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UN warns of possible epidemics in quake-hit Asia GENEVA, Dec 27: The United Nations warned today of epidemics within days unless health systems in south and southeast Asia can cope after......more Bodies pile up in Indonesia after quake, many missing BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA, Dec 27: Indonesian soldiers and volunteers searched for bodies in treetops and....more US
to be very responsive WASHINGTON, Dec 27: The United States plans to be "very responsive" to Asian ....more Warning system does not extend to Indian Ocean nations DENVER, Dec 27: The catastrophic death toll in asia caused by a massive Tsunami might have been reduced had India...more |
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Taiwan bids farewell to former first lady TAIPEI, Dec 27: A funeral service was held today as Taiwan paid its last respects to Chiang-fang-Liang, the widow of former President Chiang Ching-Kuo who died earlier this month. ...more At least 70 foreign tourists killed in Sri Lanka: official COLOMBO, Dec 27: At least 70 foreign tourists were among thousands of people killed in the tidal wave disaster that...more Earthquake kills one in southwest China province BEIJING, Dec 27: One person was killed when an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the....more New Indonesia tremor, little Tsunami threat-official JAKARTA, Dec 27: A fresh tremor hit Indonesia’s northern Umatra island on Monday but there was little chance it would trigger .......more |
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UN warns of possible epidemics in quake-hit Asia GENEVA, Dec 27: The United Nations warned today of epidemics within days unless health systems in south and southeast Asia can cope after some 12,000 people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless by giant Tsunami waves. Aid agencies round the world rushed staff, equipment and money to southern Asia after the Tsunamis, triggered by a massive underwater earthquake, pummelled coastal communities in at least six countries yesterday. "This may be the worst national disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas ... So many vulnerable communities," the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told CNN. "The longer term effects may be as devastating as the tidal wave or the Tsunami itself ... Many more people are now affected by polluted drinking water. We could have epidemics within a few days unless we get health systems up and running. "Many people will have (had) their livelihoods, their whole future destroyed in a few seconds." Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India suffered the highest death tolls but Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar were also hit by the surging walls of water. Government officials estimate in Sri Lanka alone, 750,000 people were forced from their homes. Experts said the top five issues to be addressed were water, sanitation, food, shelter and health. "We’ve had reports already from the south of India of bodies rotting where they have fallen and that will immediately affect the water supply especially for the most impoverished people," said Christian aid emergency officer dominic nutt. Some affected areas have had communications cut. Others are so remote it is impossible to know the extent of the damage. "This is a massive humanitarian disaster and the communications are so bad we still don’t know the full scale of it. Unless we get aid quickly to the people many more could die," said Phil Esmond, head of Oxfam in Sri Lanka. The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking an immediate 6.5 million dollars for emergency aid funding. "This is a preliminary appeal. It will be revised after exact needs are evaluated," said Simon Missiri, head of the Federation’s Asia Pacific Department. Earlier, the federation released 870,000 dollars from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund to get assistance moving to the region. "The biggest health challenges we face is the spread of waterborne diseases, particularly malaria and diarrhoea, as well as respiratory tract infections," the Red Cross Federation’s senior Health Officer Hakan Sandbladh said in Geneva. The federation said it would send an assessment and coordination team to Sri Lanka, and had on standby several emergency response units specialised in water and sanitation as well as field hospitals. The United States said it would offer "all appropriate assistance" to Asian countries, with some aid already on its way to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. "We’re looking at ways to help in the process," said US State Department Spokesman Noel Clay. "We’re prepared to be very responsive." The European Union pledged an initial three million euros 4 million dollars and local news agency Belga said Belgium had allocated its own 500,000 euros in emergency aid to be distributed by Red Cross bodies and the EU. The UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in Geneva it was making an emergency cash grant of 50,000 dollars to Sri Lanka for relief work and sending an evaluation team to the island. The office said it would decide on help for other affected countries as more detailed information became available. It also offered to act as a channel for cash contributions for immediate assistance. Titon Mitra, Emergency Response Director for the care aid agency in Geneva, said the areas his group would focus on were Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the eastern coast of India. "Death tolls are likely to increase over time. I’m sure the numbers will go up," he said. "What we don’t know is the number of people who’ve been displaced, and what infrastructure has been affected. That’s the critical point." (AGENCIES) |
