Children who survived the Indian Ocean tsunami reach for aid supplies dropped by helicopter over the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Indian fishermen steer their raft towards boats wrecked by the tsunami that struck in late December.

Monday, 17 January, 2005, 14:00 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4181409.stm

U.N. Stresses Tsunami Lessons; Aid Drive WidenTue Jan 18, 2005 9:36 AM ET


By Jerry Norton and Dean Yates
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - U.S. helicopters stepped up aid flights in tsunami-hit Indonesia Tuesday as U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged rich nations to spend more on preventing natural disasters before the next one hits.

Aid workers said supplies were making it to isolated areas of Indonesia's northern Aceh province, where some 115,000 people died in the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged Indian Ocean nations as far away as Africa.

"People know we can, on a somewhat regular basis, provide food and water. That was one of our goals. But there still are certain areas where desperation is just as high," said Capt. Matt Klunder, a helicopter pilot from Washington, D.C.

Annan, in a video address to an international conference in the Japanese city of Kobe where a killer earthquake struck 10 years ago, said the world should prepare now for future catastrophes.

"It's not enough to pick up the pieces," Annan said after a minute of silence for the tsunami's victims. "We must draw on every lesson we can to avoid such catastrophes in the future."

U.N. officials suggested rich nations spend 10 percent of their emergency aid budget on cutting disaster risk through measures such as tsunami early warning systems -- which experts say might have saved some of the more than 175,000 lives taken by last month's giant waves.

International pledges of emergency relief for tsunami victims now stand at more than $7 billion

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http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-01-18T143632Z_01_SP269908_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-QUAKE-DC.XML
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Acehnese children help unload aid supplies near a refugee camp in Lamno, south of the tsunami-hit city of Banda Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, January 18, 2005. U.S. aid helicopters stepped up missions on Tuesday to Indonesia' s tsunami-hit Aceh province, expanding help to millions affected by the giant wave that killed 175,000 around the Indian Ocean.



[image]http://diendan.vnthuquan.net/upfiles/upfiles/1124/59DF5826A5884FCF8AD0BCDE5BD912ED.jpg[/image]

Attached Image(s)

US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, front right, walks with Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono after their meeting in Jakarta

Indonesia: No Deadline for Foreign Troops Helping Tsunami Victims to Leave

By Tim Johnston
Jakarta

Indonesia's defense minister says there is no hard deadline for foreign troops helping tsunami victims to leave the country. Juwono Sudarsono says Indonesia only suggested March 26 as a target date.

This past week, senior Indonesian officials said they would like all foreign troops out of the northern province of Aceh by March 26, sparking concern and allegations that the government was putting politics ahead of getting aid to tsunami victims.

Aceh has been the scene of a separatist conflict for some 30 years and has been under martial law and off limits to outsiders for years. That is until the Tsunami hit three weeks ago.

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16-January-2005
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-01-16-voa20.cfm

Sunday, 16/1/2005, 21:37 GMT+7
http://www.vnexpress.net/Vietnam/The-gioi/2005/01/3B9DA9E4/

Why India does not receive aid?

During the nations are continuing to increase the amount money to help the tsunami victims. Some nations in the affected area said: “No. Thank you”. Why not?

.......

Monday 10/1/2005, 07:00 GMT+7
http://www.vnexpress.net/Vietnam/The-gioi/Phan-tich/2005/01/3B9DA526/

Tsunami Toll Tops 175,000
By Simon Gardner

GALLE, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Asia's tsunami death toll soared past 175,000 Monday as Sri Lanka confirmed thousands more dead, while fears re-emerged over the safety of aid workers in Indonesia's shattered Aceh province.

Denmark said it had information "imminent" terror attacks were planned against aid workers in Aceh, where U.S. and other foreign troops have joined relief teams clearing rubble from the Dec. 26 disaster which killed 115,000 in that province alone.

"We have received information from sources abroad that somebody would be planning an attack today," Danish Foreign Ministry official Niels Erik Andersen told Danish radio.

.....

Mon Jan 17, 2005, 10:03 AM ET
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050117/wl_nm/quake_dc

Senses, Sand Dunes Helped Tsunami Animals Escape
Sat Jan 15, 2005 10:27 AM ET

By Dayan Candappa
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Wildlife in Sri Lanka's biggest national park survived last month's tsunami, but it was probably keen senses and the lay of the land rather than any mysterious instinct for danger that enabled animals to scamper to safety.

