Tsunami sweeps across Indian Ocean lands

More than 22,600 people are now feared to have been killed and a vast swathe of lands around the Indian Ocean have been devastated by tsumani-type tidal waves triggered by the Sumatra earthquake in Indonesia, the world’s worst for over forty years. The US Geology Survey recorded the main earthquake at 8.9 on the Richter scale, followed by numerous aftershocks, centered off the coast of Sumatra.  A fault line – a split in the earth’s crust – as long as a thousand miles runs through this region of the eastern Indian Ocean.

The death toll continues to rise as news filters through from areas where communications were cut when the disaster struck on Sunday. Sri Lanka appears to be the worst affected.  Over a million people have lost their homes, and entire villages on the eastern and southern coasts have been washed away. Witnesses in the port city of Tricomalee reported waves as high as 40 feet (12 meters). The government in Colombo has declared a state of emergency and President Chandrika Kumaratunga has cut short a trip to London.

Resorts on the coasts of Thailand have been inundated. Hundreds of people died in the popular resort of Phuket in Thailand where many foreign tourists are spending the Christmas holidays.

Southern India and much of the Maldives have been overwhelmed by waves and the danger is not over yet. 1,600 have died in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The Maldives remains vulnerable, as the islands are flat with land no more than six feet above sea level; two-thirds of the capital, Malé is under several feet of water.

The shock of the earthquake was felt as far away as Singapore and Malaysia, where buildings were shaken early on Sunday morning.

Appeals for assistance have been made around the world. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is at the forefront of the response to this disaster. Paul Anticoni, British Red Cross head of international aid, says: ‘This is clearly a massive disaster, made all the more difficult because it has hit so many countries.’

‘The priority for the Red Cross is to get relief supplies into the region as quickly as possible and, if necessary, to send in teams of disaster response experts who can support the volunteers and staff already working in the affected countries.
‘In the longer term we will help people recover and rebuild their lives.’

The disaster has huge implications for Indian Ocean tourism. Many of the areas hit by the effects of the earthquake and tidal waves depend on tourism for sustaining their economies.

The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) is making assessments in the areas that are worst affected and is working to get their holidaymakers to safety as soon as possible. Tour Operators are also currently working on plans to evacuate holidaymakers who are in affected areas. ABTA and other tourism organisations are advising passengers due to fly to one of these destinations today to call their tour operator or airline. Charter flights to the Maldives and Sri Lanka today are flying out empty to evacuate people out of the areas affected by the disaster.

Governments around the world have offered assistance to the countries hit by the devastation. Thousands of European tourists are in Thailand where Christmas is a peak vacation season.

In London, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said messages of condolence from the British government have been sent to the governments of India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, along with offers of practical assistance. “As soon as the news came through in the small hours of morning our emergency plans for such as situation were activated. In London Consular officials were called back from leave, regional Rapid Deployment Teams in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur put on stand-by.”

The British Ambassador (in Thailand) David Fall and staff have gone to Phuket. He told BBC News 10 percent of the 750,000 British tourists on holiday in Thailand each year went to Phuket. “We’re starting to go around the hospitals to try and get details of the British casualties,” he said.

“I was speaking to the Minister of Interior organizing the relief operation down here and he was saying so many people had their belongings, passports and identification washed away and it has been very difficult to identify those that have died.  Every effort is being made by British High Commission Staff in Columbo, Sri Lanka (which also covers the Maldives) to provide assistance,” Fall said.

A BBC correspondent in Phuket said the airport was “chaotic” as hundreds of British tourists, desperate to leave the usually scenic resort, tried to find their way back to Bangkok and flights back to the UK. ABTA said 6,500 package tourists from Great Britain were in the area, along with 4,000 independent travelers.

Foreign Office staff in London is in close touch with ABTA and the airlines. “For the tens of thousands of British tourists in South East Asia and their relatives and friends here this will I know be a very worrying time. We are doing everything we can to assist but the disruption to communication in the worst affected areas is inevitably making it difficult to confirm exactly the situation on the ground,” said Straw.

There is growing concern about back-packers and other independent travelers holidaying on the popular Phi Phi Island, who have not been accounted for. Hundreds of tourist bungalows were swept away as the huge waves struck the coastal resort.

By Sunday night, the tsunamis had reached the East African coast, some 6,000 miles from the centre of the Sumatra earthquake. The British government issued a warning that tidal waves could affect Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mauritius, and warned visitors to be on alert for potential danger and keep in touch with local media.

Beaches at tourist resorts around Mombassa in Kenya were closed because of extreme tides and flooding cut out power to homes in the Seychelles and low-lying roads were flooded. Sea water overflowed on to the runway of the airport. Residents and tourists were warned to move to higher ground.

By David Browne
LONDON (eTurboNews)

December 29, 2004   Posted in: Indonesia