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Bodies pile up in Indonesia after quake, many missing BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA, Dec 27: Indonesian soldiers and volunteers searched for bodies in treetops and laid dead babies in fish crates today, trying to clean up before disease could spread after a Tsunami killed nearly 5,000 people. At a market on the outskirts of this provincial capital, troops unloaded piles of bodies from military trucks as weeping and dazed survivors tried to identify victims. Hundreds of swollen bodies were covered with bright orange plastic sheets. "I’m tired. I’m looking for my father. Please help me," Wailed Maimori, 22. She said her father was a fish seller and last spoke to her on Sunday before going to the market. Many of the dead in Aceh province were youngsters and elderly who drowned in waters churning with huge rocks, logs and the remnants of homes uprooted by earthquake-triggered waves that slammed into the northern tip of Sumatra island yesterday. "I’m looking for my nephew. He’s the only one who’s lost," said Haikal, 23, crying as he lifted up the plastic covers. The United Nations said it had offered to send disaster response teams into restive Aceh, currently off-limits to foreign aid workers because of a long-running insurgency. A Government official said aceh would be open from Wednesday. Thousands huddled in Mosques, tents and larger buildings across aceh a day after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the world’s biggest in 40 years, struck off the coast of Sumatra. The compound of Banda Aceh’s famed main Mosque was covered with mud, wood, mangled motorcycles and other debris, as refugees sheltered in the domed black and white main building. The main hotel in the stunned city, where the Health Ministry has said 3,000 people died, was half-collapsed. Wrecked cars and uncollected bodies lay outside. Elsewhere volunteers laid the bodies of children in rows under sarongs at makeshift morgues filled with dozens of bodies, TV pictures showed. Some were put in white fish crates or wrapped in plastic orange sheeting. Mothers mourned their loss. "It smells so bad ... The human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," Marine Colonel Buyung Lelana, head of an evacuation team in Lhokseumawe city on the northern coast of Aceh, told by telephone. As the first commercial flight to land in Banda Aceh today approached the airport, thousands of destroyed houses were visible along the ocean shore. The Indonesian death toll from the disaster had reached 4,912, officials said, adding many more were still missing. The wall of water up to 10 metres high that followed the earthquake killed more than 15,500 people across southern Asia as it swept across the Indian Ocean. Fresh tremors today rattled strongly Muslim Aceh but no new damage was reported. Officials rushed to bury the dead to prevent disease and comply with Muslim tradition. "I am hoping there are still enough coffins available," said Mustofa, Mayor of Aceh’s Bireuen Regency. Military officials said they feared the toll would rise significantly once contact was established with remote areas in the province, some 1,700 km northwest of Jakarta. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has declared three days of national mourning and flags around the Archipelago of 220 million people flew at half mast. Aceh is under civilian emergency rule as part of efforts to quell a separatist insurgency. Foreign aid agencies have been barred from operating there for safety reasons. Mohamed Saleheen, acting UN resident representative and humanitarian coordinator in Indonesia, said the world body had offered to send disaster response teams into Aceh. "We have made ourselves available to the Government and we are just waiting for the Government’s response on how they would like the United Nations to cooperate," Saleheen told . Yesterday’s quake was the world’s fourth-biggest since 1900. The UN warned of epidemics within days across southern Asia if health systems could not cope, saying the effects of disease could be as bad as the Tsunami itself. Outside his flooded house in Banda Aceh, where thousands wandered the streets, Ferdinand, 39, said: "My wife and my children, I don’t know where they are. I wasn’t in the house." (AGENCIES) |
