Tsunami media update 18 January 2005
Note: This is a daily summary of media reports concerning damage to aquaculture, aquatic livelihoods of coastal communities and related issues, gathered for the purpose of preparing a regional assessment to aid medium- to long-term rehabilitation of affected areas. It is not intended as a comprehensive summary of media reports, nor is it a summary of general damage. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the NACA organization.
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Thailand, Malaysia, Sri lanka, India,Indonesia,Maldives,Regional, International, Advice on Assessment, Advice Planning.
Thailand
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Malaysia
Source: ICSF; 21 January, 2005
Tsunami-hit Malaysian fishermen to recover by March
More than 6,000 Malaysian fishermen battered by the Dec 26 tsunami are expected to get back on their feet by March. They are expected to receive boats, engines and fishing nets by then, Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said today. "Roughly two months are needed for the Ministry, through the Fisheries Development Authourity (LKIM), to provide boats, engines and fishing equipment to the fishermen. "The LKIM has already appointed contractors to build the boats and provide the engines," he said. Of the 6,327 affected fishermen, 315 are in Perlis, 2,801 in Kedah, 2,733 in Penang, 471 in Perak and seven in Selangor.
Source: ICSF; 21 January, 2005
Malaysian fishermen seek role in mangrove replanting project
The tsunami disaster has given the Penang Inshore Fishermen Welfare Association (Pifwa) of Malaysia another reason to continue with its mangrove replanting activities. Since 1997, Pifwa members have replanted 25,000 mangrove saplings in Batu Kawan and Sungai Chenaam, in Seberang Prai, and Kuala Sungai Pinang in Balik Pulau on the island. But Pifwa is worried that the Government might appoint contractors to replant mangroves -- now that the important role of mangroves in natural disasters like the tsunami has been highlighted, said Pifwa adviser P. Balan. "Our members, who are fishermen, know where, when, how and which species of mangrove to plant. "Furthermore, mangrove trees which have just been planted need to be monitored for a year, and we have the experience to do this," he said. However, he said, Pifwa welcomed funds and co-operation from the Government for the replanting programme. Pifwa replanted mangroves to replace those which had been degraded, and in locations which had been cleared for projects that were subsequently abandoned. Balan said Pifwa members replanted mangroves because they recognised its importance as spawning grounds for fish, crabs and prawns. "They also know that, in the absence of mangroves, their boats at jetties would have little protection against strong winds and waves." Many Penang fishermen were saved from death and destruction to their homes by the mangroves which effectively provided a shield against the tsunami on Dec 26. Pifwa has 4,000 mangrove saplings in its nursery in Nibong Tebal. University and secondary school students from Penang, Singapore and the United States have taken part in some of its mangrove replanting sessions.
Maldives
Source: Associated Press; January 19, 2005 Wednesday
Maldives to develop "safe" islands for tsunami-hit people
The government is grappling with the arduous task of providing relief to distant islands. Relief workers must ferry all aid in boats, a logistical nightmare. The population of the Maldives is scattered across 200 islands in the Indian Ocean, some of them with less than 500 people. The tsunami swamped up to 40 percent of the Maldives, an Indian Ocean string of 1,192 coral atolls 480 kilometers (300 miles) southwest of the southern tip of India. But the islands' low elevation cut down the height of the waves, making them less deadly.
Ahmed Shaheed, the chief government spokesman, says it makes no sense for people to live in 200 low-lying coral islands scattered across nearly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) of Indian Ocean. The average size of the islands is 40 acres (16 hectares).
"Our main recovery program is based on safe islands program. It's a sort of new paradigm in the country's development. We are identifying 4-5 larger islands. We are going to build an environmentally protected zones on their perimeters, have some higher buildings which can serve as shelters against storms and rise in water levels," Shaheed said. Even before the tsunami struck, the government was planning to shift people from tiny islands to larger islands with sea walls and buildings on higher ground. Using the lure of free housing, the government shifted 1,500 people to larger islands with protected reefs and good harbors in the past two years. But a similar plan failed in the 1960s over fears it would destroy traditional village culture. Many people returned to their original homes after a short while. Those killed in Maldives on Dec. 26 were mostly small children and elderly people. The affected islands were awash with water for up to five minutes. Apart from fishing and tourism, a large number of people depended on growing banana, papaya and mangoes. Nothing is likely to grow soon in places where sea water washed away top soil. "It may take more than one monsoon season for the land to become fertile again and replenish drinking water tanks," said Richard Vokes, a director of the Asian Development Bank.
