tsunami - u.s. agency for international development
TRANSCRIPT
280,000Lives Lost
World Responds
TSUNAMIRELIEF
U.S. Agency for International Development
SurvivorsRebuild
April 2005
Results
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The loss of life and property is immense.People and nations throughout Asia andaround the world are working to ease thesuffering brought on by this terrible disaster.The international community has respondedwith generosity and compassion.”
President George W. BushJanuary 10, 2005, at USAID Washington Headquarters
In tsunami relief…not only did theUnited States Government respond, butthe American people responded, andthey responded in great numbers.That is the basis of our foreign policy.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice January 31, 2005, at State Department Town Hall Meeting
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Tsunami Relief was published by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bureau for Legislativeand Public Affairs. It was written and researched by Ben Barber and designed by Nan Dearborn.
The Great Indian OceanTsunami: An undersea earthquake offSumatra, Indonesia Dec. 26 spawned hugetsunamis that hit many countries killinghundreds of thousands of people. . . . . . .4
Tsunami Map: The 9.0 earthquake,world’s largest in 40 years, set off tsunamisthat hit Indonesia, Thailand Sri Lanka, theMaldives and Somalia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The WorldResponds: Withinhours, aid agenciesand militaries of the United States and other countriesrushed to helpsurvivors, pledgingmore than $6 billionin aid. . . . . . . . . 8
Tsunami Relief
The Tsunami’s Path
Indonesia Ravaged: Aceh provinceon the northwest tip of Sumatra was closestto the quake and lost more than 200,000people as 30 foot tall waves hit the crowdedcenter of Banda Aceh and many othertowns and villages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Sri LankaDisaster: Most of the island nation’scoastline was inun-dated by tsunamiwaves, killing 31,000Sri Lankans andforeign tourists. . .16
Thailand Resort Region Hit:The tsunami battered hotels on Phuket andnearby coastal areas, forcing tourists, hotelworkers, fishermen and others to fight fortheir lives and help each other to safety. 19
India, Maldives: The tsunami took atoll in India—which mobilized its militaryand disaster teams to help survivors—and
Indonesia
Relief ArrivesU.S. military helicoptersdeliver water and foodto tsunami survivors. Page 10
in the Maldives, whose low-lying islandswere flooded but spared the destruction ofgiant waves which rolled on to Somalia.20
Healing and Rebuilding
Psychological Trauma:Psychiatrists, Muslim Imams and teacherstreat traumatized children. Protection ismobilized to avoid exploitation ortrafficking of teenagers. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Tsunami Warning System:Governments around the world rush toexpand the Pacific tsunami warning systemto the Indian Ocean region. . . . . . . . . .23
Reconstruction Begins: Affectedcountries plan to resettle one millionsurvivors as work begins to repair damagedschools, hospitals, power and roads. . . .24
Ten Achievements: Aid workers andmilitary forces from the United States,other donor countries, local governmentsand private groups responded swiftly to thetsunamis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Back Cover
COVER PHOTO: A young Indonesian girlnear the town of Glebruk on Indonesia’sSumatra Island, where most of the tsunamideaths occurred. PHOTOS: ELIZABETH A. EDWARDS / U.S.
NAVY; INSET JOHN D.YODER / U.S. NAVY
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FIGHTING TO SURVIVE: Turbulent wavesflood the Thai resort island of Phuketwhere one person struggles to survive inthe currents in this rare photo taken froma hotel moments after the December 26tsunami hit the shoreline.
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The tsunami came ashoreas a giant wall of water, 35 feet high and blackwith sand scooped fromthe ocean floor, destroyingthousands of homes andshops, leaving hundreds ofthousands dead or missing.
sands killed on Sumatra’s sparsely populatedsouth west tip were only a prelude.
The medium-sized city of Banda Acehlay stunned that morning after the quake,unaware of the violent surge of water rush-ing towards it under the ocean. Boats at seawould scarcely notice the tsunami whichraised the sea only about 25 centimeters (10inches) in deep water, moving at hundredsof miles per hour as a wave of energy.
As it bore down on the sleepy city of300,000 people, and reached the shallowwater near its harbor and densely packeddowntown, the lower edge of the tsunamislowed as it rubbed along the ocean floor.The upper edge rose up, sucking the oceanback from the shore leaving the ocean floorexposed with thousands of stranded fishflopping on the mud. Unaware that this isthe sign of an impending tsunami, peoplewatched or ran to catch the fish.
Then the ocean returned, rushing for-ward at perhaps 50 miles per hour as a tow-ering black wall of water mixed with mudfrom the ocean floor.
FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTER the earth-quake I saw the water coming and I ran,” saidZainal Abidin, 49, who sold fish in the port.
“The water was 12 meters high (36 feet).I ran with the water a few meters behind meand jumped into a dump truck to escape.People were being sucked into the water andasking for help. I heard the noise of thehouses sucked under the water. Half aminute later I couldn’t see them. The waterwas so strong it came out of the drains.There was no question of swimming.”
Abidin’s wife and two daughters aged 21and 9 were killed—“we never found them,”
Deadly Wall of Water4
Despite warnings that more would diefrom disease, lack of clean water or hungerthan died in the tsunami—there were nooutbreaks of illness. Hundreds of non-gov-ernment organizations, the ministries ofhealth and welfare, militaries of many na-tions banded together to assist those in need.Some $6 billion in humanitarian aid waspledged by countries and private citizens.The United States gave the largest pledge of$950 million, followed by Germany.
But for hundreds of thousands, it wastoo late. The disaster came swiftly—in a fewdevastating minutes—without warning.
In Banda Aceh, just a hundred miles orso from the epicenter of the magnitude 9undersea earthquake, a huge departmentstore tumbled into a jagged pile of ruins.
Government buildings pancaked. Wallscracked and windows broke. But it wasnothing compared to what followed.
As the earthquake pushed a piece of theocean floor the length of California upwardsseveral feet, the sudden movement un-leashed waves of energy that sped throughthe ocean at 500 miles per hour—the Japan-ese called them tsunamis and in Englishthey’re known as tidal waves.
IN MINUTES, they hit their first obsta-cle—the west coast of Sumatra in Acehprovince, a rural, rice-growing region ridgedwith towering, jungle-clad peaks and inhab-ited by 4 million mainly Muslim people.
At Calang and Meluaboh and dozens ofsmaller towns and villages, barely awake peo-ple were swept to their deaths by a wave thattowered 60 to 80 feet tall, driving inland upto three kilometers. It would be days beforeany survivors could be reached by rescuers totell the tale of horror. But the tens of thou-
AM local time on theday after Christmas,December 26, 2004,the largest earthquake
to hit the world in 40 years struck, 10 milesunder the sea bed just off the western tip ofIndonesia’s Sumatra island.
The earthquake knocked down buildingsbut the real toll—273,000 people dead ormissing—came when the quake set off un-dersea waves that sped across the IndianOcean at 600 km per hour (375 mph), ris-ing up in killer tsunamis or tidal waves.
The suffering and loss are beyond de-scription. Thousands of children lost theirparents. Parents lost children and spouses.
