The Tsunami Disaster and Aid Questions
The Tsunami Disaster and Aid Questions
The tsunami disaster has created a massive outpouring of charitable giving, which considering the massive loss of life in some of the poorest countries in the world is an understandable reaction. What else do we ordinary folks, have to offer, and what other could we do, but to contribute in the only way possible, to try in a small way to help those affected, the British people have already donated over £45 million, I would suspect that most of this money has been donated to those charities/agencies which are already working flat out to do the very best they can, charities already on the ground, already delivering desperately needed first aid to the affected areas. To assist in this first aid the USA has arranged for ( Eureferendum) “A US Navy aircraft carrier battle group, based on the carrier USS Lincoln, is heading from Hong Kong to Sumatra. Five ships from the 17-strong group are to be deployed off Sumatra, the area worst hit by Sunday’s tsunami. Nine P3C Orion surveillance aircraft, including some based at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan, have also been deployed.
Six C130 transport aircraft based out of Japan are being diverted to Thailand to help in relief operations and the first of many C130s has landed in Indonesia. Flying out of Kadena, Japan, it touched down in the Sumatran city of Medan on Thursday with a load of relief supplies and body bags for the estimated 80,000 dead in this country alone.
The aircraft also brought an advance team of about a dozen troops who will assess the situation and determine the logistics needed for the US relief operation.
Along with the airport at Medan, a Thai navy air base used by US B-52 bombers during the Vietnam War is turning into a hub for the US military-led relief effort, which will also include humanitarian operations for Sri Lanka and India. By next week, 1,000 US military personnel will be based there, helping with relief operations.
The US Navy has also answered the call for help by deploying Expeditionary Strike Group 5, based in Guam. The three-ship force, comprising the amphibious assault ships, USS Bonhomme Richard, USS Duluth and USS Rushmore, initially scheduled for R&R, were immediately turned round and despatched to the disaster area.
With a combined crew roster of more than 6,000, this force not only has specialist medical capabilities, including surgical theatres, but also super-lift and medium-lift helicopters that can be used for a variety of missions to include search and rescue as well as transport of relief supplies.â€
Yet there are voices of caution those who would question the soundness of the beauty contest over which of our countries is going to contribute the most to help relive the disaster, whilst the EU and the UN are arranging to hold donor conferences, to talk about the best way to help these devastated people,
there are questions about the second wave of assistance these areas are going to need and the whole concept of aid. We obviously need to do something because natural disasters happen everywhere in the world but it is only in the poorer countries that so much damage and loss of life occurs. Nothing could have stopped the tsunami once it had been triggered by the earthquake, and man has yet to find out if it is possible to even predict with any degree of certainty that an earth quake or volcano eruption is about to happen. But there are things that could be done to reduce the massive loss of life and the immense damage to infrastructure these events cause in the third world, because in the west we suffer to a certain extent the same events, yet the damage and loss of life is on a totally different scale.
Dr Eamonn Butler writing for the; The Adam Smith Institute“The devastation was overpowering, yes. But the human cost is all the heavier because most of the countries affected are poor. Homes and workplaces weakly built; poor roads and telecommunications that make it hard to summon help or deliver it with speed and accuracy to where it is needed; inadequate medical and emergency services; too little education that could save lives.
It was the same in the Caribbean hurricanes earlier this year. Poor Haiti suffered enormous damage, with many killed and half its GNP wiped out. For rich Florida, hit by the same storm, it is basically an insurance claim. Homes and public infrastructure in Florida are more solidly built, storm planning is efficient, mobile phones are everywhere.
The real lesson is that we have to make the world richer. Because richer people can stand up to natural disasters better than poorer ones. We need trade, markets, peace, democracy, low taxes — all the things that will deliver growth fast to the developing world. That is the way to save lives. Real lives that are being lost right now. Quite frankly, that will do more for the planet than the theoretical and far-off benefits of Kyotoâ€.
The Mises Institute
“This correlation between poverty and natural disaster seems to hold up not only with a cross-section of nations, but also over time. As nations become wealthier, their losses of human life from natural calamities tend to fall. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake (and the subsequent fire) killed at least 3,000 people out of a population of about 400,000. The 1994 quake in the same area killed only 60, out of a population that had almost doubled. Over 8,000 people in the Galveston, Texas area died in the hurricane of 1900, but hurricane Andrew’s 1992 path through a much more heavily populated Florida killed only 40 people.â€
Perhaps the EU would do more long term good next week when it holds its donor conference, to think in terms that would eventually bring about an end to the effects of these events.