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US to be very responsive to quake, Tsunami WASHINGTON, Dec 27: The United States plans to be "very responsive" to Asian countries lashed by a powerful earthquake and the giant waves it generated, the Bush administration said. "The United States stands ready to offer all appropriate assistance to those nations most affected, including Sri Lanka, The Maldives, Thailand and Indonesia as well as other countries impacted," spokesman Trent Duffy said yesterday in a statement on air force one as US President George W Bush headed to Crawford, Texas, for the new year’s holiday. "We’re looking at ways to help in the process," added a state department spokesman, Noel Clay. "We’re prepared to be very responsive." Thousands of people were feared dead after the earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra sent a wall of water that devastated parts of southern and southeast Asia. Bush, on behalf of the American people, expressed his condolences for the "terrible loss of life and suffering caused by the earthquake and subsequent Tsunamis in the region of the Bay of Bengal," the White House statement said. Relief was already flowing to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, it said. The US Defense Department was not immediately asked to get involved, said Cheryl Irwin, a spokeswoman. "We will work with the affected Governments, the United Nations, Non Government Organizations, and other concerned states and organizations to support the relief and response to this terrible tragedy," Duffy said. (AGENCIES) |
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Warning system does not extend to Indian Ocean nations DENVER, Dec 27: The catastrophic death toll in asia caused by a massive Tsunami might have been reduced had India and Sri Lanka been part of an international warning system designed to warn coastal communities about potentially deadly waves, scientists say. Some 5,300 people in India and Sri Lanka were among the more than 11,000 people killed after being hit by walls of water triggered by a tremendous earthquake yesterday morning off Sumatra. The warning system is designed to alert nations that potentially destructive waves may hit their coastlines within three to 14 hours. Scientists said seismic networks recorded yesterday’s massive earthquake, but without wave sensors in the region, there was no way to determine the direction a Tsunami would travel. A single wave station south of the earthquake’s epicentre registered Tsunami activity less than 60 cm high heading south towards Australia, researchers said. The international warning system was started in 1965, the year after Tsunamis associated with a magnitude 9.2 temblor struck Alaska in 1964. It is administered by the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. Member states include all the major Pacific Rim nations in north America, Asia and South America, was well as the Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand, France and Russia. However, India and Sri Lanka are not members. "That’s because Tsunamis are much less frequent in the Indian Ocean," Charles Mccreary, Director of the Pacific Tsunami warning center near Honolulu, said. The northern tip of the earthquake fault is located near the Andaman islands, and Tsunamis appear to have rushed eastward towards the Thai resort of Phuket yesterday morning when the community was just stirring. "They had no tidal gauges and they had no warning," said waverly person, a geophysicist at the national earthquake information center in golden, Colorado, which monitors seismic activity worldwide. "There are no buoys in the Indian Ocean and that’s where this Tsunami occurred." Researchers say the earthquake broke on a fault line deep off the Sumatra coast, running north and south for about 966 km or as far north as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands between India and Mynamar. "It’s a huge rupture," Mccreary said. "It’s conceivable that the sea floor deformed all the way along that rupture, and that’s what initiates Tsunamis". Tsunamis as large and destructive as yesterday’s typically happen only a few times in a century. "It was a big Tsunami, but it is hard to say exactly how many waves there were or what happened," Mccreary said. The warning system analyses earthquake information from several seismic networks, including the US geological service. The seismic information is fed into computer models that "picture" how and where a Tsunami might form. It dispatches warnings about imminent Tsunami hazards, including predictions how fast the waves are travelling and their expected arrival times in specific geographic areas. As the waves rush past tidal stations in the ocean, bulletins updating the Tsunami warning are issued. Other models generate "inundation maps" of what areas could be damaged, and what communities might be spared. (AP) |
