Re: [microsound] [OT] Tsunami update

[Karri Ojanen <karrio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I know this is completely OT on this list, but as Björn posted a message
here, I decided to post a message about the tsunamis, too. I had booked a
trip to Krabi in Thailand (in the tsunami hit area) with my wife, we were
going to leave on Jan 8, but as the first news about the catastrophy
arrived our trip got cancelled. I've been in Phuket before - it's a very
popular area among Finnish holidaymakers especially around this time of
year. When the tsunamis hit, there were more than 4000 Finns, at least, in
Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, India and Malaysia. 14 Finns are confirmed
dead, but the fears are that at least 150-250 more are dead and their
bodies never found (most of those tourists were in the worst hit Khao Lak
area). The government has sent medical personnel and a group of experts to
Thailand to look for Finnish victims village by village, hotel by hotel,
house by house...

The sheer size of the catastrophy is just unspeakable, and it touches the
whole nation very deeply. The foreign minister of Sweden called this a
national trauma, and the prime minister of Finland was in tears as he gave
his second statement yesterday. And, of course, the losses that the local
population have suffered are horrifying. In Indonesia, there are complete
villages and towns that were totally destroyed in the tsunamis with no one
left alive. Those who survived have lost their homes and their main source
of income for years.

Right away after the tsunamis hit, the Finnish government decided to
establish an airbridge to evacuate everybody from the area as quickly as
possible. They've sent doctors and medical supplies there and established
a crisis center at the airport in Phuket and in Helsinki. There are about
50 volunteers working at the crisis center here, night and day. I have a
gig up north tonight, and so I need to go to the airport today to catch a
flight - I wonder how it looks like there.

Finnair and Air Finland are flying 3-4 planes nonstop to Thailand and back
all the time - as soon as they unload the victims in Helsinki they fly
back to Phuket and Bangkok to try and evacuate everybody by Sunday. New
evacuation flights land at Helsinki every 11 hours. For some reason the
Swedish government didn't establish a similar airbridge right away, and so
Finnair has also evacuated a 100 Swedish tourists and other foreigners
from the area.

Several kids are left as orphans: a 13 year old Finnish boy was on the
first flight from Phuket without his parents, and several more kids have
arrived without their parents today. Yesterday I watched a couple of news
clips online, where a Finnish journalist interviewed a 15-year old boy and
another, 16-year old boy at the airport in Phuket. The 15-year old had
come to Thailand with 9 other people, and now - everybody else but the boy
are missing. The 16-year old had lost everything, and was wearing nothing
but his shorts and a jacket he had got from a local hospital. He had no
shoes, no passport, no money, nothing. If this would have happened only
two weeks later, my wife and I could now be dead and washed away.

So here in Finland this catastrophy has had a tremendous effect and the
tour operators, Finnair, the foreign ministry and the Red Cross are just
devastated by this tragedy. It's just unspeakable...

Karri O.

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