Yet amid the most devastating naturaldisaster to hit the world in decades, therewere rays of hope. The world reacted withspeed and compassion. U.S. warships sailedfull speed to deliver aid—clean water, medi-cine, tents and food. Dozens of countries—led by a massive U.S. aid operation—fo-cused on the displaced, the wounded.
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PHOTOGRAPHING HISTORY: An Indonesian visitor takes a photo of thedevastated center of Banda Aceh, Indone-sia, where 200,000 people died or werelost to the tsunami December 26.The sealies just beyond the most distant trees.
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he said as he looked out over the flat cementplatform that is all that remains of his home.“This is the grave of my family.”
It is littered with smashed brick walls,twisted sheets of tin roofing and bits of col-orful cloth caught on branches. There is acurtain, still on its rod, a yogurt cup, achild’s pink school bag.
A neighbor rides up on a bicycle, seesAbidin and they embrace. Both are weeping.
Behind them, the trunk of a coconut treeshows the stain left by the sea water, about20 feet above the ruined city floor.
Anyone who has tried to lift a couple ofpails of water knows that water is heavy.When this wall of water, now moving about80 km per hour (50 mph), hit the first shipsand port structures, it hurled them off theirmoorings and foundations, smashing themagainst each other and tearing them to bits.
The tidal wave moved inland, somehowsparing hundreds of palm trees as the waterpassed around the thin trunks, ripping offevery frond. It smashed thousands of housesinto rubble, turning furniture, brick wallsand wooden siding into dangerous weapons.Thousands of people never had a chance.Engulfed suddenly in the wall of water, theywere smashed by the debris or drowned,wrapped in junk and clutter that was oncetheir homes.
A 200-foot long barge with a huge elec-tric generator was carried inland five kilome-ters by the 30 foot wall of water, settling ontop of the remains of houses. From that boatback to the sea one walks along a scene ofBiblical destruction, littered with the hopes
and dreams and bodies of the ancient city ofBanda Aceh.
Perhaps 200,000 people died there in afew minutes before the water, its energy ex-hausted, flowed back into the Indian Ocean,carrying with it tons of debris and thousandsof bodies that have never been found.
One month after the tsunami, Indone-sian troops and relief workers were finding1,000 bodies per day as mechanical excava-tors removed the shattered piles of debrisand found the dead beneath.
At least, the smell of death had gone. Butthe fear remained as survivors mourned theirlost children and parents and recalled themoments of terror as they fought to survive.
LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER At sea,the wave bore on, hitting next the resorttowns of Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast-line—Phuket Island and the nearby beachresort of Khao Lak. About half the 5,000dead and 2,000 still missing in Thailandwere foreign tourists.
TWO HOURS AFTER the earthquake,Sri Lanka was next—3 meter (15 foot)waves lashed the coastline, killing 30,000people and leaving another 10,000 missing.It was called the worst natural disaster in theisland nation’s history.
Once again, children and fishing folk liv-ing near the sea wondered as the sea with-drew 400 meters (400 yards) from the shore,exposing the sea bed and flopping fish. Someraced down to look or collect the fish, onlyto be washed away as the sea returned.
Abdul Kafoor, 36, is a fisherman in theeast coast town of Kalmunaikudy in AmparaProvince where more than 100,000 peoplehave lost their homes.
“I lost my wife and three children in thewaves,” said the fisherman. “Of 16,000 peo-ple in our town, 2,500 died. I survived be-
cause I went to the road to get tea. I ran tosave my children but couldn’t.”
His two surviving children Farmil, 9 andFazna, 8 cling to his sarong as he asks a visi-tor, now that his wife is dead, “How can Iwork and bring up two children?”
Relentlessly, the tsunamis continuedtheir terrible route across the Indian Ocean,killing 10,000 on India’s southeastern TamilNadu Province coastline, scores in Burmaand Malaysia, hundreds in the Maldives, andreaching thousands of miles across the sea toSomalia on Africa’s coast to kill 200 more.
This report tells the story of the tsunamisand how people have worked together tohelp the survivors rebuild their health,homes and families in the wake of this great-est natural disaster in their lifetimes.
Source: United Nations and governments of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India,Thailand, Maldives
Tsunami’s Toll Across Asia
500,000
400,000300,000
200,000
100,0000
People
Indonesia
Sri Lanka
Thailand
India
Somalia
Maldives
dead missingdisplaced
MaldivesImpact in 3.5 hoursWaves up to1.5 meters (5 ft)
Puntland, Somalia Impact in 8 hoursWaves up to 4 meters (12 ft)
I N D I A NI N D I A N
SomaliaMaldives
A F R I C A
15ºN
Equator
15ºS
1000 Km0
1000 Miles0
least greatest
Wave Intensity
Deadly Wall of Water
Indian Ocean Tsunami6
The earthquake Sunday morning, December26, sent waves of energy more than 5,000 km(3,000 mi) across the Indian Ocean, creatingdestructive tsunamis in Indonesia, Thailand,Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives and Somalia.
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Sri LankaImpact in 2 hoursWaves up to 5 meters (15 ft)
IndiaImpact in 2 hoursWaves up to 7 meters (21 ft)
Andaman andNicobar Islands, India Impact in 90 minutes Waves up to 7 meters (21 ft) Phuket, Thailand
Impact in 1 hourWaves up to 10 meters (30 ft)
Sumatra, IndonesiaImpact in 15 minutesWaves up to 30 meters (90 ft)
Magnitude 9.0 EarthquakeDecember 26, 20046:58 a.m. local time
O C E A NO C E A N
India Burma
Thailand
SriLanka
Indonesia
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ENVOYS: Jeb Bush (left), Colin Powell(cntr), Andrew Natsios (rt. rear) in Aceh.
BUSH AND CLINTON: Ex-presidents visit tsunami survivors and raise aid funds.
Within hours of thetsunami, civilian andmilitary relief missionsfrom the U.S. and manyother countries beganmoving food, water, tents,medicine and relief workersto assist the survivors.
Rushing to Help
The World Responds
USAID RESPONDS TO A CRISIS
1. Crisis or disaster hits:● Agency or U.S. Embassy issues a Declaration of Disaster● USAID sends a Disaster AssistanceResponse Team (DART)
2. Needs Assessments: DART expertsassess emergency requirements and beginto supply food, health care, sanitation,shelter and water. 1–30 days
3. Relief and Rehabilitation: Restorationof basic services to pre-crisis level.60 days–2 years
4. Reconstruction: Large projects such asroads, hospitals and power. 1–5 years
5. Long-Term Development: Education,rule of law, governance, trade, economicgrowth, health and agriculture. 5–10 years
They had clean water. They cooked onsmall kerosene stoves or cooking fires. Theyhad clean, donated clothing to replace theirown, lost when their homes were smashedby the waves.
Some relief groups issued dire predictionsthat as many people would die from diseaseand foul drinking water as from the tsuna-mis themselves. But they were proved wrong.
There was no outbreak of disease or lossof life due to epidemics. This is mainly be-cause donor nations and aid groups quicklyjoined hands with disaster relief officials inthe affected nations to dispatch immediaterelief, organize teams to assess the need andprepare for one of the world’s largest hu-manitarian relief operations in history.
