World scrambles to offer aid for Asian quake victims
World scrambles to offer aid for Asian quake victims
Agence France-Presse Paris
Governments and aid organizations around the world scrambled to offer aid and technical help on Sunday after the devastating quake and tidal waves that killed thousands of people in Asia.
With the death toll over 10,000 and rising inexorably, authorities offered immediate help in terms of food, shelter and medicines, as well as longer-term aid once the situation stabilizes.
The quake, the most powerful for 40 years measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale, struck on earlier Sunday in the Indian Ocean off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
It unleashed a series of deadly tsunamis that swept onto Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Malaysia, sweeping people off beaches and flattening hotels and homes.
Echoing pleas by Asian leaders, Pope John Paul II urged the international community to rush aid to the affected populations.
Closest to the affected areas, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf called for "swift and concerted" international efforts, and the foreign ministry said it would send a consignment of relief goods comprising tents, medicines and water to Sri Lanka, one of the worst-hit countries.
The European Commission said it was providing immediate emergency aid of three million euros (US$4 million) for victims to meet "initial vital needs," and that more substantial aid would be provided later.
"The needs are enormous," EU development and humanitarian aid commissioner Louis Michel said, adding that the aid would include "water supplies, shelter, food and blankets" and, in the longer term, health care.
Turkey said it had asked its missions in the affected countries to offer whatever help and humanitarian assistance was necessary.
Kuwait said it was sending $1 million in aid, and a similar amount was offered by Ireland in terms of temporary shelters, food, water and medical equipment.
Britain also offered its help via its embassies, as did Germany.
"For all the huge advances in the control of our lives through science and technology an earthquake on this scale is truly humbling as well as profoundly tragic for everyone involved," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.
French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin dispatched a civil security team to Colombo to examine how best France could provide technical help on the ground.
The ministry said a full assistance team would fly on Monday toward Colombo.
In Russia, the emergency situations ministry said that two IL- 76 transport aircraft would leave shortly carrying tents and other equipment, as well as staff, to help victims in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Caritas Switzerland and the Swiss Red Cross offered a total 400,000 Swiss francs ($350,000), while Caritas France offered some 100,000 euros and launched an appeal for donations.
Japan said on Sunday it would dispatch a group of medical personnel to Sri Lanka where thousands of people were killed with many more missing after massive tsunami waves smashed into the island.
"We will send some 10 to 20 emergency medical experts as early as on Monday at the request of the Sri Lankan government," said a Japanese foreign ministry official.
In the region itself, New Delhi dispatched warships and aircraft carrying medicine and food to its southern coasts and to neighboring Sri Lanka.
India, where at least 1,100 people were killed, also offered assistance to other nations hit by tsunamis triggered by a giant earthquake off Indonesia.
Five Indian warships steamed across the Palk Straits towards Sri Lanka, defense officials told AFP.
Three airforce cargo planes loaded with emergency supplies flew to India's stricken Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal, they said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself directed the military to launch relief measures on a war-footing in four coastal Indian states flooded by tsunamis.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters that relief measures had begun on a "war-footing," while the defense ministry said it was deploying naval ships, heavy-lift helicopters and aircraft to speed up rescue operations.