The Command Post
Global Recon
December 29, 2004
Australian Donations Mount : Aceh Casualties Likewise
Via Tim Blair, a roundup of preliminary contributions by Australian governments :
All figures in Australian dollars:
Australia [Federal Government] : $35 million

New South Wales: $2 million

Western Australia: $2 million

Queensland: $1.5 million

Victoria: $1.5 million

Australian Capital Territory: $500,000

South Australia: $500,000
Tasmania has donated $150,000. Tasmania only has 300,000 people in though, about the same as the ACT where I live.

UPDATE : The Australian Cricket team are donating their prize money.

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation :
Aid authorities in Indonesia believe the death toll in Aceh could still be tens of thousands higher that the current estimate of 32,000. Grave fears are held for the 100,000 people who live on the west coast.
[...]
At least 32,000 people are estimated to have died, but tens of thousands more remain unaccounted for in western Aceh, which bore the brunt of Sunday's tsunami.
From The Australian :
The first shocking images of Sumatra's devastated west coast emerged yesterday, leading authorities to dramatically increase the estimated toll from Sunday's disaster and increasing the pressure on Australia to take a leading role in the reconstruction of tsunami-hit Indonesia.

Troops arriving in Meulaboh in Aceh province reported 10,000 bodies lying in the streets of the city, population 100,000, which was 80 per cent destroyed by the quake and resulting tsunami.

A reconnaissance flight covering about 160km of the Sumatran coast between Banda Aceh and Meulaboh revealed no signs of life, all main structures destroyed and sea water about 2km inland.
[...]
But with great tracts of northern Sumatra still under surging ocean and no word from many isolated communities, officials warned the toll would jump -- to perhaps as high as 100,000 -- when contact was finally made with the area emerging as the quake's ground zero.
[...]
[Australian]Foreign Minister Alexander Downer increased the nation's immediate aid commitment to $35million, including $10 million earmarked for Aceh, but warned that Australia would eventually commit "considerably more than that, particularly helping the rehabilitation of some of these communities that have been utterly devastated".

"I think it's going to be a very expensive exercise for Australia, but it's also the fact of life that we have very great responsibilities," he said.

It is understood that senior Australian government officials are already contemplating the prospect of a substantial Australian contribution to the multi-billion-dollar reconstruction of northern Sumatra once the immediate humanitarian needs have been met.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned late yesterday that the toll around the Indian Ocean rim would be "thousands, thousands if not tens of thousands, more than the figure that is generally being used now", but Jakarta Red Cross spokesman Phil Charlesworth predicted that Aceh, on the northwest tip of Indonesia's largest island, could by itself deliver the kind of figures Mr Annan expected.

"There's a population on the northwest side of Sumatra of 100,000, and most of those are unaccounted for," Mr Charlesworth said.

Posted by Alan Brain at December 29, 2004 09:41 AM | TrackBack
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