Tsunami

[michaelg]

from coral list:

 

A).     In the mean time, here are some links that may be of interest:

 

  Tsunami simulation #1 ==>

http://staff.aist.go.jp/kenji.satake/animation.gif

 

  Tsunami simulation #2 ==>

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/video/tsunami-indonesia12-2004.qt

 

  Info #1 ==> [3]http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2357.htm

 

  Info #2 ==> [4]http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav/

 

 

     Cheers,

     Jim

 

B)Hello - I am sure you are all quite overwhelmed and dismayed over the tragic news in SE Asia.  I have visited many of the areas impacted by this disaster and am having trouble reaching some friends.  I'm really struggling to accept the gravity of this tragedy and the reality that some of these magical places are, in a moment, simply gone.

 

Besides the tremendous human loss from this disaster, there is great concern for the survival of the already stressed coral reefs of Thailand and the Maldives.  Besides the immediate damage caused by the amazing force of the tsunami, there is concern that the coastal water quality will be poor for some time, adding to the decline of the reefs there.  Expectedly, little information is coming out on the status of coral reefs in the area.  I have included some articles of interest below and the RPI website will be updated with articles as we find them.  Please feel free to forward me any articles you come across that are not yet on the site.  Here are the ones we've come across for now:

 

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28733/story.htm 

("Coral Reefs May Take Years to Recover from Tsunami")

 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/eye/andaman-maldives.htm 

("Indian Ocean Tsunami Imagery Male International Airport  Republic of Maldives" - good info about the geography of the Maldives and the impact of the tsunami)

 

http://www.scidev.net/news....uage=1 

("

 

Mangrove forests can reduce impact of tsunamis

")

 

I have received phone calls and e-mails asking where best to make donations to help out the millions left homeless, orphaned and struggling to survive.  RPI is recommending two programs that we've researched and are confident precious donations will be best utilized:

 

Greengrants to Match Donations to Tsunami Relief Effort  (GreenGrants is a very well established and successful organization working in the affected areas and will match donations up to $5,000)

http://greengrants.org/pressreleases.php?news_id=29

 

Save the Children Asia Earthquake/Tsunami Relief Fund (they have been working in these areas for years and are renowned for their low overhead ensuring that your donation gets to those that need it most - the children who are so vulnerable right now)

http://www.savethechildren.org/radio_a....NewsID=

 

Thank you and best wishes for a happy and safe 2005.

Drew

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Drew Weiner

Director

Reef Protection International

300 Broadway, Suite 28

San Francisco, CA 94133

ph:  415-699-2091

fax: 415-788-7324

dweiner@reefprotect.org

http://www.reefprotect.org

*a project of Earth Island Institut

 

C)Hello, Listers,

 

This is from a liveaboard dive boat based in Thailand.  Sorry about the length, I didn't want to edit.

 

CBS NEWS DISTORTION

 

 

To those of you who saw Ocean Rover in the CBS News report about coral

damage: do not believe what they are telling you! We are furious at CBS.

One of their producers contacted us and asked if we could help them get

to the Similan Islands to report on coral damage. They assured us the

piece would be “fair & balanced”.

 

 

We did everything we could to assist the CBS news team and they spend

half a day filming and interviewing people on board Ocean Rover. One of

our clients kindly gave them his underwater video footage for use during

the broadcast. CBS promised our client that his footage would be used in

a responsible manner.

 

 

Our Cruise Director Hans Tibboel described one specific divesite in

Surin Island with the words: “it looked like a giant sandblaster was

used”. Again, Hans was describing only one divesite and made positive

remarks about the actual lack of damage at other places. Of course, the

CBS editor used the “sandblast” soundbite and hardly anything else.

Footage was also arranged in a “before & after” method that is not

consistent with the real situation. All the beautiful “before” footage

shown by CBS was actually filmed AFTER the tsunami.

 

 

Somehow the media just cannot help themselves and turn everything into a

gloom & doom story. CBS should be ashamed of what they did here. We have

talked to their producer since but of course she blames the New York

editor. This is the way the media works. The way the news piece came out

is 100% the opposite of what was promised to us. We urge fellow dive

operators to be very careful in dealing with the media. These people do

not let scruples get in the way of a juicy story. Shameful!

 

 

The CBS piece is damaging to our reputation and business. It paints the

wrong picture about the true level of coral damage in the Similans AND

it makes our own website reports look like lies. All we can say is when

you dive with us, you trust us with your lives. When you read our

website, you can trust us to be truthful.

 

 

SITUATION IN PHUKET

 

 

As the Indian Ocean Region slowly stabilizes it appears that Thailand,

thanks to a more developed infrastructure, is able to recover from the

disaster faster than placers such as Sumatra and Sri Lanka, which have

the highest numbers of casualties. But in Thailand too there are

countless human tragedies, people who lost their loved ones, their homes

and their businesses. Still, everyone speaks of pulling together,

rebuilding and surviving.

