December 2004

Josh at In the Agora explains how challenging to his conservative comforts he has found the recent events.

Herald Sun. There is now no doubt at all that simple communication would have prevented many deaths as there WAS an advance warning but “no telephone numbers” to call. We HAVE to learn to work together accross the nations, and it is clear that failure to do so was the biggest factor in [...]

Earlier today I predicted that embarrassed by their own people, the governments of the world would give more to tsunami relief. Indeed they already are. Sweden was reported as increasing giving first, and just a few minutes ago big increases in government giving were reported. I am sure that the US will follow suit. [...]

Hat tip to MediaSoul who passes on Drudge’s report that up to “400,000 are Possibly Dead” in Indonesia alone.
So far Ghanaweb has it but no other news sources except the agency cited on both these pages- Bernama, the Malaysian National News Agency-
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 30 (Bernama) — The death toll in Acheh, the [...]

The Swedish Government has led the by announcing a massive donation of 75 million dollars to tsunami efforts throwing into sharp relief the efforts of other nations governments. This genorisity of the Swedes is no doubt connected to their terrible loss of tourists. In total private and public giving now excedes $350million. [...]

Messy Christian passes on Irene’s observation that a Thai paper is reporting its seismologists did not put out a warning for fear of the impact on tourism. Of course the fault does not lie with any one individual or even government but with the lack of a global system to warn of such catastrophes [...]