WITHIN HOURS of the tsunami, inWashington, while the head of the U.S. gov-ernment’s principal overseas humanitarianagency—the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment or USAID—was still inchurch, an emergency Response Manage-ment Team (RMT) was formed by his staffto coordinate aid.
USAID missions in Indonesia, Sri Lan-ka, Thailand and India immediately released$100,000 to each country for their RedCross or other local humanitarian groups.
The U.S. State Department set up a coregroup of nations, along with Australia, Japanand India, to coordinate aid. State also pre-pared lists of missing American citizens tohelp their relatives determine their fate.
U.S. military forces received permissionfrom the Thai government to set up JointTask Force 536 at a Thai air base in Utapao,under Marine Lt. Gen. “Rusty” Blackman.
U.S. military officers there met with civil-ian relief specialists from USAID’s Office ofU.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. Militaryofficers said they had helicopters and planesand ships ready to swing into operation. US-AID officials said they had relief supplies,and experts who could determine needs andappropriate amounts and kinds of aid.
The military agreed to ferry the Agency’s
relief supplies into Banda Aceh, which wassoon clear of water, and into Colombo, SriLanka. U.S. military ships in Guam, Singa-pore and Diego Garcia took on fuel, tents,food, medicines and tools. Some put to seaanticipating orders to head for the region.
Cell phones were not working properlybut still relayed text messages which in-formed USAID staff—many of them offduty for the Christmas holiday—of the hugeearthquake and tsunamis, said Jon Lindborg,deputy mission director in Jakarta.
Although Aceh province had been offlimits to most aid workers for 30 months asthe government fought a separatist move-ment, USAID did have an assistance pro-gram there with the International Organiza-tion for Migration—an aid group. IOM wasauthorized to hire 80 large trucks whichwere loaded with food, water, electric gener-ators and barrels of gasoline and driven fromMedan 24 hours north over damaged roadsto deliver the first relief to Aceh.
Additional aid from the U.S. and other
he Dec. 26 earthquake and tsuna-mi cut communications and iso-lated many communities, but re-ports of the disasters spread likewildfire around the world.
Early reports told of a few dozen dead.Then it was a few hundred, a few thousand.Days later it reached tens of thousands.More than two weeks later the reports spokeof more than 100,000 deaths—a figure thatwould be dwarfed by the final estimates ofabout 273,000 dead and missing—about athird of them people who simply vanishedwithout a trace and are unofficially pre-sumed to have died.
Some news articles focused on individualcases in which aid was slow in reaching someof the one million people displaced by thetsunamis. Others reported some donatedclothing or food was poorly distributed oreven soaked in the seas on remote beaches.
But most relief reached the needy as theyset up shelters in tents or in hundreds ofschools, temples, mosques, churches or withfamilies unaffected by the disaster.
Food, clean water, medical care and oth-er help was rushed by plane, helicopter, shipand trucks.
The survivors had been badly shaken.They had lost homes and families, and theyhad ongoing fears of the sea in case of an-other earthquake. But they were healthy andhelping each other to get over their horribleexperience and prepare to restart their lives.
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RELIEF CARRIER: USS Abraham Lincolnand U.S. hospital ship Mercy off Aceh.
CUSHIONED AID: Landing relief fromthe USS Bonhomme Richard on Sumatra.
DISGORGING AID: Huge planes deliverrelief for tsunami survivors.
governments, and from private relief groups,soon arrived in India, Thailand, the Mal-dives and Somalia.
TUESDAY, two days after the tsunamisstruck, Indonesian Vice-President Muham-mad Jusuf Kalla met with 200 ambassadors,donor agencies and Non-Government Orga-nizations (NGOs).
“They showed us staggering pictures tak-en when the president [Susilo BambangYudhoyono] flew from Papua to Banda AcehMonday—the vice president said he’d seenenough—it looked like he had seen a ghost,”said Lindborg.
Although Aceh had been off limits dueto the separatist insurgency, it was thrownopen to all donors to deal with the crisis.Said one foreign aid official: “In two days,Aceh went from feeling like North Korea toWoodstock” as hundreds of aid groups fromaround the world rushed in.
Save the Children, International MedicalCorps, CARE, Doctors Without Borders,World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Ox-fam, the International Rescue Committeeand hundreds more set up operations. Theyranged from huge teams of foreign and localstaff equipped with fleets of trucks and evenhelicopters to small church-run groups withfew resources.
Australia’s military rushed its ships andplanes to help. By Wednesday, PresidentBush approved U.S. military help.
BY FRIDAY, the U.S. aircraft carrier groupAbraham Lincoln was off the Aceh coast.Helicopters from the Lincoln began carryingfood and water to tsunami survivors on thebadly hit western side of Aceh, where roadsand bridges had been destroyed cutting offall land communication with the relief effortbuilding up in Banda Aceh.
USAID officer Herbie Smith in Jakartalearned that the Lincoln could produce tensof thousands of gallons of clean water, butlacked containers to deliver it. So Smithbought up on the Jakarta market thousands
of plastic five-gallon containers and shippedthem to the Lincoln.
BY THE END OF THE WEEK, the Unit-ed States, Japan, Britain, Germany, Singa-pore, Australia, Germany, Switzerland and adozen other countries had civilian, militaryand private relief teams on the ground in In-donesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. India didnot request foreign help and said it wouldprovide its own disaster response. It evensent help to its neighbor Sri Lanka. Thailandaccepted foreign help for a time but it wasable to care for survivors.
BY JANUARY 26, 2005, one month afterthe tsunamis, the International Federation ofRed Cross and Red Crescent Societies an-nounced that the $1.2 billion pledgedworldwide was sufficient to its relief program.
BY MARCH, governments pledged morethan $6 billion in relief and reconstructionfunds. Americans privately donated another
$1 billion to relief agencies, and British citi-zens have contributed $575 million.
Catholic Relief Services stopped takingdonations after it received $114 million,Doctors Without Borders started sendingmoney back and Oxfam said it no longerneeded contributions.
Jan Egeland, emergency relief coordina-tor for the United Nations, said 90 percentof the $977 million the United Nations ini-tially sought for emergency relief had beenreceived and mostly spent providing food,shelter and medical help for survivors.
The big question mark for the future waswould governments and developmentgroups be able to come up with the estimat-ed $12 billion in reconstruction costs.
For the large construction projects—such as the $200 million repair of the roadand bridges on the West Coast of Aceh, theaccounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers of-fered to the United Nations to audit thework pro bono.
GOVERNMENTS PLEDGE$6 BILLION
Principal donors: see right
Other donors include:Norway, United Kingdom, Italy,Denmark, Sweden, Finland, China,United Arab Emirates, Belgium,Russia, New Zealand, Greece,Qatar, Switzerland, and India
Private contributions:U.S. more than $1 billionU.K. more than $500 million
European Commission $660 million
*Includes $650 million requested from Congress
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordina-tion of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
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United States$1 billion*
Germany$682 million
Japan$503 million
France$468 million Canada
$348 millionAustralia
$431 million
Netherlands$268 million
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ADOPTING ORPHAN: This woman in adisplaced persons camp has informallyadded the orphan boy next to her, to herown family.
