Southeast Asia death toll reaches 23,000, fears grow for 540 Israelis missing in SE Asia

The death toll from Sunday's natural disaster in Southeast Asia has reached 23,000, of them 12,000 in Sri Lanka, 6,000 in India, 4,700 in Indonesia and over 800 in Thailand.

In a press conference held Monday afternoon at the Foreign Ministry, Deputy Director General Nissim Ben-Sheetrit said that so far 450 Israelis in the region have been contacted. Ministry officials said earlier that over 500 were still unaccounted for.

According to Ben-Sheetrit, "I cannot say with certainty that there are no Israeli fatalities. We are examining this possibility and I hope there would not be any. Currently, between 7 and 14 Israelis are known to have been injured".

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials and doctors flew to Southeast Asia on Monday to search for missing Israeli tourists and provide assistance to countries struck by a massive earthquake and tidal waves.

Israeli army doctors are to offer medical assistance in Thailand and Sri Lanka, and army teams will look for missing Israelis in southern India.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel Radio Monday that there were a limited number of Israeli casualties and possibly fatalities in the tsunamis that struck the region.

According to Shalom, the number of Israeli tourists injured in the quake appeared to be lower than what had been initially believed.

Four Israeli tourists were reported as missing on Monday morning, acting Israeli Consul in Bangkok, Shlomi Kaufman, told Army Radio. According to Kaufman, "We received reports from people who said they had witnessed that something happened to those four".

Ten Israelis are hospitalized in hospitals in and around the southern Thai island of Phuket. All sustained light to moderate injuries.

In addition, it appears there are no foreign casualties on the islands of Andaman in the Indian Ocean. Dozens of Israelis are known to be on that island.

Shalom said Israel would assist its citizens in every way possible and also offered Israel's assistance to the nations struck by the natural disaster. The Ministry is focusing on getting Israelis onto buses in Bangkok, from where they will be flown to Israel.

Israel's national carrier, EL AL, said it would not charge extra fees or cancellation fees to people wishing to push back planned flights to Thailand, and added it would expedite the return flights of Israelis from Bangkok.

Israelis have so far not appeared on a list of foreign nationals killed in the disaster published by the Thailand Police. Most Israelis are reported to have made their way to Ko Phangang, far from the afflicted areas, for a series of full moon parties that started on Christmas Eve.

Foreign Ministry Director-General Ron Prosor said that Israel would dispatch $100,000 worth of medicine and food to Thailand and India, Israel Radio reported. In addition, a Foreign Ministry delegation including three top doctors from the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and an officer from the Home Front Command departed for the area to provide emergency assistance.

The death toll from the most powerful earthquake in four decades climbed steadily throughout Sunday as authorities counted bodies washed up on beaches and left hanging like ragdolls from trees. Foreign tourists were among the dead and the thousands of others who were reported missing. Tens of thousands fled the coasts for higher ground, fearing aftershocks and further flood surges.

On Monday afternoon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz asked the Israel Defense Forces to ready a medical relief team for immediate dispatch to Thailand.

The IDF is also preparing to send humanitarian aid to the region, primarily Sri Lanka. The Defense Ministry said Monday that the teams would be sent as soon as their coordination with the ministry were completed.

Mofaz offered aid of two kinds - a search and rescue team from the Home Front Command, as well as consignments of food and medicines.

Financial Donations You can help those affected by the floods and countless other crises around the world each year by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, which will provide immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance, and other support to those in need. Donate online or call toll free 1-800-HELP NOW (1-800-257-7575 for Spanish speakers) or you can mail in your gift to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, P. O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013.

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AmeriCares is preparing emergency relief flights that will focus on bringing medicines and medical supplies, water purification treatments and other types of assistance to the affected areas. Reports indicate that more than 50,000 people have been killed by powerful tsunamis caused by a 9.0 earthquake near Sumatra. Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India have the greatest number of casualties, and the death toll is expected to grow even higher.