 

 

Phuket, though hard hit on her west-coast beaches, is in better shape

than Kao Lak and Pi-Pi islands and the clean-up is well underway. Patong

Beach celebrated New Year's Eve in subdued fashion with a memorial

service near the beach. In Phuket and Kao Lak, emergency relief aid is

now in place with no immediate need for further shipments. In spite of

the overwhelming events, people realize they have to pick up the pieces

and get their lives and businesses back on track.

 

 

Those who call this callous fail to see that last thing Phuket needs

right now is an economic meltdown caused by tourists staying away as a

result of inaccurate news coverage. Thousands of ordinary Thais are

employed in the resorts that are now damaged and closed. Mass

cancellations would destroy what is left of the island’s fragile

economy. If you are booked for a Thailand holiday, please do not cancel.

 

 

There are many exaggerated news stories about the situation in Phuket.

Reports about disease, contamination, water and food shortages and even

“widespread looting” are totally incorrect. TV footage of the horrific

events of 26 December is repeated over and over but meanwhile a lot has

happened that is not shown on TV. Everyone is working hard to return to

some sort of normalcy and tourists are beginning to reappear on the

beaches. Oddly, the beaches look like they did 20 years ago: white clean

sand and calm seas. Mr Watchara Apornsiri, Director of the Royal Phuket

Irrigation Project and a Phuket native declared that the sea water at

Phuket's beaches is clean, uncontaminated and safe for swimming.

 

 

HOW YOU CAN HELP

 

 

We have received hundreds of messages of support and we are touched by

everyone's concern. Many of you have expressed a wish to contribute

money but worry that their contribution will simply be absorbed into

machinery of some mega aid agency. People want to be certain their

donation reaches those who really need it.

 

 

There are several reputable organizations in Phuket setting up relief

funds. One such organization is the Rotary Club of Patong Beach. The

fund aims to supply immediate as well as long-term financial aid (e.g.

scholarships) for children who lost their parents in the tsunami. You

can make a donation on-line at www.rotarypatong.org

http://www.rotarypatong.org/.

 

 

Similar accounts are being set up by other clubs and individuals. More

details as we learn them. No matter which fund you support, make sure

you supply your details so you can be kept informed about what was done

with your kind donation.

 

    Topics    Author     Date-->-->-->  

 

 

 

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[michaelg]

RE: Donations, from today's New York Times and a personal comment.

 

On the personal comment note, I wish to encourage those who can to make a donation to help the people in this part of the world.  Please keep in mind however, to give thought to who your donation goes to.... I encourge donations to Human rights organizations who will make sure the aid is directly delivered and are not relying on the Indonesian Government/Military regime to handle the aid efforts.  The list of human rights violations by the Indonesian Military would take several pages, and they can not be counted on to help those in need.  If you would like more information, www.democracynow.org is a good place to start.

 

 

From the Times:

Giving for a Cause, and That Cause Only

 

 

By STEPHANIE STROM  

 

Published: January 5, 2005

 

   

 

mid the rush of generous donations to the disaster relief effort in southern Asia, more donors have insisted that their gifts go exclusively to help those victims, charities say, building on a trend seen after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

 

"People are very emotional, and they want their money to help the people that they see in pictures and on TV," said Thomas Tighe, president and chief executive of Direct Relief International, which distributes free medicine, supplies and equipment in an effort to improve health care around the world. "They make it clear that this is not about tragedies that exist elsewhere in the world, and they're very skeptical about how charities use their money."

 

Advertisement

 

 

Charities have long prized the "unrestricted" gift, which allows the organization to spend it as it chooses. But ever since donors learned that the American Red Cross planned to set aside for other uses more than $200 million donated for families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, they have increasingly insisted on earmarking or restricting their gifts.

 

"I think after 9/11, everyone realizes how important it is to communicate expectations and intentions," said Betsy Deisroth, director of development at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker agency that has raised more than $1 million for the emergency in southern Asia.

 

On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee proposed that Congress approve a plan to allow taxpayers to claim a deduction in 2004 for cash gifts to tsunami relief efforts made through Jan. 31, 2005, in part to help support the efforts of former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to stimulate private giving.

 

Shortly after the disaster struck, Jack Siegel, a tax lawyer who is developing software to help charities improve their governance, analyzed a list of relief organizations in The New York Times to determine which gave donors a chance to earmark their contributions for the aid effort. He posted his findings on his Web site, http://charitygovernance.blogs .com. Four of the 14 charities he surveyed offered a clear method for earmarking gifts for tsunami relief efforts, he said. The rest were more ambiguous, and Mr. Siegel's Web log advised donors to take care in making their choices.