RAVAGED
With about 235,000 deador missing, Indonesia’sAceh province suffered the greatest loss in theIndian Ocean.
he small yellow helicopter thatlifted up from Banda Aceh air-port flew over the vast brownswathes of fields, villages, forestsand shoreline smashed by the De-
cember 26 tsunami. It passed over the road,its bridges tossed aside like toys, cut in manyplaces and washed into the sea in others.
Huge boats lay upside down and acres offarmland lay washed clean of crops, houses,trees and all signs of greenery.
Wherever it passed a village spared bythe tsunami, blue tents clustered around thedomed mosque and the school yard.
But it was only when it landed and oneset out on foot through the muddy debrisleft by thousands of homes that the enor-mous destruction took on a human face.
The town of Calang on the west coast ofSumatra was perhaps the first place thetsunami hit—probably just five or 10 min-utes after the 6:58 a.m. earthquake.
Yet one month later, Lele Nurlali, 15 andMohammed Haris, 9—who live in an emer-gency shelter with their aunt because theirparents died in the tsunami—are going toschool. Hundreds of others live in the sturdyshelters the survivors built up on the hillsideabove the threatening sea, with plastic tarpsprovided by USAID and other foreigndonors. They used salvaged boards for thefloor and tin sheets for the roof.
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BANDA ACEH DESTROYED: A U.S. Navyhelicopter crewman delivering relief viewsthe utter destruction of Banda Aceh.
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WAVE OF DESTRUCTION: The ruins ofBanda Aceh lie in mute testimony to thepower of the tsunami.
In Calang and in Banda Aceh, survivorssupport each other and provide the love andcare that helps them cope with their loss.
Many earn $8 per day shoveling mudand debris from hospitals, schools, roads andpublic buildings under U.S. programs.
Aceh is a fertile province and away fromthe damaged coast, golden rice fields werebeing harvested. Fishermen were hoping torepair their boats and resume their trade.
The Free Aceh Movement, known by In-donesian letters GAM, has fought the In-donesian army since 1976, leaving 13,000dead. But after the tsunami, fightingstopped and peace talks began in Helsinki.
At Banda Aceh airport, the humanitarianaid operation was going on full bore onemonth after the tsunami. Four huge cargo
Inside the shelters, children play andread their school books. The floors are cleanand clothing—provided by donors—is cleanand folded neatly on shelves supported bystraight branches.
Inside Lele’s house, stacked on a shelf,are bottled water, biscuits, Lux soap, sham-poo and bags of rice.
“The first help we got came from theU.S. Navy helicopters,” said teacher Yusni(she uses one name) who lives with nine oth-ers in one of the shelters. Her husband isdead and her village destroyed.
In large brown tents set up by the In-donesian military, a high school has beenstarted. “We feel sad because we miss ourfriends—10 kids in my class died,” said oneof the students.
planes parked in a row, disgorging pallets offood, water and medicine; trucks and con-struction equipment rolled down rampsready to deliver aid and repair roads.
Out on Banda Aceh’s vast, ruined plain,which once housed 200,000 people andtheir businesses, schools and places of wor-ship, dozens of large excavators dug at thepiles of shattered boards, cement and brickrubble, bits of furniture and other trash leftby the giant wave.
An endless series of trucks carted the de-bris away to dump sites.
One truck carried away plastic bags withbodies discovered as the rubble wascleared—up to 1,000 corpses a day were stillbeing found a month after the tsunami.
In the tent camps where 400,000 sur-
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Fifteen minutes afterthe earthquake I sawthe water coming and I ran.The waterwas 12 meters high…People called for help.I heard the noise of the houses suckedunder the water.”Zainal Abidin, 49, who sold fish in Banda Aceh
vivors were sheltered, hundreds of foreignaid groups provided clean water, food andmedical care. USAID funds went toUNICEF, World Vision, the World HealthOrganization, Mercy Corps, the Interna-tional Rescue Committee, the moderate Is-lamic group Muhammadiyah, Project Con-cern International, CARE and other groups.
U.S. Navy helicopters and planes fromthe aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and theBonhomme Richard flew 600 sorties deliver-ing 4.8 million pounds of food, water andmedicine. They evacuated 3,000 Indonesiantsunami victims to shelters and hospitals.
At Banda Aceh airport each morning, 20U.S., Indonesian, German, Australian andother military officers met with U.N. offi-cials to coordinate aid. When the Lincoln
ended its mission Feb. 4, the Banda Acehnewspaper ran a front page photo of the shipheadlined: “Thank You USS A. Lincoln.”
In the corner of the picture was a photoof the U.S. hospital ship Mercy which treat-ed 20,000 tsunami survivors before it left In-donesian waters March 16.
U.S. aid to Indonesia reached $130 mil-lion by April and private American pledgesto all tsunami-affected countries topped $1billion by mid March according to InterAc-tion, a Washington-based group of morethan 160 NGOs.
The Indonesian military and USAIDhad begun building temporary housing tomove people out of tents while Indonesia de-cided where to build permanent homes thatwill be safe from future tsunamis.
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COMING THROUGH: Indonesian chil-dren haul drinking water in Meulaboh,Sumatra, delivered by U.S. helicopters.
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DIPLOMATIC AID: In Jakarta, U.S. Ambas-sador Lynn Pascoe (left) and USAID Mis-sion Director Bill Frej load relief for Aceh.
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MEDICAL ATTENTION: Injured manevacuated by U.S. Navy and USAID-funded medic from Sumatra village.
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BEARING RELIEF: Pallets of U.S.-supplied food, water, medicine and tent-ing arrive by plane for distribution.
Aid provided by theU.S. military included:
● Aircraft carrier Lincolnplus other U.S. ships used dozens of helicop-ters and landing craft todeliver aid.
● About 16,000 U.S.sailors and airmen helpeddeliver aid and evacuateinjured.
● U.S. military hospitalship Mercy treated20,000 people affected by the tsunami.
U.S. Government Aid to IndonesiaCivilian aid worth $42million delivered as ofApril 1, 2005, included:
● 80 heavy trucks hired to deliver aid
● Kitchen sets for 100,000 people
● Mosquito nets for30,000 people
●Water containers for210,000 people
● Hygiene kits serving10,000 people
● Plastic shelters for 690 people
● $2.5 million for cleanup crews
MOSQUE WATER: U.S. Navy corpsmantests water purity at mosque camp forsurvivors in Banda Aceh.
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MARKING THE SPOT: Sri Lankan fish-ermen spend their days at this tent tomark their destroyed homes in Kalmu-naikudy, Ampara Province, but sleep inland with relatives while the govern-ment decides where they can rebuild.
Half Million Homeless
Sri LankaDisasterMore than half thecoastline of the islandnation was hit by tsunamiwaves and flooding, killingforeign tourists as well aslocal people from all itsethnic and religious groups.
