Tsunami Tragedy Continues

The news from tsunami-stricken countries in Asia continues to be heartbreakingly bad. The number of dead climbs daily. Fears of disease, which could kill more people than the deadly wave, are increasing due to knee-deep stagnant water in many areas, a lack of clean drinking water and generally poor sanitary conditions. In some areas, food and water have piled up at warehouses as washed-out roads and bridges make getting needed supplies to isolated villages difficult, if not impossible. Monsoon rains only add to the misery.

Nations and individual donors have pledged more than $2 billion to relief efforts. The task now is to ensure that supplies, especially water and medicine, quickly reach survivors of the Dec. 26 tsunami and earthquake.

Relief efforts are hampered by a lack of a coordinated command, according to international aid workers in the region. Ensuring that the right supplies – relief workers report boxes of clothes arriving in ravaged areas when water and medicine is the top priority – get to the people who most need them must be the first task addressed by international leaders who will be meeting in Indonesia later this week. “Logistical bottlenecks,” as the United Nations’ relief coordinator called them, cannot be allowed to delay aid efforts.

Despite the enormity of their task, made worse in some areas by strict government control and threats from rebel groups, aid workers are making progress. U.S. helicopters dropped food and water to survivors in Banda Aceh, a hard-hit area on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. A few seriously injured were flown to a U.S. ship for medical treatment. Airplanes dropped food and water to remote Indian islands.

“We’re not waiting for a perfect picture. There’s so much to be done,” said Rear Adm. Chris Ames, commander of the naval force that recently arrived off the coast of Sumatra. On Monday, the USS Bonhomme Richard and two other warships carrying a Marine expeditionary unit, dozens of helicopters and tons of supplies arrived in the Indian Ocean. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is off northern Sumatra and U.S. airlift operations are being flown out of Thailand.

Officials in the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean say they want to build a tsunami warning system. This is overdue. Such a system can relatively easily be put in place. The information it gathers must be quickly and widely disseminated. Officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii realized that the earthquake off Indonesia could set off a tsunami and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration warned their counterparts in Australia and Indonesia, which are part of the Pacific network.

India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, across the Indian Ocean from the quake where the tsunami hit two hours after the temblor, did not get a warning because they are not part of the system. NOAA personnel said they tried to alert officials in these countries, but did not have up-to-date contact information. Although NOAA is not responsible for alerting countries to Indian Ocean tsunami threats, an updated contact list may have saved lives.

Too late, many lessons are being learned from this tragedy. Coordination is the first one.