The tsunami that struck nations from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, and across to Africa has claimed almost 60,000 lives.
To put that number in perspective, compare it to the number of American lives lost in:
The Galveston Hurricane (1900): 8,000 Korean War (1950-53): 36,568 Combat in WWI (1917-18): 53,402 By other causes in WWI: 63,114 Vietnam War: 58,202
Here's how you can help:
U.S. resources
WorldVision -- 888-562-4453.
Red Cross (at Amazon.com)
Samaritans Purse
American Jewish World Service
International Orthodox Christian Charities
Compassion International
Canadian resources
Canadian Tamil Congress -- 416-751-8777
Canadian Relief Organization for Peace in Sri Lanka -- 416-429-2822
The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace
Mennonite Central Committee
UK Resources
(HT: Instapundit and Bene Diction Blogs On)
Compassion International is also a good site
You forgot one statistic - number of people killed on 9/11 - 3,000
Here is a link from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
Let's try that again:
http://www.bpf.org/html/whats_now/events/tsunami.html
Should link to a list of charities from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
BTW, I should also mention Oxfam America while I'm at it.
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/
You may send funds designated for Sri Lanka relief to the following
AUSTRALIA (Please make cheque out to "Youth for Christ")
C/o Eisvarn Subramanium
16 Albert Street (East) Guildford NSW 2161
CANADA
Youth for Christ /Canada
7337 137 St. # 100 Surrey BC V3W 1A4
GERMANY
Jugend Fuer Christus Deutschland e.v.
Posfach 1180 D-64355 Muehltal, Germany
USA
Youth for Christ International Ministries,
P.O. Box 4555 Englewood, CO 80155-4555
NEW ZEALAND
Youth for Christ/ New Zealand
P.O. Box 1641, Paraparaumu Beach 6450 Kapiti Coast
UK
Youth for Christ in Britain
P.O. Box 5254, Halesowen, W. Midlands, B63 3DG
USA
Youth for Christ International Ministries,
P.O. Box 4555 Englewood, CO 80155-4555
SRI LANKA
Youth for Christ
129/1b High Level Road, Kirulapone,
Colombo 6 Sri Lanka.
For direct Bank transfers our bank details are
The account is in HSBC Colombo.
The swift code of the bank is HSBCLKLX
The name of the account is "Youth for Christ"
The account number is 001-232768-003
Thanks for the comparisons, Joe. As of this morning the toll is at 70,000 and still climbing. To get a visual on that number of people, imagine the crowd at the Super Bowl. Now imagine them gone.
This doesn't count the thousands who will die from cholera and parasitic waterborne infections in the coming days. "Disaster" hardly even applies.
will, since you bring up 9/11, remember that the same people who inflicted that on us would love to cause casualties even greater than those caused by the tsunamis.
Joe,
Thanks for posting this list.
FYI, Mennonite Central Committee has offices in both the U.S. and Canada.
i hope these christian organizations can help. all bush come come up with is 35 million. that is pocket change of the iraq war.
Although it's too late for some, let's try ro avoid using this tragedy to take partisan potshots.
ok, all the american government can come up with is 35 million. or, is that to partisan against the american government?
Another great organization is Gospel For Asia. They can be found here. As the name suggests, they already have a substantial presense in the area.
"...all the American government can come up with..."
Why do so many people think it is morally justifiable for the government to coercively take anything away from someone and give it to someone else? Get a clue. It is called "charity" for a reason.
The American people will voluntarily give generously out of compassion - just as they did on 9/11. It is as it should be. Those who choose not to help will miss a blessing.
Thre is now a Tsunami Help blog with extensive links to relief organizations:
http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/
Also a note on the private generosity of the American people: has anyone checked out the numbers at Amazon? It's been taking donations for the Red Cross; so far, 34655 folks have donated $1,923,005.00.
Thanks for all the links, gang!
Here's a link to the Guide for Appropriate Giving:
http://www.interaction.org/disaster/guide_giving.html
And when you give, don't forget the local charities. The loss of life in Asia is mind-boggling, and no doubt they need our assistance. But also remember that this is starting out to be a rough winter and there are many in our own areas that are without food and shelter.
God Bless.
tommythecat -
Your second post makes clear where you're coming from.