It took two hours for the tsunami to crosshundreds of miles of the Indian Ocean fromthe epicenter of the earthquake to the beach-es of Sri Lanka. But then it played the samedevious trick upon tens of thousands of fish-ermen, villagers, tourists, shopkeepers andothers that it did in Indonesia.
First the sea withdrew leaving the oceanfloor exposed. Then it returned with a fury.A 15-foot tall wave raced up the beach andsmashed houses, hotels, cars and a train.
Amid the wreckage of his home in thevillage of Kalmunai Kuby, in the Easternprovince of Ampara, Abdul Kafoor, 36 re-called how 2,500 people in his village of16,000 people died that morning.
“My wife and three of our childrendied,” he said, as his two surviving kidsclung to his sarong.
Villagers spent the days, one month afterthe tsunami hit, in tents pitched beside theirruined homes, while the government studiedwhere it would be safe to rebuild.
Those whose original sites are deemedunsafe will need new land, resources andplanning for new livelihoods. Until then, thedisplaced sleep in temporary housing or thehomes of friends and relatives. Each day theyleave those homes—so as not to burden theirhosts—and pass the time next to their for-mer homes.
USAID in mid-March was helping to con-struct 4,000 transitional shelters to protectfamilies during the upcoming rainy seasonand until the government designates landaway from the sea for permanent housing.
The tsunami in Sri Lanka killed 31,000,including hundreds of British and othertourists. More than 4,000 more people re-main missing and are most likely dead.
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U.S. military aidsupplied included:
● Marine helicopterslifted relief supplies tocoastal villages.
● Military ships suppliedfresh water in initialstages of relief.
U.S. Government Aid to Sri Lanka
USAID IN SRI LANKAUSAID ALREADY HAD A TEAM of development workers in placeand a mission based in Colombo so it was able to quickly usethose assets to deliver fast relief to survivors.
Wayne Brook had already spent two years as a USAID develop-ment contractor in Ampara, Sri Lanka—the hardest hit province.“So I immediately shifted to relief,” he said.
First USAID gave grants to hospitals for equipment and out-reach to treat the injured, shipping the equipment overland fromColombo. Next it provided generators and water pumps to campsfor the 150,000 people in displacement camps in his province.
Then tools and equipment from shovels to wheelbarrows weregiven through local NGOs to help people clear debris and openroutes. Next he arranged for volunteers from the mainly ethnicSinhalese south to come to the east and help do clean up alongwith the local ethnic Tamils and Muslims in the east.
This was aimed at bridging differences in society caused in part bythe lingering 25-year Tamil separatist uprising by the Tamil Tigers.
A senior Sri Lankan minister said that 60 percent of the tsuna-mi damage took place in areas controlled by the Tigers and that a
proportionate amount of foreign aid should go there. However theU.S. Government has listed the Tigers as terrorists—they areblamed for the suicide bombing that killed Indian Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi, among others—so aid is being provided directly tothe needy without building up the Tigers—a delicate task.
Brook, with USAID’s Office of Transitional Initiatives, next be-gan cash for work programs, hiring survivors to clean up schoolsand roads.The Agency also leased heavy equipment such as frontend loaders, excavators, tractors and trailers.
The next task was to hire local masons and carpenters to buildlatrines and water tanks for temporary schools UNICEF was build-ing. USAID also hired multi-ethic teams of welders and carpentersto repair school furniture.
Hundreds of large trawlers, fiberglass outrigger canoes andsmall motorboats—some built with USAID support—were de-stroyed in the tsunami.The agency began helping with repairs, newboats, nets, engines, floats and training.
Damaged government offices and schools were given comput-ers, printers, photocopiers, chairs, desks and internet access.
in tourist revenues throughout the affectedregion, Visa International estimated.
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister LakshmanKadirgamar said March 18 “tourists shouldreturn to Sri Lanka despite the devastatingimpact of the December 26 tsunami.” Infact many of the hotels on the south coasthad been repaired and reopened withtourists slowly returning.
The shock and terror of the tsunami isbeginning to fade. Six weeks after it hit, SriLankans stroll along the Galle Face prome-nade by the sea in Colombo. A sun sets tran-quilly over the water and children fly kites orchase balls along the sandy shore.
In the villages of Ampara, fishermenslowly are repairing their boats, many withU.S. aid, and returning to the sea.
About 550,000 people had their homes de-stroyed and live in schools, tents, templesand churches or with host families.
More than 300 NGOs came to this is-land nation of 15 million people off thesoutheast coast of India to help after thetsunami. U.S. Marine helicopters ferried re-lief supplies from Colombo’s port over themountains in the center of the island to thedamaged areas of the south, east and north.
By the end of February, U.S. aid to SriLanka was close to $70 million—nearly allin emergency relief.
The cost to reconstruct damaged infra-structure will be over $1.5 billion, the Inter-national Monetary Fund estimated.
One of the biggest economic blows fromthe tsunami was the loss of about $3 billion
TEMPORARYHOUSING:Workmen set uptemporary hous-ing in Sri Lankaso that survivorscan move out ofschools and tentswhile permanentreconstructiontakes place.
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Sri Lanka Disaster
Civilian U.S. aidtotaling $62 million as of April 1, 2005included:
● 7 airlifts valued at$1.5 million
●Water containers for 75,000 people
● $25 million in emergency food
● $19 million for cash-for-work clean up
● $1 million for traumatized children,child protection andanti-trafficking
It was a quiet Sunday morning when Kevannoticed water rushing into the street at KataBeach on the Southern Thai resort island ofPhuket on the Andaman Sea.
The South African scuba instructorrushed down to the beach to take pictures asthe sea withdrew hundreds of yards, expos-ing the coral reef. Next thing he knew, thewater was back—up to his neck—and hehad to swim for his life.
Some 5,400 people died and another3,000 are still missing and presumed dead inThailand after the tsunami hit, an hour or soafter it hit Banda Aceh. Many were touristsfrom Sweden, Finland, Germany and else-where vacationing with their families atKhao Lak, about two hours drive north ofPhuket.
“It was not clear for a number of dayswhere the center of this disaster was,” saidTom Dolan, Bangkok chief of USAID’s Of-fice of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.
“Reports started coming first fromPhuket, where tourists were hit. We knewSri Lanka was also serious. But we onlylearned that most people had died in BandaAceh later on.”
Tourists and Thais
Thailand Resort Region Hit19
Hundreds of tourists fromSweden, Finland andelsewhere in Europe werekilled or injured alongwith Thai villagers andhotel staff as the tsunamihit Phuket, Khao Lak andPhi Phi Island.
The first reports of the tsunami camefrom Phuket where injured and distraughtEuropean tourists told how the powerfulcurrents separated them from spouses andchildren who later drowned.
USAID gave $300,000 to the Thai RedCross but the Thai government organizedrelief and did not require much foreign help.
Six weeks after the tsunami, Phuket’sprincipal tourist town of Patong had largelyrepaired the damage—stores were rebuild-ing, businesses were operating, tourists werereturning and only a few tell-tale patches ofrubble remained.
Survivors told harrowing tales of heroism—about Thais and tourists who raced intothe surf to rescue others, or piloted boatscollecting those swept out to sea by thewaves.
