Natural Disasters on The Huffington Post

Huang Qi, Chinese Critic Of Earthquake Responses, Jailed For 3 Years

2009-11-23T09:29:03Z

BEIJING — A veteran dissident was sentenced Monday to three years in prison after casting a spotlight on poorly built schools that collapsed during China's massive earthquake last year, killing thousands of children – an apparent government attempt to squelch such information.

Huang Qi, founder of a human rights Web site, had been charged with illegally possessing state secrets, his wife Zeng Li said by telephone. His detention in June 2008 came after several posts on his blog that criticized the government's response to the massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province a month earlier and killed about 90,000 people.

Peter Bosshard: The Dam That Shook the Earth

2009-11-19T12:30:13Z

Scientists agree that dams can trigger earthquakes. A new research paper presents fresh evidence that the devastating earthquake which killed more than 80,000 people in China’s Sichuan Province in May 2008 was triggered by the Zipingpu Dam. This would be the world’s deadliest dam-induced earthquake ever.

Reservoirs can trigger quakes by adding weight to the Earth's crust, and by lubricating the fissures of faults. There are approximately 100 earthquakes which scientists believe have been induced by dams. In the US, the construction of the Hoover Dam led to several hundred small tremors in the 1940s. California’s Oroville Dam, the country’s largest earthen dam, caused a quake measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale in 1975.

The Zipingpu Dam rises 511 feet above the Min River and is located only a few miles from the Longmen Shan fault, where the Tibetan Plateau collides with the Eurasian Plate. Fan Xiao, a courageous official with the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, warned against the construction of a high dam at this location for many years, but without success. Less than three years after the Zipingpu reservoir was impounded, the 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake hit Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008. Thousands of buildings collapsed, and 88,000 people were reported killed or missing. Sixty-nine dams, including the Zipingpu Dam itself, were badly damaged and at a high risk of failure, but could be salvaged. If they had breached, millions of more people could have been killed.

After the disaster, Fan Xiao pointed out that “Zipingpu has all conditions that provoke reservoir-induced earthquakes,” and said that “we cannot rule out the possibility that building the Zipingpu Dam induced the earthquake because the epicenter is so close to the dam.” Christian Klose of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Lei Xinglin, a geophysicist at the China Earthquake Administration in Beijing, also found correlations between the Zipingpu reservoir and the earthquake. Yet the International Commission on Large Dams rejected their findings. After conducting a study tour of the area, the industry body argued that it was “very unlikely” that the Wenchuan earthquake was triggered by the dam.

The Chinese authorities have never released the exact seismic data of the Wenchuan quake. Based on the figures which are available, Shemin Ge of the University of Colorado, Mian Liu and Gang Luo of the University of Missouri, Ning Lu of the Colorado School of Mines and Jonathan Godt of the US Geological Survey recently created a two-dimensional model to test how the Zipingpu reservoir is impacting the Longmen Shan fault zone. In a paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters, they demonstrate that by May 2008, the reservoir had increased the stress on Yingxiu-Beichuan fault, one of the faults which ruptured during the quake, by 0.01-0.05 MPa (or 0.1-0.5 bar). Such a stress change, the scientists conclude, “could have hastened the rupture of the fault by tens to hundreds of years.” If the quake had hit a hundred years later, it might have found the local population living in earthquake-proof buildings rather than the tofu-like structures of 2008.

Hundreds of high dams are currently being built in earthquake-prone areas such as China’s Southwest, the Himalayas, Iran, Turkey and Central America. Such projects should only go forward if the seismicity around the dam site is continuously monitored, if water levels are not allowed to fluctuate quickly, and if all buildings in the reservoir area are seismically retrofitted. When I met Fan Xiao in his modest office in June, he warned that these consequences of the Wenchuan quake have not yet been drawn. “Dam builders often avoid such measures because of the high cost,” he warned.

Steve Clemons: Cuba's Soft Power: Exporting Doctors Rather Than Revolution

2009-11-12T11:39:11Z

Recently, Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice went at it during a session when 187 Members of the United Nations were about to vote against the United States and two allies on the issue of the US embargo against Cuba.

Rodriguez said "President Obama has a historical opportunity to lead a change of policy toward Cuba and the lifting of the blockade," but also said "the blockade is an uncultured act of arrogance," "an act of genocide," and that the embargo was "ethically unacceptable."

I would have encouraged Cuba's foreign minister to say instead that the embargo was an anachronism of the Cold War, has not achieved the goals the US had for it, harmed both Cuban and US interests, and that the countries should realize its the 21st century and find a way to move forward.

But given the pitch of things that day at the UN, Ambassador Susan Rice threw some tough words back at Foreign Minister Rodriguez calling his remarks "straight out of the Cold War era" and "hostile."

She went on to underscore the more substantively important point that President Obama and the US were prepared to engage Cuba on a number of issues of mutual interest and concern. That at least is good news and really the only statement that mattered.

But theatrics and rhetoric aside, what is astonishingly absent from America's autopilot driven position on the Embargo is that with the end of the Cold War, Cuba is not exporting arms and revolutionaries -- Cuba is exporting doctors.

