Southeast Asia Tsunami Disaster
...le, then two and a half hours later twenty feet of blue crystals slammed against the coastlines of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Somalia, Kenya, and Seychelles. As of now the death toll as reached more than 140,000, including Americans and other tourists who traveled to Asia. As I read the headlines from the paper on the day the tsunami took place all the way up till today, the death toll keeps rapidly rising, and then suddenly doubling. It went from an already terrible 11,000 to a devastating 140,000 and counting. That is more than 7 cities of Biddeford being completely annihilated and simply washed off the face of the earth along with all the people. Men, women and children gone, then there’s the millions without any suitable drinking water, shelter, or food. You cannot help but be touched by all the money being donated; our family is also contributing with a donation. The top contributors are Japan with 500 million dollars, the United States with 350 million dollars, Britain with 95 million dollars, Sweden giving 75.5 million dollars, Spain gave 68 million dollars, and France gave 58 million. Most of these countries donations where in loans. Both the U.S. and Japan started with minimal donations of 35, and 30 million but gave more and more as the situations got direr. The United Nations gave 2 billion dollars, and overall the national community has raised over 1.5 billion dollars. All in all somewhere near 5 or 6 billion must have been raised. There are many more concerns other than money issues. Missing peoples such as the thousands missing from the U.S. alone only six hundred were found. Not to mention the mass burials taking place and the huge risk of spreading disease because of that. The last thing Southeast Asia needs now after this tsunami is an outbreak of some deadly disease. There are many other disasters that have caused more death and destruction than this, but this is the largest number of deaths in a tsunami situation. I’d just like to take a moment to recognize the major companies who have made contributions. Among the biggest corporate givers are Pfizer Inc., which is donating $10 million in cash and $25 million worth of drugs to relief agencies; The Coca-Cola Co., which is donating $10 million; Exxon Mobil Corp., which is giving $5 million; and Citigroup Inc., which is contributing $3 million. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $3 million. Pharmaceutical and health-care products companies were among the biggest givers. Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Laboratories Inc. are each donating $2 million and sending drugs and other health-care supplies to the region. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is donating $1 millio...