Your donation is essential and will be applied to relief efforts in this crisis

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Emergency: Earthquake in South Asia
December 27, 2004 In response to the earthquake and tsunamis that have devastated parts of South Asia over the past weekend, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is preparing to provide emergency assistance to people affected by the disaster. MSF is readying a full charter of relief supplies for the area of Indonesia closest to the epicentre of the earthquake.

In addition, MSF medical teams are on the ground in Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Myanmar assessing emergency needs and offering assistance. MSF field teams in all countries where MSF is present, including Somalia and Kenya, are also investigating damage from the disaster.

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With regard to Iraq, nuclear weapons aren't the primary concern, although they might have been in the possibly near future. The primary WMD problem with Saddam was his known use, development and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons coupled with his allainces, overt and covert, with numerous terrorist groups including Al Queda (yes, there was cooperation before the war).

Added to this was Saddams know intention to exact revenge on the U.S. for the '91 Gulf War. This included the first Trade Towers attack in which his regime was complicite and the overt attempt to assasinate a U.S. President. The possibility that he might supply chemical or biological weapons to terrorists to these ends is more than sufficient.

Most people are terrified of nukes. If they knew the relative effects of the three major types of WMD, the nukes would be at the bottom of the list. As a former MI Army officer who is well familiar with them, and whose daughter is chemical warfare specialist in Iraq right now, I'd rather be nuked than exposed to chemical or bio weapons.

As for North Korea, Kim Jong Il is reletively contained. He may have nukes, but he's not going anywhere with them and he knows what would happen to him if he nuked the South. He is not likely to be able give them away to terrorists, because he has two major superpowers on his doorstep to keep him in check. Even if he were inclined to send them to terrorists, he couldn't do it easily. His two land borders are locked tight, and we track everything that comes and goes by sea and air.

Iraq, on the other hand, borders five countries with very porous borders and occupied by people who don't like us very much. Getting a WMD out of Iraq and to the U.S. is far easier than getting one out of North Korea.

You can jump up and down about 8-10 nukes versus 0 for Saddam all you want, but that argument is straw dog that won't hunt. It sounds good until you break it down and analyze it, but all it is is a meaningless sound-bite. But some people just can't resist the numbers game.

As for the follow-up argument about not finding chem or bio weapons in Irag, that also is not true. There has been plenty of evidence of his bio and chem weapons programs and the munitions to use them. It is very easy (reletively speaking), to dispose of these weapons. The equipment to make them is dual use. Remember the bombed "baby-milk" factory of the first Gulf War? It did make some baby-milk, it also produced bio-weapons, a fact that was confirmed by the U.N. and which was conveniently forgotten in the interests of bashing the US. Numerous such facilities, recently (as in the last five years), have been identified, not to mention two mobile labs that had been scrubbed so clean that no trace on anything could be found in them. Saddam had plenty of time dump the weapons or get them out to Syria.

Then there is the side benefit that invading Iraq produced in Libya. As it turns out, they were much further ahead in their WMD programs, particularly their nuclear program, than anyone had thought. Ousting Saddam convinced a state supporter of terrorism to stop and play nice.

In Iran, a country that is run by avowed enemies of the United States, they are already on the verge of being able to produce nuclear weapons (they also have chemical and biological weapons, some of which they used against Iraq during that war). Ousting Saddam gives us bases from which to easily strike them should they try and do something stupid. They are now bracketed along two of their borders by countries occupied by U.S. troops. Their ability to move WMD's in and out of their country and into the hands of terrorists has been severely hampered.

You will also recall that Hezbolla, a creation of the Iranian regime declared war and Jihad on the U.S. after the First Gulf War. Iraqi newspapers prior to the latest invasion of Iraq called for muslims everywhere to wage Jihad on America and it's interests everywhere they could be found.

When deciding which threats to eliminate, you first have to determine where the real threats are (the guy with the biggest gun or bomb is not always the biggest threat). Then you have to decide which threat, when eliminated is going to return the most benefit.

Kim Jong Il and his nukes are not a serious threat to the U.S. Saddam was and his chemical and bio weapons was. The return on eliminating Saddam for both the near and far term was much greater than would have been the return on trying to invade North Korea to take Kim's saber away from him.

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