There are more than 51,000 Cuban doctors and health care professionals working around the world today, primarily in developing nations. Many of these are working collaboratively with US and European NGOs actually in third countries -- particularly in Africa in dealing with AIDS/HIV, river blindness, malaria, and a number of health maladies.

America and Cuba both maintain too much a habit of Cold War era rhetoric, but the facts on the ground are that Cuba is not a threat to the United States or its allies in any fundamental ways that justify the kind of barriers we have erected between Americans and Cubans -- at the government to government as well as at the people to people levels.

The other thing that US diplomats could do to constructively redirect a history of escalating, toxic public exchanges is to commend Bruno Rodriguez for his chapter in Cuba's "soft power" history.

In the Obama administration's roster of foreign policy practitioners today, people like Anne-Marie Slaughter, James Steinberg, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Richard Holbrooke and others have done roll up their sleeves work in developing nations -- but I think all of them would admire the year of humanitarian service Bruno Rodriguez did on the Pakistan/Kashmir border.

To make a long and very fascinating story short, Fidel Castro organized a team of 1,500 doctors into the "Henry Reeves Brigade" and offered them to the US to provide support for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Predictably, the US declined the gesture. Shortly after, a major earthquake hit the heavily Islamic fundamentalist region along the border of Pakistan and Kashmir.

Castro sent the brigade to Pakistan to help earthquake survivors and those suffering long-term shock and other problems related to the earthquake in the months after.

The current Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez -- who was then a deputy foreign minister -- was dispatched along with the Reeves Brigade to oversee the medical operations in the mountainous, difficultly accessed earthquake zone.

Americans and Europeans also sent medical teams -- one major base camp each that stayed about a month each. The Cubans sent seven major base camps and thirty field hospitals, remaining for a year.

Reportedly, the Cubans, American and European medical personnel coordinated well in the field and worked together without incident. In one case, a Cuban doctor had to dress in a full hijab as a female doctor in order to deliver the baby of a local woman -- who would have been subjected to harsh punishment if known that a male doctor did this. But the Cubans did send many female doctors and health professionals as well.

At the time this all occurred, Pakistan and Cuba did not have diplomatic relations -- and today they do. And their are Cuban doctors doing work in Pakistan today -- and Pakistani students studying at the Latin American School of Medicine.

The Henry Reeves Brigade has, since Pakistan, been deployed to help in the great Sichuan Earthquake in China and also to do disaster relief in Latin America. The Brigade now has more than 3,000 health care professionals who are experts in disaster-related medical support.

This is a case of soft power with hard results, a story that anyone can commend despite all of the other warts and problems in a relationship. Americans and Cubans worked together to help others -- and nation to nation opportunities for Cuba and Pakistan grew out of that engagement.

It would be useful to see some of this kind of material make it into our diplomatic posturing as we work to get past the past.

The Cold War should be over, and once we begin to find narratives that can fill up the pages of the present and the future, that were not written as the result of inertia and being on auto-pilot, we can move to the next, more constructive phase in US-Cuba relations.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

250,000 Children Killed Next Year Due To Climate Change

2009-11-02T13:26:27Z

In a new report Save the Children claims that climate change is the biggest global health threat to children in the 21st century[.]

Earthquake Shakes Afghanistan, Pakistan

2009-10-29T14:22:09Z

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- A meteorology official says a strong earthquake has shaken large areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

There are no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the earthquake, which struck late Thursday.

The quake was centered in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains about 160 miles (250 kilometers north of Kabul.

The U.S. Geological Survey says its preliminary magnitude was 6.0, but Pakistani officials said it was 6.1.

It was felt in Pakistan's northwest and in the capital, Islamabad, causing some buildings to shake.

Chaudhry Qamaruz Zaman, chief of Pakistan's meteorological office, says the temblor struck about 125 miles (200 kilometers) underground in the quake-prone region, so it was unlikely to cause significant damage.

___

October 29, 2009 02:16 PM EDT

Copyright 2009, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Greg Archer: Loma Prieta Earthquake Survivors Celebrate, Ponder The Future (VIDEO)

2009-10-22T16:46:43Z

Twenty years after the Loma Prieta Earthquake annihilated Downtown Santa Cruz, locals gathered to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the quake, which significantly altered the future of the coastal town and others in the Bay Area. Here's a look at the big soiree atop the Rittenhouse Building in Santa Cruz where a gala reception was held. In candid interviews, locals shared with me their heartfelt concerns about the future and, of course, where they were at 5:04 p.m. Oct. 17, 1989, when the 7.1 quake changed everything.

(Special thanks to Jeff Dinnell for video content.)

Eric Klein: The Story of CAN-DO: Enough Is Enough

2009-10-22T00:49:29Z

As I sat in a hospital bed after being hit by a drunk driver in December 2004, I watched repetitive news broadcasts about the devastating tsunami that ravaged South East Asia, leaving more than 10 million people homeless and more than 230,000 dead. I couldn't pull my eyes off the screen, absolutely floored by the magnitude of this disaster. What ensued was the largest outpouring of charitable donations, fundraising concerts, celebrity events, and compassion our world has seen.

At the time I thought to myself, "This is great, people are really stepping up" - and they did. What blew me away were the news reports a month later when those same stations now showed glaring images of people in Sri Lanka and Indonesia fighting over coconuts because they had nothing else to eat as they slept under tarps and continued to wait. That was it for me.