The Moken or Sea Gypsies who live onboats in the Andaman Sea coastal islandssurvived because they interpreted the with-drawal of the water and silence of some in-sects as a sign that a giant wave was coming.
Aid totaling $1.06million as of April 1,2005 included:
● One airlift valued at $700,000
●Water containers for 20,000 people
● Hygiene kits for33,000 people
U.S. Government Aid to Thailand
ABOVE: Thais work on fixing their fishingboats that were damaged by the tsunami.
RIGHT: Buddhist monks chant prayers forvictims January 5 in Phuket,Thailand at amourning ceremony in a soccer stadium.
Thai authorities wanted people to re-build away from the water’s edge and havebeen searching for new living sites.
U.S. military forensic experts fromHawaii set up a team to help identify thetsunami remains.
As in the other tsunami-affected coun-tries, Thailand’s overall economic growth re-mained little changed by the tsunami’s im-pact and was expected to be around 5percent.
● Plastic shelters for1,700 people
● $100,000 to the Thai Red Cross
● Restoration of fisheriesand fishing infrastructure$750,000
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Totalled $4.1 million as of April 1, 2005 including:
●Water for 82,000 peo-ple
● Eight day care centers
●1,500 temporary shelters
“we had the capability and the resources tosuccessfully deal with this disaster,” said For-eign Secretary Shyam Saran.
India also joined the United States,Japan and Australia in the core group ofcountries coordinating early aid efforts.
The World Bank estimated, in mid-March, India’s overall rehabilitation and re-construction needs at $1.2 billion, mainly inhousing and fisheries, restoring livelihoods,infrastructure and agriculture.
While U.S. government aid was not re-quested, some private U.S. aid did gothrough Non-Governmental Organizationsto relief work in India. By mid March the af-fected areas had already moved from relief toreconstruction, although many people stilldepended on relief.
U.S. Government Aid to India
We had the capability and the resources tosuccessfully deal with thisdisaster,” said ForeignSecretary Shyam Saran.
Close to 11,000 died and 5,600 weremissing, with another 112,000 displaced bythe disaster. The deaths were especiallypoignant among primitive tribes in An-daman and Nicobar Islands where 2,500died and nearly all of India’s missing hadbeen living.
Some 40,000 people on the islands werestill living in relief camps more than twomonths after the tsunami.
Although still a developing country, gi-ant India—the world’s most populousdemocracy with more than 1 billion peo-ple—moved swiftly to provide relief to itsown citizens as well as to help Sri Lanka.
India’s National Institute of DisasterManagement had planned for disasters—generally from floods and cyclones—and
It was 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) fromthe earthquake epicenter to the shores ofTamil Nadu State, where waves began hit-ting two hours after the quake. All along theBay of Bengal coastline high water caused$1.6 billion in damage, India’s governmentsaid, with another $600 million in damageto the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
LEFT: Children at an Indian camp for dis-placed tsunami survivors fetch water froma tank provided by relief workers.
ABOVE: An Indian fisherman in a displacedpersons camp repairs his nets while wait-ing for the chance to return to the sea.
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● Latrines for 27,000 people
●Waste removal at fourrelief camps
● 20,000 water tanks
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ore than 3,000 miles away fromthe epicenter of the earthquake,the tsunami reached Somaliaeight hours later, where it killed82 people and destroyed houses
and businesses affecting 54,000 people ac-cording to CARE, which was one of severalaid groups sending help to survivors.
Because it was so far from the earth-quake, the tsunami was only 4 meters (12feet) high—not as intense as other coun-tries—but it hit a country that has beenwithout effective government for more thana decade. Some sources say that isolated re-gions of the arid Somalia coast, wherecholera and diarrhea kill many, could see im-proved access to services and water: becauseof the tsunami, new boreholes and deeper,safer wells are now being dug in the moun-tains; new latrines are being dug; and newschools and clinics are opening.
The semi-autonomous region of Punt-land was hardest hit.
Mcattered over 500 miles of the IndianOcean southwest of India, the Mal-dives’ low-lying islands were so tinythat the tsunami passed over themwithout developing the giant tidal
waves that killed so many in Indonesia, SriLanka and Thailand.
Some 82 people died and 26 were miss-ing but the vast majority of its 340,000 peo-ple survived as the water rose, flooding thelow-lying islands, and returned to normal.
Some people jumped in their boats toride out the tsunami, which continued on tostrike Somalia, 1,400 miles to the west.
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Maldives Flooded21
Water, electricity, and health infrastruc-ture was severely damaged, and food assis-tance was needed according to the UnitedNations, which called for water, tents, food,blankets, emergency lights, beds, kitchensets, communications equipment and med-ical kits.
Housing was being built on some of the86 islands the government said needed re-construction.
Eighty-seven of the Maldives’ 199 inhab-ited islands house tourist resorts, 19 ofwhich were closed following the tsunamis.
However the Australian Foreign MinisterAlexander Downer said that Australian ex-perts found the famous coral reefs that at-tract tourists to the Maldives remained un-scathed by the tsunami.
“With over 50 percent of MaldivianGDP derived from coral reef and island-based tourism and a further 12 percent de-rived from fisheries...the report is goodnews…indicating the tsunami had minimalimpact on the country’s coral reefs and bait-fish populations,” Downer said.
Aid totaling $1.4 million as of April 1,2005 included:
● Health, nutrition,water and sanitation
● 3 airlifts with reliefsupplies
● Water containers for 24,000 people
● Hygiene kits for10,000 people
● Plastic shelters for750 people
U.S. Government Aid to the Maldives
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The tsunami movedaround the low-lyingislands of the Maldives,flooding them but withoutthe terrible crashing wavesthat destroyed Banda Aceh.
Somalia Hit
Aid totaling $1 million as of April 1, 2005included:
● Health assistance:$300,000
U.S. Government Aid to Somalia
The tsunami traveled forhours before it hit thedistant African coastline inSomalia, taking its finaltoll of life and property.
ABOVE: The World Food Program deliv-ers corn from USAID to the Somali townof Foar in Puntland where some 240 ofthe village’s 1,000 inhabitants died whenthe tsunami hit.
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ABOVE: The tsunami damaged the capitalMale and other low-lying Maldives isles.
BELOW: Aerial view of coral reefs whichsustained little damage as the tsunamipassed over them.
● Constructionof shelters: $200,000
● Emergency relief activities: $393,000
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Preventing Exploitation and Abuse
Since many children have lost oneor both parents, there has beensome concern about making surethat they are properly protectedfrom anyone who might abusethem—either sending young girlsto become prostitutes or sendingsmall children to homes wherethey could be used as servants.
Teenaged girls and their teach-ers at a makeshift high school inCalang, on the west coast of Suma-tra, said they had gotten invitationsfrom residential schools in the cityof Banda Aceh to send girls andboys to live and study. However thechildren said they did not want togo, and they said they did not knowanything about these schools.
UNICEF was leading an effortby aid groups to record the num-ber of orphans, locate any survivingrelatives and ensure that all chil-dren are properly protected fromany possible abuse.