FYI - This is from the New York Times:
President Bush announced Wednesday the United States, India, Australia and Japan have formed an international coalition to coordinate worldwide relief and reconstruction efforts for the Asian region ravaged by a deadly earthquake and tsunamis.
"We will prevail over this destruction," Bush said from his Texas ranch in his first comments on the disaster Sunday that so far has killed more than 76,000.
Bush said the disaster had "brought loss and grief to the world that is beyond our comprehension" and he pledged a multifaceted response from the United States that goes far beyond the $35 million initially pledged.
I am so blessed to be a fellow citizen with the most generous citizenry of any nation in the history of mankind.
The present effort of the people of this great land to help in Southern Asia is just the quake, a charitable tsunami will surely follow.
Hang on!
Your second post makes clear where you're coming from.
that was what is called a joke.
35M is 1/4200 of the cost of the iraq war so far.
bush's inaguration will cost 30-40M
When you put it in that perspective, tommythecat ... it is understandable the puzzlement. Wow, 3Omillion just on the celebration of his inaugaration? Real Live Preacher did wonder out loud that it would've been a nice symbolic gesture if the President could waive that grand ceremony and donate that money spent on it to this disaster. (But I believe there's far too much red tape, people to please etc to do it)
I'm from Malaysia, where 65 people have died from the tsunami. My prime minister have called off all New Year eve celebrations so that celebrations will be replaced with prayer. I'm so proud of his decision ..
Personally, I don't think this is the time for taking potshots at the US. No matter how tempting! We can't force anyone to give more, and let's not forget the many generous Americans who are not just lending their money, but physically flying over to devastated areas to help. It's not fair to label all Americans stingy.
Charity is not a competition, after all.
There just getting started.
Everybody knows the U.S. is going to spend a massive amount of money, way more than anyone else: cash from the government, farm surplus food, plus logistical support from the military (which if you're gonna complain about how expensive that is, you can't then say it WON'T be expensive when its used for relief efforts--same equipment, same overhead), plus Red Cross, and other private money.
How silly to say that the American people/government will only be giving $35 million. This is a complete misunderstanding of the American way of life. The American Government is a Government for the people and by the people. It is not the reverse. Therefore, we have and insist upon low taxation, unlike some socialized countries.
So here in America, while i'll government might be deciding for us to spend $35 million dollars of our money on disaster relief overseas, we the people are spending far greater amounts. We are able to do that because of our tax rate. This makes us better people. Don't misunderstand. Not better-than-you people, but better than we would have been, people.
We get to make the conscience choice to give willingly our money to those in need. Those who live in countries with a high tax burden do not have that gift, the gift of giving willingly.
tommy -
Let me ask you a few questions:
How does one calculate the amount of aid given by a nation? In this case, is the $35,000,000 figure (I guess you're just going to ignore the Times story and Bush's statement yesterday) actual cash, or does it reflect the value of goods and services rendered? For example, if Marines are sent to a stricken area, are their salaries and the cost of their logistical support counted in the figure "given" by the US? Do US government contributions to, for example, UN charitable organizations that provide relief to those areas counted in that figure? How about US contributions to other charitabl;e organizations, like the Red Cross?
What amount and types of aid, from what sources, would you consider adequate?
Jim Rockord wrote: Although it's too late for some, let's try ro avoid using this tragedy to take partisan potshots.
Sorry Jim. Seems death and taxes aren't the only unavoidables of life.
May I suggest an organization called Global Action for donations. Global Action has a very small staff in the US but works with many, many nationals all over the world. Those nationals are already in place and able to use funds most effectively in their own economy. Global Action will be wiring a large amount of money late today to their associates in Sri Lanka. They take credit card donations on their website. I can vouch for this organization, that it has impeccable financial integrity.
http://globalaction.nu/
The most wisdom of the comments was that 'charity is not a competition' by messy christian. Having spent a great deal of time in Malaysia and Thailand the people in the areas devestated will be appreciative of what they get in aid. They will not see a contest, or feel that one aid is better than another. Leave it to the French to try to upstage all others, in the end they are in it for the money (in reconstruction) anyway. They like to claim that they are just better than most and that is why, but if you check their history it is because they know how to be more greedy than most.
Anyway, the greatness is that so many are giving and may God receive the praise for the loving hearts that do, for it is desperately needed.