More than $10 billion was pledged and yet news reports continued to show communities that had never received a penny. Countless questions raced through my mind, "What happened to investigative journalism?! Why is nobody being held accountable and who the hell is in charge?"

Not one reporter answered the question of "Where did all the money go?" I was shocked that these organizations were not accountable for documenting the expenditure and results of these generous contributions. In February of 2004, less than 30% of those affected in Sri Lanka had received any aid.

I refused to sit there, point fingers, and not do something about it. Fueled by anger, frustration, and the determination to find out the truth, when I was released from the hospital, I took the money from the settlement from the accident, boarded a plane, and flew to Sri Lanka.

The exhaustive explanations about the need for even more donations shrouded the fact that not only were funds not reaching survivors, but much of the aid that had been donated was actually locked up in storage areas while people continued to suffer.

This is not to say that there weren't groups that were helping, but the majority of what I saw consisted of relief efforts stalled by red tape, bureaucracy, and countless reasons about why nothing had been done while NO ONE was being held accountable.

I've never been one to take no for an answer. Instead of walking through refugee camps for "assessments," we picked up shovels side by side with the survivors of this disaster, and together we began to rebuild.

What began as a ten day trip, turned into four months of intensive reconstruction. This resulted in the development of homes, businesses, community centers, and individuals who could begin to smile again because they realized that they had not been forgotten in refugee camps while large agencies argued about the need for additional funds.

I documented the entire process with video footage, photographs, and receipts of every single penny spent. The response was incredible as donors were able to see the faces of the people they had helped. For the first time, they could actually see their impact. I realized that there is a different way of doing things, and I had an idea how.

Direct evidence of all expenditures that achieved those results was the missing piece of the puzzle.

It was from these seeds that CAN-DO was born.

CAN-DO was born out of my own frustration with the system and the critical need I saw to hold charitable organizations accountable for hard-earned donations and to the communities they serve.

I have come to find that "NGOs" are part of a highly unregulated business sector and we need to start making them accountable. And this was not just a problem in Sri Lanka, it is happening everyday.

We keep seeing these carefully scripted scenarios on TV news and infomercials of a starving child with a bloated belly and can not help but be stirred to sympathy and compelled to donate what we can to the number flashing on our screens. But how do we know whether or not our contributions are reaching that child, all I'm saying is FOLLOW UP. Show me that same child you have been using as a poster child for years, healthy, happy, and educated. Show me some damn proof!

Now there are a number of highly reputable charities that DO provide real aid and I have no intention of discrediting them or discouraging donations. I do feel strongly, however, that there must be complete accountability.

I have continued to build CAN-DO as an example that we can cut through the red tape, document our efforts, and create lasting change, ultimately changing the face of philanthropy and setting new standards for effective relief efforts.

Every CAN-DO project has a clearly defined goal and specific measurable outcomes determined jointly with the communities to validate the impact of the programs. Additionally, CAN-DO is committed to complete accounting of every project, working with our donors at each phase through our VirtualVolunteer™ Programs.

We now have numerous successful projects in addition to the tsunami relief in Sri Lanka, including disaster relief for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Ike, the Iowa Floods, the Bigogwe floods, animal evacuation and transport missions, and more. Time and again, CAN-DO has exhibited remarkable effectiveness and unparalleled results.

Hurricane Katrina again revealed the corruption and bureaucracy that destroy effective efforts, leaving survivors waiting. Again, we proved that by never taking 'no' for an answer, we get the job done. We now have been in the Gulf Coast for more than four years. We have created more than 25 community distribution centers and we continue rebuilding homes to this day.

Based in our commitment to complete transparency and efficiency, we have remained a small, dedicated team of volunteers whose impact has continued to expand. Instead of incurring a fattened budget, we directly engage the survivors of catastrophe to become their own saviors, rebuilding their communities together. This model has proven incredibly effective and has garnered the attention of renowned philanthropists like former President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, as well as government officials, and recently was awarded with the Global Compassion Award at the UN.

To further expand our impact, we created VirtualVolunteer.tv, the first interactive, real-time video website that enables you to directly participate in relief efforts.

Today, we utilize our proven approach right here at home to address glaring human rights abuses in the nation's poorest county, the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in South Dakota. While building national awareness, our Community Revitalization Program addresses immediate survival needs while promoting long-term sustainability and improved quality of life through integrated, community-led solutions.

The first phases included the development of a community thrift store, greenhouse, and garden, completed this September. We are now developing the Veterans' Lodge and Memorial, with plans for a women's center, a learning center, skate park, and more.

I can not explain the full extent of my experiences, that feeling of reaching out and helping someone who has just survived an unfathomable disaster. But through VirtualVolunteer.tv you can experience this yourself. The realization of our own ability to make an impact is the essence of CAN-DO.

I invite you to join me.

Antony Loewenstein: Life in Aceh, Indonesia

2009-10-21T18:01:00Z

In a collection of just released work by Acehnese writer Azhari, Nutmeg Woman, we are brought into a world before the devastating 2004 tsunami that killed over 220,000 Indonesians. Civil war wracked the province. Indonesian occupation was brutal and fought against the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Like the Papuans and East Timorese, the Acehnese wanted to be an independent nation.