Sri Lanka
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India
Source: Asia Pulse Pte Limited; January 20, 2005 Thursday
INDIA URGES POLITICAL WILL TO RESTORE TSUNAMI SURVIVORS' LIVES
India has called for sustained political will and international solidarity to restore the livelihood of survivors of the tsunami tragedy and steps to protect them from future disasters. The role of the United Nations and its agencies and international institutions like the World Bank is critical in implementing quick, creative and concrete programmes for the affected people, Indian United Nations Ambassador Nirupam Sen said on Monday. During a debate on the tsunami disaster in the United Nations General Assembly, Sen said "it is axiomatic that those who suffered most were poor, particularly those whose dependence on the sea made the crisis so much harder to bear." Citing India's experience in setting up early warning systems using remote sensing and satellite technology in coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh affected by cyclones, he offered the country's cooperation to the international community and particularly to the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asian region for establishing a tsunami warning system.India has already allocated several billion rupees to help develop such a system, he said.
Indonesia
Source: Associated Press; January 19, 2005 Wednesday
Indonesia says quake and tsunami cost US$4.5 billion but will not hurt economic growth
The damage bill represents 2.3 percent of Indonesia's gross domestic product and 97 percent of resource-rich Aceh's GDP, said Minister of National Development Planning Sri Mulyani Indrawati. The group was expected to focus on how best to help Aceh recover from the Dec. 26 catastrophe. Jakarta has said that the disaster won't stop the government from achieving its 5.5 percent economic growth target this year. In a report prepared for the meeting in Jakarta, the World Bank said recent economic reforms by Jakarta have "boosted Indonesia's economic resilience and positioned it better to absorb massive shocks, such as the natural disaster in Aceh and North Sumatra." "Confidence hit post-crisis highs as an historic series of elections resulted in Indonesia's first directly elected president, economic growth picked up, and investment demand rose sharply," Kassum said in the report.
Source: Asia Pulse Pte Limited; January 19, 2005 Wednesday
INDONESIA NEEDS LONG TERM PARTNERS IN REBUILDING ACEH: WFP
Indonesia's post-tsunami reconstruction effort would benefit from long term partnerships so that people could start rebuilding their homes, livelihoods and the critical infrastructure, Regional Director for Asia at the World Food Program (WFP), Anthony Banbury said."There has been an overwhelming response to this crisis and it has been an absolute privilege to witness the outpouring of assistance from ordinary people, governments, militaries and the private sectors. WFP will be there as a partner with the people of Aceh for this next phase," Banbury said in a press release obtained here Tuesday. Foreign military assets, Banbury said, also played an integral role in ensuring food aid and other vital supplies reached survivors within days, and these assets remain the backbone of the humanitarian response while aid agencies geared up their own capacity. While the trauma of the disaster would last for generations, the quickest way to bring about an air of "normalcy" is to make sure children return to school, hospitals are rebuilt, roads are re-opened, and people have enough food to eat, he said. WFP has dispatched more than 4,200 tons of rice, fortified noodles, and biscuits by road, helicopter, aircraft, and ship to the province's worst affected population. It has opened road corridors from Medan to Banda Aceh and Meulaboh, and managed a humanitarian aid hub for aid from Malaysia since January 7. In addition, a WFP Ilyushin-76 would begin an air bridge on Wednesday to start ferrying 500 tons of tinned fish from Bangkok to Banda Aceh and a boat carrying 400 tons of WFP rice would arrive off Meulaboh by the end of the week.
Source: Nationwide News Pty Limited; January 20, 2005 Thursday
Tens of thousands added to death toll
THE global death toll from the Asian tsunami shot above 226,566 last night after Indonesia's Health Ministry confirmed the deaths of tens of thousands of people previously listed as missing. The ministry raised the country's death toll to 166,320. It had previously given a figure of 95,450 while Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs had put the death toll at around 115,000 before it stopped counting.Dodi Indrasanto, a director at the Health Ministry's department of health affairs, said the new death total reflected the latest reports from the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, which were directly in the path of the killer tsunami spawned by a magnitude 9 earthquake on Boxing Day. The Health Ministry figures said 617,159 people were still homeless in northern Sumatra more than three weeks after the killer wave struck.Security fears prompted by the GAM conflict have been a worrying backdrop to the massive international relief effort in Aceh, where huge stretches of coastline were laid waste by the earthquake and tsunami that followed.
Regional
Source: Associated Press; January 19, 2005 Wednesday
U.N. agency calls for rehabilitation of tsunami-affected mangroves
A U.N. agriculture agency called Wednesday for the rehabilitation of mangroves damaged by the Asian tsunami, saying the move would help speed up recovery in areas affected by the devastating tidal waves.