 

Devorah Goldburg,  a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said that since Dec. 26, when the organization saw a huge surge in donations, it has decided that all gifts to its International Response Fund will be spent for tsunami relief efforts. "So much money poured in that we knew it had to be intended for these victims," she said. "Also, when a lot of people donate, they write 'tsunami relief' or something like that on their checks."

 

Although the Red Cross has not been actively seeking donations, many companies are steering donors toward the group, and it has received pledges for $92 million. It has already allocated $25 million of that to buy food and $5 million to buy hygiene kits, tents and other supplies.

 

Ms. Goldburg said the rest would also go to this relief effort but that some of the money might be reserved for longer-term needs, like mental health counseling. She  said no decision had been made on when the Red Cross would again distribute donations to its International Response Fund to other crises.

 

Last Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders posted a message on its Web site telling donors that it had collected as much as it would need to play its role in this disaster and inviting them to donate to its efforts in other places, including Sudan and Iraq. The organization collected more than $50 million to aid victims of the tsunami, and it was one of the first groups to express concern that the torrent of money flowing to southern Asia threatened to divert money from other needy locales.

 

The American Friends Service Committee's Web site initially offered donors the option of contributing to its general fund or a crisis fund that it maintains to respond to emergencies. Once the organization had decided it was going to respond to this disaster, it added a checked box beside a line at the top of its online donation page saying, "I know that my contribution to the AFSC Crisis Fund will be used to help the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in Asia." Donors who do not want to contribute to that crisis must opt out.

 

Private charities report that a vast majority of donors for disaster relief fulfill their promises to deliver money - unlike governments, apparently. While the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has applauded the more than $2 billion pledged by governments to date, it has also pointedly noted that experience suggests that some of those commitments will not be fully honored.

 

For instance, of the $5.2 billion in aid pledged by governments to Afghanistan, only $3.9 million has been committed through contracts and only $3.3 billion is actually in use, according to Abby Stoddard, a research associate at the  Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

 

"There is a very different dynamic that goes through nonprofit and philanthropic organizations and how they raise money and what they do with it, and in some respects, they are more accountable than governments," said Shepard Forman, the center's director. "The I.R.S. audits what they do; there is no international audit mechanism for aid given through governments."

[michaelg]

Below reference not real from tsunami

from coral list:

 

Greetings,

 

   At http://www.coral.noaa.gov/tsunami/ is a collection of

anonymously-taken photos (location unknown) of the Dec 26, 2004

tsunami.  I just want to especially point out photo a00.jpg in which you

can see how the ocean has receded to such a large extent just before the

main wave strikes, and hope that all whoever live on the coasts will

know that whenever/if they see something like this again, that the

ensuing pictures and events we all know about will most likely be the

result, and to leave the area  as quickly as possible.

 

   Sincerely yours,

   Jim

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[krish]

Folks,

Picked this news flash from the indian newspaper.

So may be is applicable to pretty much the entire

Andaman sea and west.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/07/stories/2005010710150100.htm

 

-krish

[michaelg]

More from Coral-list

 

Oh, well, at least the photos hopefully serve to prove the point I was

trying to make.  Sorry about that!

 

   Jim

 

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Incredible Tsunami Photos

Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 09:22:15 -0500

From: Jim Ivey <jivey@marine.usf.edu>

To: Jim Hendee <Jim.Hendee@noaa.gov>

 

 

 

Hi Jim,

 

You might want to pull those photos.  They're part of a scam going around

the web.  They're not of the tsunami but of the Qian Tang Jiang River in China.

 

http://www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/tsunami1.asp

 

Take Care,

 

Jim Ivey

[HowardofNOVA]

Michael,

NOAA has pulled your pictures down as fakes.

Howard

[michaelg]

That's what the previous post was for- sorry I didn't explain it better, and thanks for making it more clear.  I'll leave them so others know these aren't from the actual tsunami, but I think they give a chilling glimpse of what it was like.  If people want me to delete the reference, I will be happy to do so.

[michaelg]

From Coral list- photos of damage done to one of the reef areas hit:

Dear All,

 

The following link

 

http://www.talaythai.com/issue/tsunami/20050106.php

 

is the latest report (Chong-Kol-Kard, Surin Island) by Dr. Thorn and his

team.

 

There are damage in a few loactions.  The final report is not done yet.

 

Cheers,

Chai

 

From Todd Barber:

Not sure if this is of any real help to folks, but Reef Ball Foundation has

gotten reports from Maldives of steel hulled vessels 20 meters deep that

were sunk as artificial reefs moving 300 meters, Reef Balls in 20 meters

depth (Pallet Ball Size) moving 10 meters and coral heads being tossed

around like dice.