Azhari -- who wore a t-shirt with the word "iBoobs' under the Apple logo when I saw him -- often writes in riddles, demanding the reader understand the struggles of a people that no colonial power has ever controlled. Outsiders and eccentrics are treated with suspicion. Strong women counter the absence of men, many of whom have disappeared after generations of fighting. Jakarta still refuses to fully investigate this legacy.

During my recent visit to the area -- as a guest of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival -- I found unconventional attributes of an Islamic state and fierce resistance to orthodox interpretations of the Koran. Aceh is not Saudi Arabia, Iran or Gaza, all places I have witnessed creeping Islamization and brave men and women challenging its implementation.

Aceh remains a traumatized province despite a 2005 peace deal that ended the decades-old, violent conflict. Sharia law is now implemented with homosexuality and adultery punishable by stoning. Poverty is rife -- the smell of rubbish is everywhere and dirty water runs across some streets -- while women mostly wear headscarves and sit separately from men at public events.

There are no cinemas. Entertainment options are limited. Religion often fills the breach, but I met many young people who thrived on satellite television and the Internet. Facebook was a common thread, an obsession and window to the world. Everybody under the age of 30 asked if I had a Facebook account and if I'd accept their friend request.

Nindy Silvie, Raisa Kamila and Mifta Sugesty, three schoolgirls who were my translators, regularly watch The Simpsons, Family Guy, BBC and CNN. Nindy spoke with an American accent, had a South Park tune as her ring-tone, didn't wear a veil and read Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens. I couldn't believe my ears. Here I was in Aceh, talking about the "fundamentalist atheism" of Hitchens and his hatred of religion. She thought he went too far, though she was hardly a devout Muslim.

Although Aceh is no longer under occupation, tourism is virtually non-existent. International NGOs invaded after the 2004 tsunami and huge re-development dots the landscape. A new airport, large German-backed hospital and tsunami museum are tangible signs of modernity.

It was surreal seeing Jewish gravestones, in Hebrew, in the Dutch-era cemetery in the shadow of the tsunami museum. Writer Fozan Santa, with black, greasy shoulder-length hair, told me that there was no hatred towards these monuments and generations of Acehnese had protected them. "People here don't hate Jews", he said, "they hate the Israeli occupation of Palestine."

I met many young men under 20 who said they had wanted to fight against Israel during its bombardment of Gaza in December and January. "For our fellow Muslims", one said. Many had never met a Jew before and were amazed that I expressed deep disquiet towards Israeli behaviour in Palestine.

Fozan showed me the bookshop he ran near the heart of Banda Aceh, the capital. Most books were in the local language, including titles about Marx, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Hitler's Mein Kampf and the power of the Israel lobby in America.

Politics flowed through the veins of many activists, a leftist perspective on the world. During a public forum, I was asked what I thought about the "real terrorism...the issue of globalization and free trade. How do we overcome that?" I replied, slightly unsure what angle to take, that the post-1945 world order was in desperate need of reform and the Muslim world's time would surely come. Indonesia, the world's biggest Muslim country, is talking about assuming a more powerful position on the global stage, not least towards the Israel/Palestine conflict.

The election of US President Barack Obama was welcomed warmly across the province. People like his rhetoric and his apparent change in attitude towards the Muslim world, but their patience is limited. Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Palestine continue with no signs of closure. The relationship to American power is contradictory. Washington's influence on their lives is minimal but its ability to bring peace doubtful. The idea of a benevolent America was appealing but images on satellite television from the Arab world dispelled those myths very quickly.

Acehnese identity is intimately related to Indonesia's wish for integration and historical desires for independence. Many craved true freedom but realized it was impossible at the present time. The cataclysmic tsunami wiped out entire families and communities but brought a desperately needed resolution to civil strife.

History can have a cruel sense of humor.

Mark Shriver: New Disaster Commission Lays Out Kids' Path to Safety

2009-10-20T13:46:50Z

Over the past few months, the Samoan tsunami, the California wildfires and the anniversaries of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina delivered sober reminders of our fragile sense of security and our extraordinary vulnerability to disasters.

But despite an unprecedented and relentless onslaught of natural and manmade catastrophes over the past decade, one of the tragic unlearned lessons that continues to haunt America is our failure to adequately protect children during disasters.

For years, disaster plans have been written largely to meet the needs of able-bodied adults. Anyone who has helped a child ride a bike, navigate an obstacle course or play sports knows that children have very different abilities -- both physical and emotional -- than adults.

A June 2009 report conducted by Brown Buckley Tucker found that only seven states have in place minimal safeguards to ensure that children are protected during a disaster. The study found that the vast majority of schools and child care facilities -- which care for 67 million children on any given weekday -- are not required to have plans for evacuations during a disaster and for family reunification following one.

To put this in perspective, stop and imagine what would happen if a dirty bomb struck your nearest downtown. What would a child care center do with your kids to keep them safe? How would they connect you with your kids so you could be together as soon as possible? And if you had to go to a shelter, would it meet the needs of everyone in your family?

Last week, as President Obama made his first visit to New Orleans as President, the National Commission on Children and Disasters delivered its first report to the President and Congress. The Commission was chartered by Congress in response to the shocking negligence revealed following Hurricane Katrina.