We've been working this quite a bit the last two days via several Blogs. The most comprehensive list I've found of donation venues is atThe Command Post.
I might add; it's rare folks when you get to do someting in this world that's right on every level, for eveyone involved. This is right morally, it's right politically, it's right militarily. There is no trade off to be made. This a region which needs charity, badly. This i a region where many moderate Muslims live and the nation in this area have been the most helpful in the WoT, hands down, no question about it. They're earned this. This is a region of the world where our reputation can be improved, and where more cooperation down the road could save our own necks. This is a way we can show the Muslim and international community that we're serious about bringing Ameican values to them, and these are exactly the cloth you want those values delivered in. It makes sense on every, single level. If each of us skips our next McDonald's Hambuger, we could give 100 million dollars.
Such tragedy. Rats, rats, rats, rats, rats.
For those of you who are strapped but want to lend a hand, or who wish to do more, there are a number of sites where you can see pics of children, injured people, parents; many of them found literally wondering the countryside in a daze or laying unconscious in a ditch, no ID, no way to know who they are. They range from infants to the elderly, every color, every creed, and many appear to the survivors of families on vacation who have no one to tend for them in a foreign land where the locals are beset with far too many problems of their own already. You can browse through those photo’s and see if you can match up someone being sought, with someone found. There’s thousands and thousands of them, and I’ll hopefully have a few sites up this afternoon you can start with. (If anyone runs across any, put them in comments and up they’ll go at textPharyngula and elsewhere)
For myself, I’m frustrated with the White House for reasons that have nothing to do with this disaster. So, it’s perhaps a little too tempting for me to project my private angst onto any development that comes up, even though none of it has any bearing on the events unfolding so viscerally before our eyes this week.
I want to be clear about this: This wasn’t Bush’s fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, and I thank those of you who showed patience for a few of us who probably dragged our a prior political discontent into this tragedy. We don’t owe the affected people help anymore than we owe any other nations our help. What we give, we give out of compassion.
I do feel that the President could personally benefit from putting more thought into his remarks and displays of concern. At the hastily setup press statement released by the WH from Crawford, where the President is enjoying some Christmas time with his family and friends like any other American, he chose to end the briefing by responding to a reporter’s good natured question asking what his New Year’s resolution was going to be. The President answered that he was going to lose weight. This was the last response he gave after a press conference discussing the possible starvation and death of an additional hundred thousand or so victims in the next few months. I know he didn’t mean it to sound callous or self-absorbed. The President was just being himself, and he’s a personable down-to-earth kind of fellow. But it sounded horrible in this context. It’s a minor thing, but one that could have been so easily avoided.
I can’t really think of a way to frame this using any positive connotations, for this tragedy is shaping up to be the most grisly natural disaster in human history. The estimated death toll is plausibly going to reach the half-million mark. But the best way I can state my concern for our official response so far, is that it seems to me we are missing what could be called, for lack of a better word, an opportunity. It makes sense on every level I can think of for our Federal Government to take the bull by the horns, step up to the plate more aggressively, and reflect the deep generosity that Americans, be they red-staters or blue-staters, all share. Outside of money, it is the US and the US alone, who possesses the most effective talent and the machinery and expertise to run it, to organize the logistics of any effective multi-national relief effort. We have the planes, the boats, the cargo handlers, the linear programming software to knock out the maximally efficient sequences of production/distribution. No one else even comes close to US in this respect. And our technology is highly mobile.
That’s why I want to see us do more as a nation, with the official Governmental Seal. It’s a rare thing in this world to be in a win-win-win position on a matter involving the harshest of human realities. How often in life do we see a situation in which there is no trade-off required in responding? Given the scope of this mess, an enormous, public, coordinated official reaction is fully justified in my opinion, from any angle you look at it. It is the politically expedient thing to do, it is in our security interests to do, and clearly it’s the morally decent thing to do.
I've also seen a few smart-ass comments bouncing around about "God being responsible' or what-not. I'm an atheist, so I obviously don't hold God responsible for anything. But my understanding of hristian Theology would lead me to conclude that if there is such a Creator, he can pretty much do what he sees necessary. We have no idea what Hid Eyes see, and He could have some very good reasons for bringing these people home to Him a little early.