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Taiwan bids farewell to former first lady TAIPEI, Dec 27: A funeral service was held today as Taiwan paid its last respects to Chiang-fang-Liang, the widow of former President Chiang Ching-Kuo who died earlier this month. Both President Chen-shui-Bian and Vice President Annette Lu attended the funeral service held at Taipei’s veterans general hospital, where Chiang, 90, had been hospitalised for two months after an asthma attack before she died on December 15 of respiratory failure. In a hall adorned with white lilies, at least 1,000 politicians and people from all walks of life paid their last respects to the former first lady hailed by pastor Chow Lien-Hwa as "a woman of talents and virtues". The former first lady, also known as Faina Chiang, had lived in seclusion since the death of her husband in 1988. Senior officials and politicians from the opposition Kuomintang (kmt) draped on the coffin the national flag and the flag of the nationalist kmt. The remains of the former first lady were cremated and will be temporarily kept near her husband’s Mausoleum at Tahsi in northern Taiwan before the couple will be buried together at a military cemetery next year. Faina married Chiang-Ching-Kuo, son of Kmt leader chiang Kai-Shek, when he was studying in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and later went to China with her husband. They fled to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of a civil war after Kmt troops led by Chiang-kai-Shek were defeated by Communist forces led by Mao Zedong. (AFP) |
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At least 70 foreign tourists killed in Sri Lanka: official COLOMBO, Dec 27: At least 70 foreign tourists were among thousands of people killed in the tidal wave disaster that hit Sri Lanka’s coastline, Tourism Director General Kalai Selvam told AFP. "Our information is that 70 foreign tourists have died in the tragedy," Selvam said. He said the nationalities of these tourists had still to be established. "I do not think that this figure could increase further," Selvam said. At least 4,857 people have died in the disaster, while 1,555 others are reported missing. The tsunamis were triggered yesterday by a huge earthquake off northeast Indonesia, several thousand kilometres from Sri Lanka. Giant waves also slammed into Thailand, Myanmar, southern India, Malaysia and the Maldives. (AFP) |
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Earthquake kills one in southwest China province BEIJING, Dec 27: One person was killed when an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the richter scale jolted Shuangbai county in southwest China’s Yunnan province, the state media reported today. The earthquake hit Malong village at Tuodian township in Shuangbai county at 3:30 p.m. Yesterday the village is home to about 2,000 villagers and 100 km from Kunming, capital of Yunnan, Xinhua news agency quoted the local earthquake relief headquarters as saying. There was no word whether other people were injured or about damage to property in the quake. The epicentre of the quake was located at 24.43 degrees north latitude and 101.32 degrees east longitude, according to Yunnan provincial seismological department. Another earthquake measuring 4.6 on the richter scale hit Binchuan county in the Bai autonomous prefecture of Dali in Yunnan at around 9:00 a.m yesterday. The two earthquakes might be related with the 8.7 degree earthquake in Indonesia, which indicated neighbouring areas are also experiencing active geological movements, said Hu Yonglong, deputy Director of Yunnan Provincial Seismological Department. Yunnan borders south and southeast Asia and is among a belt frequently plagued by earthquakes. (PTI) |
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New Indonesia tremor, little Tsunami threat-official JAKARTA, Dec 27: A fresh tremor hit Indonesia’s northern Umatra island on Monday but there was little chance it would trigger another Tsunami, a seismic official said. The tremor was recorded at around 1200 hrs local time, said the official from the meteorology and geophysical agency. He gave no precise location or strength for the tremor, one of many to hit the area after a huge earthquake yesterday that sent a deadly Tsunami crashing into parts of southern Asia, killing more than 14,400 people. Sri Lanka’s national meteorological centre said it had detected tremors near Sumatra and had warned more small Tsunamis were on their way. (AGENCIES) Israel starts Palestinian prisoner release BEERSHEBA, ISREAL, Dec 27: Israel began the release of 159 Palestinian prisoners today, many of them serving the final months of their sentences, in a gesture to the new Palestinian leadership after Yasser Arafat’s death. Busee carrying prisoners left Ketziot prison in southern Israel for the west bank border, witnesses said. Israel planned to release 113 prisoners convicted of security offences and 46 held for illegally entering the country, authorities said. