On Boxing Day

December 26, 2004, two years ago:

"On the morning of Dec. 26, 2004, the most powerful earthquake in four decades lifted the seabed west of Sumatra by several yards, propelling waves up to two stories high at jetliner speeds across the Indian Ocean to smash into coastal communities, beach resorts and towns in 12 nations.
In hardest-hit Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India, the waves surged miles inland, tossing ships, swallowing entire villages and leaving behind a blasted landscape of concrete foundations and rubble littered with tens of thousands of bodies.
On Sumatra island — home to more than half the tsunami's nearly 230,000 dead and missing — volunteers and emergency workers took three months to recover all the corpses and bury them in mass graves."
(AP, Dec. 25, 2006)

December 26, 2006, now:

"EXCLUSIVE
Where did our tsunami cash go?
Western countries send complaint to police after loss of money donated to identify victims
...
The sources, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject, said funds contributed by Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and France amounted to almost Bt60 million.
The money was donated by the citizens of those countries, who wanted to help victims of the tsunami(emphasis mine; Ed.) that killed more than 5,000 people in the Phuket, Phang-Nga and Krabi areas.
The source said more than 60 per cent of the funds were wasted and disguised as travelling and other miscellaneous costs. 'To be frank, someone has stolen our citizens' money,"'said one of the sources, who has followed the victim identification process from the beginning."
...
(from The Nation, Bangkok, Dec. 25 2006)

"Editor,
Regarding Where did our tsunami cash go?(Nation, Dec. 25)This drove me crazy at the time, and the passing of time doesn't seem to have helped any. Why is it that, after the tsunami struck on Boxing Day 2004, the dead tourists were somehow more important than the living citizens? Still today, you talk about "wanting to help victims of the tsunami..." Hey! The dead are past our ability to help. How about helping the living, who lacked food, shelter; in some cases lost their entire families? Some of the victims are living without shelter or means of earning a living still today, two years later. Please, people, try to focus on what's important here!
Thanks,
Frank Maunder,
Bangkok Thailand"
(from me, Bangkok, Dec. 25 2006)