Unimaginable grief; obligation to help

And then we hear about the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunamis in Asia and we see the photos of the damage. We hear about the deaths. First it’s a few thousand. Then more than 10,000; then 22,000; then 40,000; then 75,000 and climbing. At press time, the death toll was near 155,000 and sure to rise as more bodies are discovered and as infections, disease and contaminated water and other unsanitary conditions cause other deaths.

Can we possibly fathom this tragedy — 155,000 people dead in the course of one week? That compares to the entire population of Fort Lauderdale or Tallahassee, Florida’s sixth and seventh largest cities, being wiped out all at once. That’s more people than live in all 12 of Florida’s lowest-populated counties combined.

In Sri Lanka, more than 46,000 have died and 14,000 are missing; 31 of our 67 counties have fewer than 60,000 residents, according to the 2000 census. Imagine if, in the recent spate of hurricanes, instead of widespread damage and a few hundred dead statewide, entire counties were leveled and all of the residents were killed.

Does this begin to give some scope of the disaster?

People across the state and the nation responded generously to Floridians when we were hit hard this year by Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. We know what it is like to experience both disaster and the outpouring of support in the aftermath.

The three-part recovery for the region will take years: relief, rebuilding and prevention of future disasters.

As for relief, Jan Egeland, U.N. undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, took an unnecessary cheap shot at assisting nations in the early days after the waves hit when he implied some nations were being "stingy" in their aid. It was cheap and undignified in two ways: First, because the scope of the disaster was not yet known, nations such as the United States could not possibly have known at that time the amount of resources that would be needed or could be committed. Second, Egeland’s remark did not take into account the support already under way from U.S. and other churches, corporations and individuals.

A nation’s generosity should not be measured only by what comes from its government.

However, more must obviously be done. Our Gov. Jeb Bush is part of a U.S. team, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, assessing the needs of the region. And President George W. Bush has asked former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to spearhead a fund-raising campaign.

Next is rebuilding. Many of the areas that have been affected were tourist areas or self-sufficient fishing villages. One village of 800 families had 42 small fishing boats; most of those have been smashed around trees and tangled in the fishing nets. Those who have survived in many of the coastal towns have lost their livelihood.

Earthquakes cannot be seen in advance as hurricanes can. And while there is some tsunami warning system in place for the Pacific Rim, it does not serve the Indian Ocean — yet — although we can assume that one outcome of this tragedy will be that future lives may be spared by the addition of a warning system for that region.

Actually, a fourth pillar of recovery should be prayer — for those who have died, for those who survived, for the orphans, for those who mourn, for the relief workers who will go in and see the destruction and cope with the aftermath.

There is another aspect. Egeland points out that in Africa — especially in the Darfur region of Sudan and some other areas — as many people die each day of preventable causes as to equal the tsunami tragedy every few months. That’s a crisis that needs to be addressed as well, on an ongoing basis.

We who have experienced the devastation of nature’s storms know the difference the prayers and assistance of strangers can make. We all have a part to play in the recovery efforts.