Following that catastrophe, reunification of children with their families was simply not happening for far too many families. In fact, it took up to ten weeks to connect 1,300 Gulf Area children with their parents. And following Ike and Gustav, we discovered that shelters didn't have nearly enough baby supplies like diapers, formula and cribs.

The Commission's report makes a series of recommendations including national standards for emergency shelters that better meet the needs of children, requiring child care facilities to plan for disasters, ensuring health services that meet the physical and emotional needs of children and the design and procurement of child-friendly emergency equipment used by first responders.

And an empowered senior-level kids advocate within FEMA would ensure that the needs of children are addressed at every stage of disaster planning.

We are working to make sure government does its part. But protecting children is a shared responsibility. That means all Americans should develop a personal disaster plan that includes being aware of plans for schools and child care facilities and the means to communicate with children during and after an emergency. There's a wealth of information about family emergency planning at www.ready.gov.

While there is little doubt that another large-scale disaster will strike an American city or community in the months or years to come, there remains too much doubt as to whether our government is ready to protect us. Now is the time to recapture our post-9/11 and post-Katrina sense of urgency and enact these low-cost, common sense solutions that will save and protect children's lives.

Art Agnos: Reflections on the Loma Prieta Earthquake, 20 Years Later

2009-10-17T10:00:00Z

Twenty years ago, the whole world watched as San Francisco faced its greatest disaster in modern times. Loma Prieta's earthquake, reported as 7.1 then, broke up a first-ever Bay Area World Series, broke lives, buildings, highways and bridges. It was the most costly natural disaster on record in America at that time, with just the physical damage estimated in the billions of dollars.

In thirty minutes, with more than a half dozen motorcycle police officers clearing a path through traffic-jammed streets, I was at the Fire Department command post boarding an FBI helicopter to view our City. What I saw scared the hell out of me -- pitch blackness punctuated by dozens and dozens of fires raging throughout the City with the largest in the heart of the Marina.

For the next 48 hours, after making sure that my family was safe, I stayed at the City Command Center, directing our emergency response, calling the commanding General at the Presidio to ask for some 2,000 troops at his command to immediately be made available, and setting into motion those efforts needed to take us past the first week and into recovery.

At that time, I wasn't familiar with the words of Ernest Hemingway that "The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are stronger at the broken places."

Twenty years later, Hemingway could easily have been describing San Francisco.

There were important lessons that I and others learned as we confronted the City's urgent needs, lessons that I believe can help in future disasters.

Some of the things we learned then, hour by hour as we faced each need, can and should be put into place long before a disaster. Some are steps that need to be taken to ensure immediate safety, and some are creative, on-the-spot actions needed to move toward recovery. You quickly learn that an effective response is going to require everybody from well-trained first responders in police, fire, and medical personnel to building inspectors, engineers and accountants.

Disaster preparedness begins years in advance, and requires more than one-day disaster drills. When the 1989 earthquake hit, the newer parts of the city, particularly in the high-rise financial district, did not crumble because we had required that new buildings have foundations that went to the bedrock -- well beyond unstable topsoil. Candlestick Park, only recently retrofitted under my predecessor Mayor Dianne Feinstein, held through the quake, protecting tens of thousands of spectators present for the opening of the World Series. Building code requirements had been put into place years earlier, despite the claims from some that the additional cost harmed business.

It requires political courage to stand up to anti-business charges by requiring stiffer business codes, but it is the community that needs protection, not a politician's popularity.

Today we know that our city faces the prospect of extensive loss of life and property if steps are not taken to secure older "soft story" buildings with garages at street level, yet the political courage still needs to be found to act in the face of opponents frightened at today's cost to protect against tomorrow's disaster.

On October 17, when I arrived at the City Command Post, the city's disaster coordinator had already collapsed from stress and was hospitalized. I never saw him. Undoubtedly an earnest man competent in creating a thick binder of disaster plan logistics, the actual reality of the disaster caused a severe reaction.

Being prepared means placing your best people in charge of planning and preparation. This is not the place for soft political patronage. When the disaster hits, it is too late to put your best people in charge of planning and preparation.

Even your best people need to know that, as they help take care of the city, that their families and loved ones are safe and cared for. Smart plans should include meeting the needs of the families of the disaster response leaders, the police and fire chiefs and others, so that they can focus on the city's emergency without anxiety for loved ones.

Until you've been through an earthquake, you won't realize that earthquakes keep repeating for hours or days with aftershocks. Each time, vulnerable buildings become more fragile, or even collapse. That means being watchful for any eventuality by taking control of the area with any available and necessary authority.

In my case, that included ordering dispersing troops to guard the most exposed, stricken areas of the city and closing all bars. I was concerned about people carelessly drinking, knowing that aftershocks certainly would further shake the city. Closing the bars turned out to be the only criticism I faced in the first 72 hours, and that came from a well-known columnist with a reputation for frequenting bars late at night.

The city has an excellent primer now for all of us, at www.72hours.org, and everyone should read it. The title -- 72 hours -- comes from the realization that, especially in San Francisco, we all need to be able to handle our basic needs for the first 72 hours. In 1989 the main avenues like the Bay Bridge collapsed and the others had to be checked for safety. The airport was closed. No one could reach us by land from the outside except via south from the Peninsula.