However, the Food and Agriculture Organization said that massive mangrove planting should be avoided, especially in areas where there are other important ecosystems, such as turtle nesting grounds and sea grass beds. "Mangroves contribute directly to rural livelihoods by providing wood and non-wood forest products - including timber, poles, fuel wood and thatch for houses," said Mette Loyche Wilkie, an agency expert, "and indirectly by providing spawning grounds and nutrients for fish and shellfish." The damage inflicted to mangroves by the Dec. 26 tsunami was still being assessed, and changes in soil salinity or fresh water inflow might cause further damage in the longer-term, the agency said in a statement. However, the agency said, narrow strips of mangroves, when uprooted or snapped off at mid-trunk and swept inland, can kill people and cause additional damage. The agency reported one case in Thailand where the mangroves also damaged shallow coral reefs.
Source: ICSF; 21 January, 2005
Apostleship of the Sea launches campaign to encourage fish purchase in South Asia
The Apostleship of the Sea, aiming to help the tsunami-traumatized fishing communities of southern India and Sri Lanka, has launched a campaign to encourage the purchase of fish. The initiative is in response to the fall in the price of fish since Dec. 26, when the tsunami struck the coasts of countries of the Indian Ocean, killing more than 175,000 people and destroying the means of subsistence of countless families. The campaign is also countering the fear of millions of consumers that the fish in the area are contaminated. Directed by the Apostleship of the Sea and reported by the information service of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, the campaign hopes to dissipate these fears, as they are groundless, and to encourage the purchase of fish as the best way to help peoples affected by the tsunami. In an e-mail promoting the campaign, Father Xavier Pinto, coordinator of the Apostleship of the Sea in Southeast Asia, said: "If you have stopped eating fish these days, maybe you need not contribute to any Tsunami Fund at all." "If you don't eat fish because of fear of contamination, you may be in the category of those who are building up forces for an economic 'tsunami' that will lead to their condemnation and slow death," he warned. The priest assailed rumors among consumers about dead fish on the shores of other countries. Such false reports are "detrimental to the very livelihood of the people you wish to reach out to," the e-mail stresses. Father Pinto said that some reports about fish devouring human corpses was foolish, as only three non-edible varieties of fish -- scavenger fish, killer whales and killer sharks -- feed on alien or human flesh. These fish "are not sold in the markets and do not reach your table," he stressed. The Holy See has convoked a meeting of the Apostleship of the Sea in Rome at the end of January to help the fishermen, who are among the most affected by the tsunami, as they have lost their homes and means of livelihood. The Apostleship of the Sea is an international Catholic organization for the moral, social and spiritual welfare of seafarers and those involved in the maritime industry. Among the initiatives to help Asian fishermen, the Salesians' International Volunteer Movement for Development has allocated funds to "rebuild normality." In this line, the first goal envisioned in Sri Lanka is a "fisherman's kit" to enable a family of fishermen, averaging six to eight people, to have a place to live and to begin to earn their living again. The "kit" costs about 10,000 euros ($13,000) and includes a boat with an outboard motor, fishing nets, a small brick-built house with a corrugated iron roof, household equipment, and material for work and school.
Source: Financial Times Information; January 20, 2005
COASTAL WALLS A THREAT TO FISHERMEN, SAYS EXPERT
The proposed construction of sea walls along the Tamil Nadu coast to ward off possible devastation from future tsunamis would endanger the livelihood of fishermen and put an end to the tourism prospects along the coastline, warns John Kurien, a social scientist with the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, who works among the fishing communities in India's southern States. "All political parties are seemingly supporting the move to erect a high cost wall along the sea shore. Perhaps they are fascinated with prospects of the funds involved,'' says Prof. Kurien, who delivered a lecture on Tuesday at the Institute of Development Studies here on the livelihood issues in the post- tsunami scenario. "A good number of persons from the fishing communities have this feeling that the sea has let them down. Many of them, especially those above 45 years, might not like to venture into the sea again. We have to find alternative livelihood methods for them,'' Prof. Kurien points out. "Perhaps this is the best time to teach them new methods of survival. They need a separate rehabilitation package, '' he said. As such fishermen are a caring lot and good communicators. They have a strong network of interpersonal communication that could be used by the authorities for sounding an early warning in the case of future tsunamis. The Governments should on their part articulate their stand on the Master Plan they are preparing for the rehabilitation of the affected. Prof. Kurien says that the worst affected areas had most skilled fishermen. The long term impact of the tragedy would include a downside in fish production and export of marine products. The trauma brought about by the tragedy, especially the horror that the sea could do it to them, would linger on for long, he says. Earlier the sea shores were left to the fisherfolks and they used to have their settlements on the sea front. Of late the shores have been getting crowded as everybody including those in the tourism trade want to get closer to the sea. "The resource configuration is such that the conflicts were bound to be. Ninety per cent of the fish found is in 10 per cent of the sea, nearer to the coast,'' Prof. Kurien explains.