Scores of human corpses were pulled from hotels and bungalows in and around the Yala National Park in the island's ravaged southeast, and the fact that wardens found no dead animals prompted theories that a "sixth sense" alerted elephants, leopards and deer to the impending disaster.

......

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=M1ZRUWIPDPPG2CRBAELCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=7335701

___________________

http://www.vnexpress.net/Vietnam/Khoa-hoc/2005/01/3B9DA9F9/

1/13/2005
Smith Thammasaroj: US Bears Some Blame For Casualties

Filed under: General— Tim @ 2:42 pm
Smith Thammasaroj, newly appointed vice minister in Thailand, has said the United States bears some responsibility for the grevious number of casulties in Southern Asia. He believes the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii did not act fast enough:

Yahoo! News (AP)— The 68-year-old forecaster — who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of Vermont in 1962 — said he believes that if the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had acted quickly enough, many lives could have been saved.

From Media reports, I believe the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center acted responsibly. But, it’s also apparent from the Center’s difficulty in disseminating tsunami warnings to Southern Asia, that its communication protocols should undergo an immediate modernization.

http://www.opinionbug.com/index.php?p=164

http://www.vnexpress.net/Vietnam/Khoa-hoc/2005/01/3B9DA8B3/

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 4:41 p.m. ET Jan. 18, 2005

U.S. steps up tsunami aid flights

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - U.S. helicopters stepped up tsunami aid flights Tuesday in Indonesia as U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged rich nations to spend more on preventing natural disasters before the next one hits.

Aid workers said supplies were making it to isolated areas of Indonesia's northern Aceh province, where about 115,000 people died in the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged Indian Ocean nations as far away as Africa.

“People know we can, on a somewhat regular basis, provide food and water. That was one of our goals. But there still are certain areas where desperation is just as high,” said Capt. Matt Klunder, a helicopter pilot from Washington, D.C.

Annan, in a video address to an international conference in the Japanese city of Kobe, where a killer earthquake struck 10 years ago, said the world should prepare now for future catastrophes.

........

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6754820/

Tsunami spares U.S. base in Diego Garcia

By Scott Foster and Robert Windrem

Updated: 7:20 p.m. ET Jan. 4, 2005A deep underwater trench, a 30-year-old military decision and a tsunami warning saved one of America’s most secret bases from any significant damage during last week’s tsunami, say U.S. officials.

Diego Garcia, a 10-square-mile British island leased to the U.S. Navy, sits in the middle of the Indian Ocean, just south of the hard-hit Maldives. From the tiny atoll, the United States monitors all manner of communications from around the Middle East, East Africa and southern Asia, whether Indian or Pakistani nuclear intentions or terrorist travels.

.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6786984

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia

Diego Garcia is a 44 square kilometre (17 square mile) atoll located in the heart of the Indian Ocean. It is the largest of fifty-two islands which form the Chagos Archipelago. It is a British overseas territory, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. It is situated some 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) south of the southern India coast.

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http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=64019&ChannelID=2

Is the US Diego Garcia base still there?



[image]http://diendan.vnthuquan.net/upfiles/upfiles/1124/160B5E20E0074740BC0D8D11A27CFA80.jpg[/image]

Attached Image(s)

Diego Garcia: Island History


Diego Garcia was discovered by Portuguese explorers in the early 1500s. It is the largest of fifty-two islands which form the Chagos Archipelago, located in the heart of the Indian Ocean. The island's name is believed to have come from either the ship's captain or the navigator on that early voyage of discovery.

A tropical footprint-shaped island just 7 degrees south of the equator, Diego Garcia is heavily vegetated. The island covers 6,720 acres in area with a maximum height of 22 feet and an average elevation of four feet above sea level. The shoreline is about 40 miles long and the island encloses a lagoon 6.5 miles wide and 13 miles long.

In 1965, with the formation of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), Diego Garcia was under the administrative control of the British government of the Seychelles. In 1976, the Seychelles gained independence from England and the BIOT became a self-administering territory under the East African Desk of the British Foreign Office. The Crown's representative on island, the British Representative (BRITREP), acts as both Justice of the Peace and Commanding Officer of the Royal Naval Party 1002.