Do not expect others to arrive and tell you what you will need. First of all, they won't know the population of your community the way you do. Offers of assistance will come from public and private sources -- from FEMA, the State, the Red Cross and others. You need to tell them what you want and where.

Sometimes you may need to embarrass them into action. A few days after the quake, I was on Larry King Live describing the situation when they brought on the FEMA director in Washington, D.C. This federal agency was not meeting the city's need and the director had not returned my calls fast enough to suit me. I told him what I wanted and asked for his home number on live national television so that I could call him right after the show. He didn't like being "called out" but I got what I needed for my city.

That first night of October 17 also was when the Red Cross first approached me -- for what I thought would be an offer of assistance. "I'm glad to see you," I said immediately. "Tell me what you can do for us."

The answer was not what I expected. The Red Cross representative had not come with an offer of assistance, but a request that I tape a commercial the Red Cross could use to begin soliciting contributions. The assistance would come later.

When it did come, contributions from generous donors totaled in the tens of millions of dollars. But I learned it was being kept by the Red Cross instead of being used to help the Bay Area. I called them out on it, knowing that thousands of people gave something in hopes of helping our recovery and that of the many families and businesses devastated in the earthquake.

Strong words were spoken, and in the end, the Red Cross yielded to the argument that our needs were still unmet and that they had resources that had been donated to help us.

When that money arrived, I pulled together the political leadership of the entire Bay Area to devise a formula so that the money would go where it was needed most. It speaks well for the Bay Area that regionalism prevailed as all the Bay Area counties pulled together toward a common goal of healing its communities (Santa Cruz, hard hit but far less famous, needed and got the most). I will never forget the Marin representatives saying they were not the hardest hit and to give their share to someone else.

In San Francisco, it allowed us the ability to better house the homeless who had been sheltered in buildings destroyed in the Quake. Their right to replacement housing had been denied because they weren't permanent residents in the buildings that housed the homeless programs. The result was the first-of-a-kind transitional housing to help individuals recover from homelessness, instead of just sheltering them in hopes that their personal storms would somehow end.

That was an example of bureaucracy being in the way of recovery. At other times, a recovery is going to require the best that city workers -- bureaucrats -- can deliver.

On the night of October 17, a call from the White House was put through to me at the Command Post. Vice President Dan Quayle was in San Diego, and wanted to fly to Oakland to meet me there the next day. I explained that the Bay Bridge was down and I could not leave my city with fires raging and after shocks continuing, but that if he could come to San Francisco, I would go anywhere to brief him right away.

The next day, at an impromptu press conference, a reporter asked me what I thought about the Vice President coming to San Francisco. I responded with, "He is in Oakland and I could not leave that day to see him." No, the reporter said, Vice President Quayle had helicoptered into the Marina, met with a volunteer for photos, and left. I was flabbergasted. I couldn't imagine how the Vice President would come to San Francisco and not meet with those of us trying to stabilize the city. And I said so. "That ticks me off."

That did it. The next day the national press was onto the story of the Mayor of San Francisco "ticked off" at the Vice President. It became its own 24-hour media firestorm. The Vice President's office fired back as the east coast papers reminded the country that he had angered the Governor of Puerto Rico with a similar photo-op several weeks before during Hurricane Hugo.

I could almost imagine that the result would be a slower federal response for the City because Washington was angry about my remarks.

That night, I talked to my 75-year-old Greek immigrant mother, telling her I was worried about the impact on the city. "Don't worry, son," she answered. "It's small potatoes ... small potatoes" -- one of her wonderful motherly Greek expressions that means just like it sounds, small stuff.

The next morning, David Brinkley and Sam Donaldson were interviewing me on their Sunday morning newsmakers, and the incident with Dan Quayle came up. How did I feel about it, they asked. I hesitated for a moment and then repeated my mother's expression with the same Greek American accent: "It's small potatoes ... small potatoes."

Both newsmen laughed aloud. Perhaps my mother had recalled, but I certainly did not remember that it was just a few weeks earlier that Vice President Quayle had misspelled "potato" while visiting a school. For weeks afterwards amused viewers from all over the country mailed bags of small potatoes to the mayor's office.

My fears were really calmed, however, only days later when President Bush came to see first-hand the impact and needs of the Bay Area. After a briefing at Moffett field, he flew first to Oakland on Marine One, the president's helicopter, with several additional helicopters to ferry local leaders and officials like me.

As we prepared to leave Oakland a Secret Service came to the auxiliary helicopter where I was and told me the President wanted me to join him in Marine One. The rotors were whirring and dust was blowing everywhere, so when I entered Marine One, my eyes were almost blurry until I got close to where I was supposed to be.

There, staring at me, sat President Bush, Governor Deukmejian and Senator Pete Wilson -- the three most powerful Republicans for our state and city. Recalling the Quayle imbroglio, I immediately threw my hands up in the classic surrender pose and said, "I'm sorry and I'll never do it again." All three broke into laughter, and the President gestured to me to sit next to him to personally describe what we would see as we flew over our city.

If people are going to be allowed back into their homes, first you have a responsibility to know that it's safe for them to enter. For us, that meant seeking volunteer building inspectors from nearby communities to join our city staff in quickly inspecting hundreds of buildings. Gas lines could be broken threatening to expand fires, electricity could be off, as it was in parts of the city for days. Water to shower and cook will be off. All of those things are not just inconveniences; they are hazards that must be addressed before residents can enter their homes.

