Reply #4: What Would You Suggest? [View All]

The Banda Aceh region of Indonesia...the epicenter of the quake & the tsunami is one of the most inaccessible in the world and tied up behind a war of insurrection (funded in part by this regime). Whatever infrastructure was devestated and this area, remote as it already was, became even more remote. Personally, I'm surprised the media and NGOs got into that area as quickly as they did.

We're seeing a lot of aid pouring into Sri Lanka, India, Thailand & Indonesia and we're still 4 days out of this catastrophe...the scope we still haven't yet to comprehend. Sumatra is one of the most populous islands in the world and contains hundreds of different tribes/cultures...making communications that lead to relief even more difficult.

I've been monitoring a website that handles amateur radio traffic...almost always the first forms of communications when a major disaster hits (hurricanes), but there's precious little coming from that part of the world. It's a sad and slow process as there are no major landing strips and helicopters are limited in the mountains and jungles.

I applaud the many agencies that have hopped into action and the empahsis now on water, food and sanitation to stave off additional suffering. The local NPR station also mentioned this Tsunami spared some of the most disaster prone lands...the lowlands of Bangladesh, which suffer regularly by typhoons and flooding from the Ganges. Also, that we haven't heard from Myarmar...a closed society that had suffered from the wave, yet little is being heard from.