced yesterday); the European Union, $40.31 million; the Netherlands, $34 million; Canada, $33 million; and Germany, $27.21 million.

The aid flowed in larger amounts after Jan Egeland, the UN disaster coordination chief, criticized the rich countries for their early slow response to the disaster. The United States not only increased its aid pledge from $15 million to $350 million, it also dispatched the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, whose helicopters went into action to drop food aid and medical supplies to stricken areas in Sumatra.

Britain trebled its aid pledge to $96 million last week, making it the biggest donor at the time, after Prime Minister Tony Blair was criticized for remaining on holiday at an Egyptian resort.

Blair said he was "actively involved" in framing a response to the disaster. He said he had talked to Annan to ensure a long- term plan was being put in place to counter the devastation. Never at a loss for appropriate words to describe an overwhelming catastrophe, Blair said: "At first it seemed a terrible disaster, a terrible tragedy. But I think that as the days have gone on, people have recognized it as a global catastrophe. The consequences of this are not just short-term and immediate, but long-term, and would require a great deal of work by the international community in the months, if not years, to come."