People in the community will be in stress, and they will need to find things that are familiar. Leadership should be expert at that ... whether it is arranging for instructions in a language or dialect that is familiar, certain foods to be available, or anything else that is appropriate. In the Mission, with a substantial Latino population, people stayed outside, camping in city parks and building cooking fires. Some police wanted to cite them for illegal fires, and I told them to do nothing and sent sound trucks to communicate further instructions in the language they knew best.

Meeting communications needs also means dealing with a national and international media presence. In no time at all we had media trucks and broadcast satellite trucks parked by the dozens and the next thing I knew I had every national TV anchor was asking for an exclusive interview. It was clear we needed a media policy for disasters because, properly handled, such policies can be very useful in calming the public and aiding the recovery.

As the city's leader, you must be a constant visible presence in communicating the status of the situation and responding to the unexpected with calm information. The reaction of a community is much like an individual to stress and crisis -- as soon as you know your own condition, you look to see how others are reacting. In a crisis situation that is magnified beyond any normal circumstance and that is why panic and fear can spread too easily.

We involved people in the response. Within an hour of the earthquake, I was on television asking San Franciscans to "look after one another."

And they did ... dragging hoses from the Bay to help firefighters in the Marina, directing traffic on darkened street corners, showing neighbors how to turn off gas lines, walking up flights of stairs to help trapped elderly or bring them food.

There was no rioting ... no looting ... even the crime rate went down during those months! San Francisco, with all of its diversity, pulled together and showed the world on prime time that it was made of the right stuff!

It was the forerunner of a citywide neighborhood disaster response system we initiated the following year called Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) and supervised by the Fire Department. Today, NERT has organized and trained more than 25,000 San Francisco residents by neighborhoods.

In the Marina we invented new bureaucratic procedures on the spot to meet another need. People could see their homes were still standing, with precious possessions inside. Yet safety experts warned that aftershocks could still bring these homes down. We created a red-yellow-green tag system to designate which homes were safe, fragile or too dangerous to enter. Today, that is standard protocol.

Badly distressed people begged for the chance to enter even for a few minutes to grab what they cherished most, family heirlooms, photographs, key documents, and even stashed money. With this in mind, we arranged for protective escorts to accompany those whose homes were tagged red to enter for 15 minutes to take what they could. It was a stunning sight to see residents frantically shoving family photos, heirlooms and other personally precious things into a plastic bag and tossing it out the window so they could efficiently use their 15 minutes.

If a building had to be demolished, we set up a "soft' takedown so the family could stand by and go through debris for anything of value to them. When the debris was taken to a dump, a place was designated for families and individuals to go and spend more time searching for valuables.

In most cases they were grateful for the chance to recover what they did, but they also had the sense that each of them had some control ... some participation ... in a decision that affected them in a critical time.

Recovery has to begin immediately and it has to start by documenting and identifying the costs for every issue attributed to the disaster ... employee overtime, rebuilding costs, medical costs, and emergency repairs. I knew that the attention of the nation would only last until the next disaster somewhere else. So, on October 18 I put a financial "SWAT" team together to track every expense, and told them if they weren't sure, to put it down and we would argue later.

To meet needs that could not be covered by government relief, I also set up a City Fund to receive charitable donations that I could control because we knew better than any outside organization what my city needed and what we could afford.

Everyone needs to understand that the community needs time to grieve and heal. The political leadership plays a very public role in this process. In addition to making oneself very visible to comfort the citizenry, we created outlets for individuals and children in schools to record their experiences and place those recordings in the public library.

Behind the scenes, I did not allow the World Series to restart despite intense pressure from the commissioner of baseball.

While the Giants and A's were most supportive, the Commissioner threatened me with bad publicity saying, "He would hate to be the first mayor in history who caused the premature end of the World Series."

I responded with "And I would hate to be the first mayor to resume a World Series while we were still digging out bodies in Oakland ... never mind a ball park (Candlestick) that has not been properly inspected to determine its post earthquake capacity to hold 60,000 World Series fans."

My sense of public mourning required that we wait until the last body was recovered from the rubble ... especially in the collapsed Cypress freeway. It was essential that we show respect. The Commissioner of Baseball stopped arguing and waited until the last victim was located and Candlestick was deemed to be safe.

Do not expect to put the city back the way it was. There will be pressure from those who believe recovery and making things whole means returning to the status quo.

In the aftermath of Loma Prieta, major decisions had to be made about repairing or demolishing the elevated Embarcadero freeway. The State of California Transportation Department engineers pressed for it to be retrofitted with thick concrete columns holding up the double-decker freeway that loomed 40 feet over the city's waterfront.

Groups from Chinatown, where I had always had strong support, vociferously in favor of the retrofit and the Chamber of Commerce, Fisherman's Wharf merchants, and many Telegraph Hill residents endorsed keeping the Embarcadero Freeway.

Even the Chronicle's great columnist Herb Caen, for whom a section of the new surface Embarcadero is named, wrote in 1990: "While Agnos talks air-ly and eerily about a $120 million underground freeway-mit-park on the Embarcadero, the homeless proliferate and the graffito on Muni buses gets worse. Disgraceful priorities, even if you haven't asked me."

