Tsunami survivors yesterday began their second month since the epic disaster across southern Asia, with signs that many are frustrated over their slow return to normal life.
"We have not received any assistance yet," read a banner strung between plastic tents housing survivors in Sri Lanka's southern coastal city of Galle.
Leading British charity Oxfam said that too many aid organizations without adequate skills are complicating the relief work.
In Sri Lanka, Oxfam said, some new houses are being built too close together, leading to potential sanitation problems.
Contributions Pending
The aid group also said governments have contributed only half the US$977 million emergency aid requested by the UN even though they pledged US$912 million for the immediate aftermath of the massive Dec. 26 quake and the tsunami it spawned in the Indian Ocean.
In rebuilding Indonesia's worst-hit province of Aceh, environmentalists are warning aid groups not to use wood illegally logged from the province's dense tropical forests, which were left largely untouched by the disaster.
They say illegal logging could upset the ecosystem and cause more natural disasters by sparking landslides.
New Zealand ordered an investigation yesterday into reports that first appeared in the US magazine Newsweek that its air force relief flights out of Aceh ferried refugees forced to pay bribes to Indonesian officials to flee the devastation.
The flights to Jakarta were supposed to carry people that Indonesian officials said needed urgent evacuation, Foreign Minister Phil Goff said.
Bribery
He ordered officials to take up the issue with Indonesian authorities, adding he was confident New Zealanders were not involved in bribery.
A month after killer waves swept away more than 140,000 lives and ravaged coastlines around the Indian Ocean, survivors on Wednesday quietly remembered the tragedy and carried on with the struggle to rebuild their lives.
Sri Lankans lit candles and chanted prayers for the dead, and mourners on a Thai island launched two new fishing boats in a first step toward rebuilding the devastated local fleet.
In Indonesia's Aceh, there were no memorials. Instead, officials said a proper remembrance was to send children back to school for the first official classes since the tragedy.
The students found schoolrooms full of dirt, and that most of their classmates were gone forever.
The disaster's full death toll is still unknown -- and probably never will be. Workers still discover bodies daily, and many more victims were washed out to sea.
Differing government tallies in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the two hardest hit countries, have put the total number of dead in 11 countries between 144,000 and 178,000. As many as 147,000 people are missing -- many of them presumed dead -- raising the possibility that more than 300,000 died.
But remarkable stories of survival continue to emerge.
In his first interview since being rescued on Jan. 19, Michael Mangal, a 40-year-old Nicobarese tribesman, described his 25-day ordeal as he prayed and waited for death after the tsunami killed everyone else on his tiny island.
He lived on coconut milk and meat, thought of the now-missing woman he loved, and fretted about bad spirits.
Finally one day, he heard the chugging of a distant motor boat. He took off his underwear and waved to the men who would rescue him, dazed and naked.
"I thought I would die, and worse than that, I would die all alone," the coconut farmer told reporters in the interview.
He's made friends at a relief camp at a nearby island, but his heart is elsewhere, intent on returning even without knowing how he'll survive.
"I want to go home," he said.
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
RSS