Healing and Rebuilding
Psychological Trauma22
give advice properly,” said the psychiatrist.“If they detect illness they cannot cope with,such as depression and psychosis, they mustrefer them to community health centers. Af-ter that a doctor may refer them to a mentalhealth hospital in Banda Aceh.”
Dr. Suraputra works with groups fundedby USAID—the World Health Organiza-tion and the International Organization forMigration—which are working to cope withthe psychological trauma of the tsunami.
Imam Tengku Asmidin, 26, was holdinga fuzzy toy animal as he stood next to Dr.Suraputra in the camp and told of the train-ing course he had just finished.
“Now I learn to understand people bet-ter and not just give advice on religion buton psychological fields,” he said.
Because the imam is one of therefugees—his wife and children survived buthe lost uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces—people in the camps come to him with theirproblems and he gives them encouragement.
“According to my new knowledge, manyhave PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]and some have panic disorder—mostlywomen,” he said. “They are turning to reli-gion to cope. Now, with some knowledge ofpsychology, I’ll be able to do a much betterjob if I have to help them.”
ome of the children cry out in thenight in terror. They are panickedwhen they hear a toilet flush or thethumping of a helicopter flying overBanda Aceh. It reminds them of the
sound of the tsunami, reaching from the seato kill their families and friends, destroytheir homes and sweep them away.
Women have come to the city’s hospitalwith hysteria. Some people cannot sleep.When the wind blows they race out of theirtents in fear of another tsunami.
Some children refuse to speak. Otherscry all the time. Or wet their beds.
Some children have become aggressive ortry to injure or kill themselves.
“Some people say they hear the voices ofpeople crying out ‘save me, save me,’” said achild psychiatrist, Dr. Indrati Suraputra, in acamp for hundreds of families near a televi-sion tower.
She’d come from Jakarta to train 40teachers, community leaders and Muslimimams to look for psychological problemsand “detect grave disorders like depression.”
“We tell them how to listen properly and
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Psychiatrists train Muslimclerics, teachers and nurses to recognizesurvivors’ trauma and totreat depressed or suicidalchildren and adults.
ISLAMIC PSYCHOLOGY: Imam TengkuAsmidin (right) discusses how to helptraumatized children with Dr. Indrati
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HEALING THEATER: A Sri Lankan enter-tainer helps ethnic Tamil and Singhalesechildren, who survived the tsunami, worktogether and cope with their grief and fears.
Suraputra, Indonesian Ministry of Healthchild psychiatrist, at a Band Aceh camp fortsunami survivors.
o prevent another massive loss oflife, experts from Asian and othercountries met in Tokyo, Phuketand Paris after the December 26disaster to extend a tsunami warn-
ing system, now functioning in the Pacificregion, to protect the Indian Ocean.
On March 9, three months after thetsunami, the U.N. IntergovernmentalOceanographic Commission (IOC) and ex-perts from around the world agreed to set upthe system by 2006.
The $950 million for tsunami relief Pres-ident Bush said he would seek from Con-gress includes $23 million to improve the in-ternational and U.S. tsunami early warningsystem, and $12 million for tsunami warn-ing and disaster mitigation in the affectedcountries.
By March 27, new measures to share in-formation on earthquakes and possibletsunamis proved effective when a powerful8.7 magnitude earthquake hit off Sumatra,just 100 miles away from the epicenter ofthe giant 9.0 December 26 quake.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center inHawaii informed disaster experts in Indone-sia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and Malaysiawho then spread the word through the me-dia and the public authorities. Police, sol-diers, monks, fishermen and residents ofcoastal areas across the Indian Ocean usedmegaphones, radio, telephones and templebells to warn of the possibility of anothertsunami.
While early reports indicated more than1,000 were killed on Nias Island off Sumatraby the earthquake, no tsunami hit land.However many thousands of people didmove away from the sea shore to higherground in Indonesia and nearby countries—an effective measure that could have savedtens of thousands of lives had it been doneafter the 2004 earthquake.
The Tsunami Warning System includes26 countries and was created 40 years ago toprotect the Pacific Rim countries after an 8.4magnitude earthquake—biggest ever inNorth America—struck Alaska in 1964, set-ting off a tsunami that killed 119 people.
The warning system consists of a seriesof undersea sensors known as tsunameters
Healing and Rebuilding
Tsunami Warning System23
Governments around theworld worked with IndianOcean officials to plan awarning system that mightsave tens of thousands infuture tsunamis.
placed 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) aparton the ocean floor in deep water in a hugesemicircle off the coasts of Pacific countries.These instruments detect the movement oftsunamis and transmit a signal to a buoy atthe surface which then communicates withtsunami centers in Hawaii, Alaska and theU.S. mainland.
Seismographs give the first warningwhen they detect undersea quakes abovemagnitude 8, powerful enough to generatetsunamis. However most of these quakes donot produce tsunamis so ordering evacua-tions without confirmation from tsuname-ters is costly, wasteful and produces eventualdisbelief that dangers are real.
Once instruments detect real likelihoodof a tsunami, centers in Hawaii and Alaskawarn local, state, national and internationalusers as well as the media. The U.S. Nation-al Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
sist of 30 seismographs to detect earth-quakes, 10 tidal gauges and six deep-sea de-tectors—costing $20 million.
If individual countries wanted to placetsunameters closer than 1,000 kilometersapart for greater safety in earthquake-proneareas, that cost could increase.
At the IOC meeting in Paris, the follow-ing decisions were taken:●The United States and Japan agreed toshare reports on earthquakes from their ex-isting warning system in the Pacific with In-dian Ocean countries.● About 20 tidal gauges were to be installedor upgraded near Thailand, Indonesia andMalaysia.● By the end of 2006, a regional warningcenter will be built, with links to a networkof gauges and underwater sensors.
Education is another vital part to savinglives in future tsunamis. In schools, the me-
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A series of undersea sensorsknown as tsunameters areplaced 1,000 kilometers apartin deep water on the oceanfloor, tied to buoys.also broadcasts warnings and is exploring asystem of warnings to cell phone users. OnMarch 28 when the earthquake hit offSumatra, some residents of Banda Aceh gottext messages on their cell phones warningthem to evacuate coastal areas.
Since the tsunami that killed about200,000 in Banda Aceh took only 15 min-utes to hit the city after the Dec. 26 quake, aswift and effective system to spread warningsand evacuate people must be set up by everycountry in their coastal regions. This couldinvolve media but also sirens.
An Australian design for an early warn-ing system for the Indian Ocean would con-
dia and public meetings, all those living nearthe sea must be taught the warning signs ofa possible tsunami such as earthquakes orchanges in sea levels.
In Thailand, a 10-year-old Englishtourist, who had learned in school the previ-ous month about tsunamis, saw the water re-treating and told his parents it meant atsunami was coming. They alerted the hoteland all guests and staff evacuated to highground, surviving the tsunami when it hit.
The public must also learn how to evac-uate crowded areas swiftly and efficiently,and how to identify the nearest practicalplaces of refuge.