........

http://www.dg.navy.mil/2005/html/island_history.htm

Yahoo! News 7:12am Wed, Jan 19, 2005

U.N. Seeks Unified, Global Tsunami System

1 hour, 18 minutes ago Top Stories - AP

By JOSEPH COLEMAN, Associated Press Writer

KOBE, Japan - India plans a tsunami-warning system that its neighbors could join, while Indonesia envisions one run by southeast Asian countries. The Germans are pitching their own high-tech network, but the United Nations (news - web sites) says it should set up the system — and then extend it globally.

The Asian tsunami disaster demonstrated with terrifying power the need for an alert system in the Indian Ocean and other parts of the world, but the outpouring of support to build one has generated a plethora of overlapping proposals.

Amid the confusion, U.N. officials at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, called on Wednesday for coordination of efforts — and insisted on their own central role in marshaling the expertise and setting up the system.

"The event was of such magnitude that we have seen forthcoming some very interesting and very complete proposals," said Patricio Bernal, executive secretary of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, which coordinates a warning system in the Pacific.

........

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=14&u=/ap/20050119/ap_on_re_as/tsunami_8

Global Tsunami Death Toll Tops 226,000

Yahoo! News 7:12am Wed, Jan 19, 2005




31 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters

By Jerry Norton and Dean Yates

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - The global death toll from the Asian tsunami shot above 226,000 Wednesday after Indonesia's Health Ministry confirmed the deaths of tens of thousands of people previously listed as missing.

The ministry raised the country's death toll to 166,320. It had previously given a figure of 95,450 while Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs had put the death toll at around 115,000 before it stopped counting.

Dodi Indrasanto, a director at the health ministry's department of health affairs, said the new death total reflected the latest reports from the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, which were directly in the path of the killer tsunami spawned by a magnitude 9 earthquake the day after Christmas.

The new figure lifted the total global death toll from the tsunami disaster to 226,566, although the number continues to rise as more deaths are reported around the region.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, speaking before the health ministry released its latest figures, told a donors conference in Jakarta that the true extent of the catastrophe defied description.

"Perhaps we will never know the exact scale of the human casualties," he said.

Indrasanto said the health ministry report, which had just 6,245 people still listed as missing, had been sent to Yudhoyono late Wednesday.

The ministry's figures said 617,159 people were still homeless in northern Sumatra more than three weeks after the killer wave struck

......

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050119/ts_nm/quake_dc&cid=564&ncid=2337

Kimimasa Mayama / Reuters
Deasy Mayana, who lost her parents and three younger sisters, stands on the remains of her parents' house washed away by the Asian tsunami on Wednesday in Banda Aceh.
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 12:33 a.m. ET Jan. 20, 2005


Tsunami death toll rises above 225,000
Indonesia confirms 50,000 more deaths; U.N. stresses Aceh's needs

........

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6754820/

Lone Survivor Picked Off India Island After 25 Days


Yahoo! News 7:17am Sat, Jan 22, 2005

22 minutes ago World - Reuters

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A tribal man lived off coconuts for about 25 days on a tsunami devastated Indian island before he was rescued by a search boat, a military officer said on Saturday.

Michael Mangal was brought out of the tiny island of Pillow Panja earlier this week after the crew of a rescue dinghy saw him waving a flag made of his clothes, the officer said.

Mangal, who is from the Nicobarese tribe, told his rescuers the first giant wave which hit the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands on Dec. 26 first sucked him into sea before subsequents waves threw him back to land.

"After that, once the waters receded he went to his village, but didn't find anybody," the officer told Reuters over telephone from Port Blair, the capital of the remote archipelago which are 1,200 km (750 miles) from the Indian mainland.

"It seems he just survived on coconuts."

Around 7,500 people, a majority of them Nicobarese tribals who normally live on the coast, have died in the island chain which had a population of more than 356,000.

Rescue and relief have been slow in coming to the islands mainly because all the harbor jetties were destroyed. Most of the 36 inhabitated islands in a chain of hundreds of islands can only be reached by sea.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=3&u=/nm/20050122/wl_nm/quake_india_survivor_dc