And,
when the Govt issued alert, there wasn't any tsunami!
Thiruvananthapuram:
Panic gripped the residents of the coastal belts of
south and eastern India on Thursday as the Government warned
of fresh oceanic earthquakes and tsunami striking south
and eastern Indian coasts. An alert was sounded in the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands and Kerala. Officials started evacuating
people from the coastal belts and asked them not to go anywhere
near the sea. They have since returned late in the evening.
The Government of Kerala had also evacuated the coastal
areas. The state governments were alerted by the Union home
ministry, which received the alerts of impending earthquakes
from unconfirnmed private agencies abroad. The ministry
flashed the alert even as the science and technology minister
had opined that there is no scientific method yet to predict
quakes.
A
Ministry of Home Affairs fax sent to various media offices
said that the alert has been issued on the basis of a warning
given by several experts outside the country. The message
reads as follows: "A number of experts outside the country
are suggesting that another Tsunami may hit the India ocean
today afternoon in the event of an earthquake of high intensity,
which may happen near the Australian region." "The ministry
(home) is making an assessment of the information available
from various sources and the web sites. However, pending
that and to be cautious, the state governments and the Union
Territory administrations are kindly requested to put their
administrative machinery on alert in the coastal areas and
keep a continuous vigil on any developments in the sea."
The fax message urged the respective administrations to
make prompt arrangements for the evacuation of people to
safer havens and to issue orders banning access to shore
lines up to two kilometres into the mainland until further
notice. It also said that the Navy, Army, Air Force and
the Coast Guard have been placed on alert to provide all
necessary help.
Tsunami
death toll crosses 1,20,000 mark (Go
To Top)
New
Delhi: The international aid agency, Red Cross has warned
that the Tsunami related death toll is close to the 1,20,000
mark. As per latest BBC report, the official death toll
in various country as is follow: Indonesia: 79,940 Sri Lanka:
24,743 India: 7,330 Thailand: 2,394 Somalia: 120 Burma:
90 Maldives: 67 Malaysia: 65 Tanzania: 10 Seychelles: 1
Bangladesh: 2 Kenya: 1
Govt
to develop warning system: PM (Go
To Top)
Thiruvananthapuram:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday announced
that the government will work towards development of an
effective early warning system for natural calamities like
the devastating tsunami. Addressing a press conference here
after touring the tsunami- affected areas, Singh also sought
to clear the air over the conflicting reports on the quake
alert issued today morning. "We took precautions and an
alert warning was issued", he said, adding "the moral is
that we need to develop an early warning system and if necessary
seek international assistance in this regard". Singh said
that several countries have offered assistance and US President
George Bush and several other world leaders personally spoke
to him. The Prine Minister said he thanked the world leaders
but told them "as of now, we have adequate resources to
meet this challenge. If and when we need their help, we
will inform them". On the proposal of providing insurance
cover to the people affected by such disasters, the Prime
Minister said "we are willing to consider all innovative
measures to provide more effective protection for natural
disasters. We are open to all suggestions, including insurance
mechanism, to tackle such grave national crisis".
The
Prime Minister cut short his visit at Colachal in Tamil
Nadu and returned here. He was supposed to travel to Karaikkal
in Pondicherry and Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu later in the
day to get a first hand account of the situation there.
Tsunami:
Delhiites donate liberally (Go
To Top)
by Arunoday Prakash
New
Delhi: The Delhi government started 'Tsunami Relief
Camps' in the state under the 'Bhagidari-The Citizen Government
Partnership' movement from today. These camps were situated
at different schools in New Delhi and got overwhelming response.
The camps were spread through 11 government run schools
in the city. People thronged these camps and donated whole-heartedly
for those suffering from the tragedy.
UN
says over a bln dollars needed to provide relief (Go
To Top)
London/New
York/Singapore: An alarmed United Nations has said that
at least one billion dollars is immediately needed to provide
relief to about five million people in eleven tsunami-ravaged
nations in S.E.Asia, Indian Ocean Rim countries and Africa.
With the death toll from the Boxing Day tragedy like to
cross the 100,000, the UN beliefs that this amount is needed
to meet the basic requirements of food, pottable drinking
water and sanitation in the devastated areas, which today
faced the possibility of a fresh tsunami threat.
'Tsunami
bodies won't cause disease' (Go
To Top)
Washington:
The San Juan-based Pan American Health Organization
(PAHO) has claimed that tsunami ravaged dead bodies will
not be the cause of a pandemic situation in either Asia
and Africa. But according to a PAHO official, relief workers
must wear gloves to avoid contact with the blood oozing
out of the decomposed corpses. "There is no danger of corpses
contaminating water or soil because bacteria and viruses
cannot survive in dead bodies, Dana Van Alphan, an adviser
to PAHO's Office of Emergency Preparedness and Disaster
Relief, was quoted by a foreign news agency as saying. "Whatever
disease the person has while still alive poses no threat
to public health in a corpse," Van Alphan added. She also
emphasised that any bacteria or virus in the blood would
die almost immediately in the open. Van Alphan said that
the focus should be on providing clean water, adding that
the most immediate threat was water-born diseases like cholera.