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had promised the release to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after the Andover earlier this month of Azzao Azzam, an Israeli sentenced in Egypt in 1997 to a 15-year term on espionage charges. Israel denied he was a spy. Faeh Eader Mahmoud Abbas, frontrun er in the Jan 9 Presidential election to choose Arafat’s successor, has made the release of more than 7,000 Palestinians held by Israel part of his campaign to encourage militants to lay down their arms. "I respect every prisoner that is released but we need a serious release process," Abbas said. A list provided by the Israel prisons authornty showed that Most of the prisoners going free on Monday were nearing the end of their terms. Many of the inmates were jailed for membership in militant groups but few took part in armed attacks on Israelis. (AGENCIES) Malaysia Tsunami death toll rises to 41: Bernama KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 27: At least 41 people have been killed in Malaysia by a Tsunami triggered by a huge earthquake that struck off the northern coast the national Bernama news agency said in an overnight report. The deaths occurred in the two worst-hit northern states of Penang and Kedah that face the Malacca Straits dividing Malaysia from Indonesia. A search was under way for a four-year-old boy and his 13-year-old sister who were reported missing at the popular Batu Ferringhi beach on Penang island, Bernama said yesterday. Some of those killed at the beach were picnickers and jet skiers, including a family of five, earlier reports said. "Our country has never experienced such a disaster before," deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters yesterday. "But among the Tsunami-hit nations, we are the least affected." Najib said at least 100 people had been injured and more than 200 houses swept away by the waves in the two worst-hit states of Penang and Kedah in northern Malaysia facing the Straits of Malacca. Penang is popular with western and Asian tourists and hotels in the area are normally packed during the peak year-end holiday season. More than 12,300 people have been killed and tens of thousands left homeless after a powerful undersea earthquake off Indonesia’s Sumatra island unleashed a giant Tsunami wave that crashed into the coasts of south and southeast Asia. (AGENCIES) Israeli woman charged with aiding Palestinian gunmen JERUSALEM, Dec 27: An Israeli woman who once offered herself as a human shield for a wanted Palestinian militant was charged in court with a string of offences that could put her in jail for life. Tali fahima, 29, was arrested in ugust and ordered held without trial, a measure Israel usually reserves for Palestinians detained in the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli authorities later opted to prepare an indictment against her. In charges filed in a Tel Aviv court yesterday, prosecutors said Fahima "aided the enemy during wartime" by translating for Palestinian gunmen a secret military document they obtained that outlined Israeli army plans to detain or kill militants. She also was charged with supporting a "terrorist organisation" and contact wit an enemy agent. Fahima’s attorney, Smadar-bar-Natan, called the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, ridiculous. A self-described former supporter of Israel’s governing right-wing Likud party, Fahima has said she began to identify with the Palestinian struggle for statehood after befriending Zakariya Zbeidi, leader of the militant Al-Aqsa martyrs brigades, in the West Bank city of Jenin. Last March, she offered to serve as a human shield for Zbeidi to protect him from Israeli assassination. Zbeidi’s second-in-command was killed by the Israeli army in Jenin yesterday. Zbeidi remains alive. (AGENCIES) China opens exhibition to honour late Chairman Mao BEIJING, Dec 27: China has opened an exhibition to mark the 111th anniversary of the birthday of late Chairman Mao Zedong whose embalmed body is on display in the same building, state media reported today. More than 300 of Mao’s works will be on display at the Chairman Mao Zedong Memorial hall in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of the Communist revolution that swept Mao to power in 1949, the official Xinhua news agency said. "The most eye-catching of the exhibits is ... A book called ‘precious collection of calligraphic works by Mao Zedong’," Xinhua said, adding the book was made of gold. In the quarter century he ruled China, Mao built a huge personality cult around himself, with Mao posters, buttons and books of his sayings once de rigueur for citizens wanting to show their devotion. Mao, who was born on Dec 26, 1893, is credited with emancipating the masses after centuries of feudalism. But Mao’s China also saw 30 million people starve to death in a man-made famine, a million intellectuals banished to toil in the countryside and millions more either purged or hounded to death during the 1966-76 cultural revolution. Since his death in 1976, leaders have sought to play down personality and develop a more institutionalised style of rule. (AGENCIES) |
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