System Features
● Deep sea tsunametersdetect tsunamis
● Tsunameters sendsignal to tethered buoy
● Buoy signals satellite
● Satellite signals tsunamicenter in Hawaii
● Center charts path of waves and warns target zones
● Regional authoritiesalert population byradio, telephone, sirenand local police
● Relief agenciesprepare to cope withdamages
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Healing and Rebuilding
Reconstruction Begins24
fered technical assistance to help move thedisplaced to new land, provide schools andfacilities for them in new areas and be surethey had jobs in agriculture, tourism, fishingand other industries.
Financial and technical aid from theUnited States and other donors was beingdrawn up to fix schools, roads, bridges, andwater treatment plants as well as small proj-ects such as clinics, schools and markets.
Lastly, reconstruction will focus onpreparing local governments to cope with afuture disaster.
In addition, since in some places it ap-peared that mangroves, other natural barri-ers and sea walls reduced the destructive im-pact of tsunami waves, reconstruction willbe environmentally-sound and develop in-frastructure that is more resilient to futurenatural disasters.
Development experts say that the talentand resilience of people struck by disaster arethe most powerful forces for reconstruction.
A plan for U.S. reconstruction aid totsunami-affected countries, drafted even asthe U.S. Congress considered the Bush Ad-ministration request for $950 million in aid,included $166 million to resettle more than1 million homeless people. That includes$40 million for housing. Already USAIDfunds have been used by the InternationalOrganization for Migration to build demon-stration versions of housing in Indonesia—four rooms made from wood panels toppedby a corrugated metal roof, all bolted toearthquake-proof cement posts.
The plan calls for about $100 million torestart economic activity by support for fish-ing, tourism, food processing, agricultureand other business.
Another $20 million would help peoplewith food, water and short-term work asthey move from camps to new homes andpermanent jobs.
Reconstruction will also tackle big-ticketprojects such as fixing dozens of bridges andrebuilding roads destroyed by the tsunami—principally in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
World Bank-Asian Development Bankassessments in those two countries—aug-mented by U.S. Army Corps of Engineersand USAID rapid appraisals—put infra-structure reconstruction costs at $6 billion.
Former Presidents George Bush and BillClinton—who were asked by the currentPresident Bush to raise funds for tsunami re-lief and flew to visit the damage in the Indi-an Ocean countries—estimated reconstruc-tion costs to be as high as $11 billion.
Private U.S. donations of about $1.2 bil-lion, private aid from other countries and of-ficial government aid, are supporting thisglobal task.
s U.S. and other aid agencies dis-tributed emergency relief, planswere being made to help recon-struct the cities, villages, farmsand families torn apart by the in-
vading sea waves.Rebuilding could not begin right away.
Six weeks after the tsunami, one rarely heardthe banging of hammers.
In the utter ruins of downtown BandaAceh, where hundreds of bodies still floatedup to the surface after debris was removed byexcavators, only one hardy family was re-building.
Local governments around the IndianOcean discouraged or forbade rebuildinguntil they could decide where it was safe tolive. Many feared to return close to the sea.Sri Lanka set a 100 meter (100 yard) setbackfrom the sea for its southern coast and 200meters (200 yards) for the hard-hit easterncoast. But it was not easy to identify replace-ment sites for the displaced. Indonesian au-thorities spoke of possibly a one or two kilo-meter safety zone which would requirerelocating thousands of people up to 20 ormore kilometers away.
The first steps towards reconstructionwere taken by thousands of people in blue oryellow T-shirts cleaning up the mud and de-bris under “cash-for-work” aid programs inAceh and Sri Lanka.
The workers had lost their homes andfamily members, but the clean-up jobs gavethem $5 to $7 each day—money that wouldrevive the local economy when spent on cig-arettes, sweets or school notebooks.
Micro-finance programs were planned asanother early step, so people could rebuildfishing boats, fix damaged houses and re-open businesses.
The next reconstruction activity startedwithin weeks of the tsunami. Since many lo-cal government staffers died in the tsunami,aid groups trained replacement officials.They also helped local governments repairand replace damaged offices, vehicles, com-puters and telephones; and they supportedplanning of long-range repairs to ports,roads and other infrastructure.
Next, international aid groups workingunder the leadership of the World Bank, of-
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After emergency reliefcomes reconstruction oftowns, farms, fishing fleets,industries, schools androads, estimated to cost$11 billion.
SPINNING ROPE: Sri Lankan tsunami survivors in a U.S.-fundedself-help project.
ISLAMIC MOVEMENT: Members of the Muhammadiyah moderate Islamic movement clean up a schoolin Banda Aceh under a U.S.-funded“cash-for-work” program.
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SCHOOL CLEARING: A U.S. marine inGintota, Sri Lanka clears away rubble ofa school so it can be rebuilt.
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● Sri Lanka Tourism:A media campaign to encourage tourism was launched with $3.4 million from USAID.Tourism provides thou-sands of jobs to the localeconomy.
● Aceh Governance:Banda Aceh is getting aidto plan for recovery andpromote citizen participa-tion. Syiah Kuala Univer-sity will assist with prop-erty rights issues.
Reconstruction Examples
REBUILDING IN THE RUINS: Banda Acehman salvages lumber to rebuild—first of ahandful to try and re-occupy their land.
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THAI COMMUNITY: Villagers fromBang Nam Khem Muang Camp draw upplans for reconstruction.
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● Indian Salt: USAID ishelping sea salt producersin Tamil Nadu removesand and clay from evapo-ration pans.
● Thai Water: U.S. aid ishelping provide drinkingwater to 250 Thai familieswhose water system wasdestroyed by the tsunami.
● Sri Lanka Shelter:U.S. aid has built 1,500shelters and plans tobuild 9,000 more units.The 200 square foot shel-ters cost $400 and are tolast two years.
Ten Major Achievements1 Within hours of the tsunami,
U.S. and other aid groups began sending food,water, plastic sheeting and medicine. Page 8
2 Aid agencies and militariesworked together to deliver aid and evacuate the injured. Page 8
3 Fast aid prevents epidemicsby monitoring, preventing, and treating communicable diseases. Page 8
4 One million people shelteredin schools, mosques, temples. Built temporaryshelters for tens of thousands of people. Pages 11,17
5 Striken nations coordinated foreign aid, local medical teams, Red Cross societies, NGOs, and military forces. Pages 19, 20
U.S. Agency for International Development1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20523Tel: (202) 712-0000Fax: (202) 216-3524
www.usaid.gov
6 Cash-for-Work programs cleaned up wreckage, employed tens of thousands of displacedpeople, jumpstarted-recovery. Page 24
7 Clean water produced on U.S. military ships, delivered by helicopters; purification kitsgiven to thousands. Pages 8,14
8 Trained trauma counselors.Psychiatrists trained teachers, community leadersand clerics to help counsel thousands of grievingchildren. Page 22
9 Registered, protected childrenU.S. aid assured safety of orphans, reopenedschools. Page 22
10 Planning major reconstructionhas begun. Some $6 billion pledged for roads,ports, electricity, schools, and housing. Page 24
AP
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RLD
WID
E PH
OTO
S