AMSAHK Newsletter
Volume 1; Issue No. 5; 25 March 2005
Asian Tsunami –
Road to Recovery
Time
flies. It has been more than two months since the outbreak of
the Asian tsunami disaster in December but there will still be
a long and difficult road before survivors return to their normal
lives.
Thailand, one of the most affected countries,
has started to its reconstruction process. As an article from
a Thailand newspaper reported,
“A few hours after the disaster, flow of
mercy came from every part of the country. Plenty of food, drinking
water, clothes, temporary shelters, medical volunteer teams were
sent to the site. The most difficult thing was to find the victim’s
dead body and identify them. The medical team led by Dr. Porntip
used fingerprints, DNA analysis, and other forensic tests, but
still tons of severely damaged corpses had to wait for further
investigations.”
Those unknown dead bodies were put together in
all the Buddhism temples. They were roughly covered with white
cloth and were piled up on the ground, some of them have begun
to decompose.
When all things is getting better Thai government
plan to spend 5,900 millions baht on rebuilding the residences
on the shores and to restore confidence among foreign visitors.
 |
Dara Rosmailina
(Nana), the Overall Chairperson of AMSA International in
Aceh, where she gave medical assistance as a volunteer |
“It’s useless if we can’t learn
some valuable things from this catastrophe,” said Mr. Thaksin
Shinnawat, the prime minister of Thailand.” [Source: AMSA
Thailand 2004/2005]
Numerous ways of helping the victims have been
proposed by many governmental bodies and charitable organizations,
including debts relief, donations, providence of trained professionals
and patronization of affected resort areas to revitalize their
economy.
Mr. Bill Clinton, the former US President, has
been named Tsunami Tsar by the United Nations. As an UN envoy,
he was commended for exercising his international popularity to
push ahead concerted relief efforts. The overall assessment by
the UN estimated the rebuilding costs to be about US$12.5 billion.
 |
Waka
Shibata; Regiona Chairperson of Japan |
In the past two issues we have reported on “a
volunteer’s journey”, about Nana surveying in person
the affected areas. But what has AMSA done to actually help with
the reconstruction? AMSA Japan has raised funds and a former representative
of AMSA-Japan, Taku Yamamichi (also known as Michi) even went
to Indonesia in January to co-ordinate the efforts of the Association
of Medical Doctors in Asia (AMDA) and AMSA-Indonesia in the reconstruction
work. Waka Shibata, Regional Chairperson of Japan 2004/2005, reported
that:
“I feel proud and happy that a medical
student from my country was working at the forefront of relief
efforts. As AMSA-Japan we called upon our fellow medical students
to make donations and managed to raise some money which we will
be donating to AMDA.”
Japan, a country frequently affected by earthquakes,
has been very experienced in dealing with natural disasters. AMSA-Japan
hopes that they would be able to share their knowledge on contingency
measures and experience with the victims to be better prepared
for future earthquakes, as “knowledge saves lives”.
There
have been deep concerns that donated money and supplies may not
actually reach the hands of the sufferers, but instead be siphoned
by local corrupt governments or wasted due to lack of efficiency.
The short and medium-termed relief measures should be aimed at
environmental issues, prevention of epidemics and reconstruction
of the devastated areas while long-termed ones in the prevention
and early warning of occurrence of similar catastrophes. Besides
material aids, care should also be taken to ease the psychological
trauma experienced by all who have witnessed the horrifying act
of nature.
The reconstruction process is difficult or a
daunting task. We pray that all victims of this disaster continue
their lives with respect and dignity.