 

Our stablility calculations in the area would suggest that currents at 20

meters must have exceeded 5 knots to be able to move an unanchored Reef

Ball.

 

We also got a report from Thialand of major damages to nearshore natural

reefs (Racha Island Area).

 

Cordially, "Restoring Our World's Oceanic Ecosystems"" Todd Barber Chairman

reefball@reefball.com Reef Ball Foundation, Inc. 6916 22nd Street West

Bradenton, FL 34207 http://www.artificialreefs.org (All Reef Ball Sites)

http://www.reefball.org (Reef Ball Foundation) http://www.reefball.com (Reef

Ball Services Division) http://www.reefbeach.com (Reef Balls for Erosion

Control) http://www.eternalreefs.com (Memorial Reef Balls) Office: Direct:

fax: mobile: 941-752-0169 941-752-0338 941-752-1033 941-720-7549

[michaelg]

From Henry Aruffo

 

Hello Friends:

 

  Many of you have written and inquired how you could help with the Tsunami

relief efforts in Thailand.  Some of you may want to assist in repairing the

environmental damages created by the Tsunami; problems that will have to be

addressed as part of any long term recovery process - human and

environmental.   During the past six months, I have been the volunteer

director of an environmental organization dedicated to helping the ocean,

repairing and rebuilding reefs, and encouraging an environmental spirit and

ethic in the local Thai population.  Coral Reef Institute hosted an

International Symposium on Coral Reef Assessment in November and has

sponsored beach clean-ups with local Thai children. Classroom presentations

of underwater photography are shown to children in an effort to educate them

to the importance of coral reefs and the sea life that inhabits them.  Our

college credit Certificate Program in Underwater Research begins in

September, as the primary goal of Coral Reef Institute is to train

environmentally sensitive and proficient marine researchers for all fields

of underwater studies.

 

 We are not a listed charity, as we are a environmental organization

financed by our educational programs and my personal funding, but under the

current situation we are requesting financial assistance from anyone

interested in helping in the environmental repairs. I have lived in Phuket

for fourteen months and I am able to organize local and volunteer workers to

assist in environmental work projects that will aid in the healing of

Thailand's environmental problems. I am also able to identify reputable

local environmental organizations that will need funding to rebuild.  A

partial list of environmental problems related to the Tsunami is:

 

Over 3,600 fishing boats sunk or wrecked - some still leaking fuel and

scattered over the sea floor

 

More than 2000 endangered sea turtles are missing from their breeding pens -

now one step closer closer to extinction as they were washed inland

 

Fragile coral reef ecosystems within 100 -1000 meters of shore are covered

in palm trees, chairs, remains, logs and fishing trawlers - immediate

remedial actions are needed

 

Coral reefs offshore were not damaged severely (although some were) but they

need to be professionally assessed and damages documented.

 

  While we do not intend to divert any funding from the human tragedy, we

realize that there is also an important need to assist the environment.  

Helping the coral reef ecosystem will, in the future, provide the Thai

people with sustainable food sources, restored ecological balance, and the

rebuilding of their coastal barrier system.

 

  We have an account at Paypal:  savetheocean@coralreefinstitute.org  and

will accept donations at that site or contact me for more details or

information at:  n2maps@hotmail.com

 

     We will list the environmental projects on our web page as we complete

them.  You will be able to view our assistance at our website:  

www.coralreefinstitute.org   Our site is currently being updated but our

basic information is on-line.  All funds collected will be acknowledged and

documented and any funds received over the cost of our clean-up and remedial

actions will be donated to local Thai environmental organizations (turtle

breeding projects, reef rebuilding, etc.).  There will be no administrative

cost involved in any project.  Coral Reef Institute will assume these costs

and use 100% of funds received for local environmental projects.  We will

document all costs, expenditures, and donations on our web site as we

complete each project.

 

  Your financial assistance in helping the environment would be greatly

appreciated.  Many people have already donated to the human tragedy and

cannot afford another donation, if so, perhaps you could forward this

message to friends, family, environmentalist, or anyone willing to promote a

fund raising event which would assist in this endeavor. Thank you for your

generous consideration.

 

Environmentally yours in the care of the sea,

 

(Professor) Henry Aruffo

Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society

PADI IDC Staff Instructor #480218

Director - Coral Reef Institute

Phuket, Thailand

 

 

TV Interview - Tsunami Disaster -  

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=11439

 

Newspaper story -    

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes....ofessor

 

 

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[michaelg]

From Jim Hendee

 

Article in Malaysia News Online about UNEP's US $1M funding for

environmental assessment, including coral reefs and fisheries:

 

http://www.nst.com.my/Current....xb_html

 

"Lesson number one is that natural systems of coastal protection like

mangroves and coral reefs should be maintained."

 

 

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