U.S. presidents call on Americans for tsunami aid

U.S. presidents call on Americans for tsunami aid

Steve Holland, Reuters/Washington

U.S. presidents past and present appealed to Americans on Monday to help victims of the Asian tsunami as one of the biggest aid efforts in history struggled to bring food and water to millions of desperate survivors.

"The devastation in the region defies comprehension," U.S. President George W. Bush said in Washington, eight days after an earthquake drove huge waves across the Indian Ocean, killing 145,000 from Thailand to Somalia and leaving millions homeless, hungry or threatened by deadly diseases.

"I ask every American to contribute as they are able to do so," said Bush, in a joint appeal with former presidents George Bush, his father, and Bill Clinton.

The scale of the disaster prompted Bush to put together the rare coalition of ex-presidents to mount the nationwide fund- raising drive.

Jimmy Carter, an ex-president with a long history in humanitarian efforts, and who was critical of Bush in last year's presidential campaign, was not invited to participate.

The United States was criticized for offering little aid in the immediate aftermath of the Dec. 26 cataclysm. It has since announced it is providing $350 million.

Bush met newly elected lawmakers at the White House and told them that for Congress the "first order of business is going to be to provide disaster aid to the millions of people devastated by the tsunamis in the Indian Ocean."

"We'll call upon the Congress to contribute, to help make good on our pledges of $350 million in cash grants; to help make whole our military, which is providing a lot of important relief efforts right now," Bush said.

The White House is preparing an emergency budget request to fund U.S. disaster relief efforts, officials said.

The Pentagon is expected to seek funding for deploying ships, helicopters and military personnel to the disaster area, officials said.

Aid groups said hundreds of millions of dollars in private U.S. donations were pouring in, crashing some charity Web sites. Children donated pocket money and Hollywood actress Sandra Bullock gave $1 million. The New York Stock Exchange Foundation also announced a donation of $1 million.

The United Nations said 1.8 million tsunami survivors need food aid and 5 million people need some kind of assistance. One-third of the dead are believed to be children, too small or weak to survive the giant walls of water.

So far $2 billion has been pledged by 45 nations for the relief effort in a huge outpouring of sympathy, but UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan feared donors would probably fail to deliver all they have promised.

"If we go by past history, yes, I do have concern ... we've got over $2 billion but it is quite likely that at the end of the day we will not receive all of it," Annan told a news conference at United Nations headquarters in New York.

Annan will launch a world aid appeal at a donors' conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday.

The United Nations said it was concentrating relief efforts in Indonesia's hard-hit western Sumatra island including Aceh Province, where the death toll was bound to increase.

"Nowhere do we have the kind of problems we are seeing in Sumatra and Aceh," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said.

Aid logjams began to ease, however, at Asian airports, bursting with emergency supplies. But the destruction left by nature was the biggest obstacle to the relief operation.

Washed-out roads, broken bridges and flooding meant swathes of Sri Lanka's eastern seaboard and Aceh's west coast remained inaccessible eight days after the sea swept in.

"It's absolute chaos," said Titon Mitra of CARE International, which is running 14 survivor camps in Aceh.

Aid workers fear some isolated survivors may not be reached for weeks, despite a fleet of military helicopters dropping aid.

"The emergency teams are arriving to be blocked by a wall of devastation. Everything is destroyed," Aly-Khan Rajani, CARE Canada's program manager for Southeast Asia, said in Jakarta.

Warships, aircraft and thousands of troops have been deployed to the region from the United States, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Germany, India, Pakistan, China, Egypt, Canada and Japan.

The United States has sent 12,000 personnel, mainly aboard Navy ships including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and helicopter carrier Bonhomme Richard. There were at least 18 U.S. ships involved as of Monday, with 48 helicopters bringing aid to the ravaged areas.

Some U.S. helicopters, though, dared not land because of hungry crowds below and instead dropped supplies from the air.