2004 Tsunami: How Foodies Can Help

By JULIETTE ROSSANT [Editor's Note: This article was updated on December 30 and December 31, 2004.] What can we do to aid the victims of the 2004 Tsunami, whose 9.0 underwater quake began offshore of Indonesia on the morning of December 26, 2004? Individually, we can do little -- but together, well channeled, just a little from each of us can do a lot. I am calling on all Foodies to make donations (below) to aid agencies -- online, whatever the amount, right now. I am asking that you also please link this message to any and all food blogs and beyond to other blogs, on and on, in attempt to tell others how they can help right now. Take $10 out of your groceries and/or meals out and send it to one of these groups. Don't doubt that even a few dollars help -- because the world's leading nation, the United States of America, had offered only $35 million in aid as of the close of business yesterday, December 28, 2004, according to a television interview with US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The death toll of the 2004 Tsunami has risen daily by the tens of thousands. In case you missed the news, the death toll during yesterday evening's TV news programs was proclaimed at over 60,000 people (News Hour, NBC, ABC, CBS), topping last year's earthquake in Bam, Iran, whose final count exceeded 25,000. This morning, the Red Cross expected the figure to surpass 100,000 deaths. The death-toll lag has come from the country nearest the underwater epicenter of the earthquake, Indonesia. Politics will play a part in aid, since countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka have problems with their effected peoples, e.g., Indonesia's Acehnese and Sri Lanka's Tamils, which are both separatist groups. Put this into perspective: this earthquake was so big that it shifted islands off Indonesia and even made the Earth wobble. Just days after the tsunami, drinking water has hit the top of the needs list of many. Aid agencies and nations are racing to undertake the largest humanitarian relief effort in history (read more from The News Hour). A follow-up crisis is brewing in the form of disease and starvation (read more from BBC). If you're wondering which aid agency to send to -- a good channel -- I recommend Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), based on my on experiences covering Kurdish refugees after the Gulf War. These are the altruist, hard-core elites of aid. When they pulled out of Afghanistan in July and Iraq last month, the world noticed -- it was like Captain Miller having to cancel Saving Private Ryan. MSF's website is so busy that I am listing their specific country bases, of which the most easily accessed (and well targeted) is the MSF UAE page. The Economist of London and The New York Times have some of the best links to effective groups. Links for donations and aid agencies: - MSF global donation links - MSF USA donations - MSF Canada donations - MSF UK donations - MSF France donations - MSF Hong Kong donations - MSF UAE donations - Red Cross donations - CARE USA donations - CARE Canada donations - The Economist list - New York Times list - BBC list - ABC World News Tonight list Links for updates: - BBC News - South Asia - News Hour updates - UNDP - Tsunami updates - ReliefWeb updates You have my permission to copy and paste this message (with its HTML coding, so the weblinks remain), or you may simply link to this entry. Updates to this article: Tsunami Update 1: Foodies Help - December 30, 2004 Tsunami Update 2: Race Against More Death - December 31, 2004 --> back to Superchefblog