Everyone wanted immediate and easy access and egress to that congested part of the city and it was demonstrated in a city vote in favor of retaining the elevated freeway just three years prior. The lobbying and public argument was vociferous but I still wanted the best guarantees for the future safety of our city, not to mention the opportunity to examine a once in lifetime chance to remove terrible blight on the entire eastern waterfront.

The highway engineers could never make a truly reliable case that a retrofit would guarantee safety in the next "big one." I ordered studies to determine traffic impacts. This convinced me that the city would be better off demolishing the monstrosity.

I went to Washington to ask for federal funds allowing us to finally tear down the Embarcadero, and challenged and re-challenged the estimates from California transportation officials comparing the cost of a retrofit with a teardown and a boulevard replacement. Finally the numbers came together.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's leadership was enormous and won the day for my position on the issue.

At City Hall, getting the political numbers to come together was equally challenging. More than 22,000 citizens signed petitions to require a city vote to restore the double decker freeway. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce added their strong voice to the opposition with the first complete shut down of Chinese merchants in 100 years to march on city hall the day of the vote for my proposed demolition plan.

Finally, the Board of Supervisors voted to support my plan (for a tear down rather than a retrofit) on a razor thin 6-5 vote. There were those who never forgave me for that, and in 1991 when I ran for re-election, Chinatown didn't give me the support they had in all my earlier elections.

I lost.

Believe me, that hurt...but I'd do it again in a heartbeat because it was so worth it. Today the new Embarcadero is a hugely popular destination for visitors and San Franciscans alike.

Twenty years later, there is no question that the biggest loss would have been to allow massive concrete columns to keep a double-decker freeway from blocking the city to one of the great civic treasures. And several other demolished freeway related off ramps at Franklin Street and at Gough Street revitalized the Hayes Valley commercial and residential community.

Economically, as well, the value has been estimated to be worth billions of dollars in the next 25 years. It made possible our waterfront baseball park, the world-renowned Ferry Building market, the historic streetcars running from the Castro to Fisherman's Wharf, building the GAP corporate headquarters, and new parks, housing, restaurants and businesses.

It is nothing less than a showcase for one of the world's great cities. In short, that one decision emanating from an enormous disaster allowed this generation of San Franciscans to fulfill the ancient Athenian oath: I promise upon my honor to leave our city better than I found it.

Today, urban planners and thinkers ask us to focus on creating "sustainable communities," meaning communities that serve us not just for today but also for the many years stretching into the future. It is a visionary approach, one that challenges the status quo with the hope that things can be made better, even if we can't see the results before the next election, or the next budget cycle. It puts faith in what we can create when we work together, listen to each other, and find that the common ground we share is not just the earth beneath our feet, but our hopes and dreams.

Because the earth beneath our feet can shake, and destroy what we thought we had. But when a community fastens onto its common hopes and common dreams, it can still come out stronger at the broken places.

I know, because I saw it happen for San Francisco.

Earthquake Rocks Indonesia As Nation Recovers From Last Month's Quake

2009-10-16T08:00:00Z

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A strong undersea earthquake caused minor damage and made buildings in Indonesia's capital sway Friday, but there were no immediate reports injuries.

The quake came as Indonesia is still recovering from another, more powerful earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people last month, not far from Friday's temblor.

Wade Norris: Rejoice! Ice Free Arctic Summers Within a Decade!

2009-10-15T15:31:44Z

Great news here! Oil companies are going to have a great opportunity to drill in the Arctic Sea floor to find more fossil fuels, because the Arctic Circle will soon be ice-free in the summers -- making it very cost effective for drilling the last place we have not drilled for more oil.

So be happy! Gas prices are going to go down, you can invest in more profitable oil stocks, shipping lanes will open giving a shorter route than Panama, which will also increase transportation and thus increase oil consumption. It is a real win-win for America!
And heck, you can invest in beachfront property in the Arctic. Just this past summer because the sea ice was missing, kids in the Arctic circle could go swimming with the temps in the mid 80's.

Oh wait, you are wondering if there is any downside to this news? Well, just a few things ... but don't continue reading if you want to make your money guilt free ...

So what if the Arctic becomes ice free in the summer -- what's the big deal?
For starters, once the Arctic ice opened in 2007 with the arrival of the long sought Northwest passage, something significant was set in motion that had an exponential effect. The ice had been blocking currents from the Atlantic and Pacific from entering the Arctic circle, but once they did encroach upon the Arctic, they brought in significantly warmer currents, starting a feedback loop of warming. This was an effect that scientists had not anticipated as little as a decade ago, which is why all the models for climate change are being drastically revised with shocking changes due to occur in years and decades instead of centuries.

And this from Martin Sommerkorn of the World Wildlife Fund:

Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself. This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes.

This video done by Al Jazeera on Greenpeace reports on the new phenomena of tropic temperature water in the Arctic.

And what does this mean for the Indigenous Arctic peoples?

For the first time, people in the Arctic are reporting changes in the types of fish they catch and birds they see in their regions, with species of both fish and birds arriving from temperate climates. Native wildlife such as walrus, seals and polar bears are all becoming thinner and scarcer. Most alarming is the new presence of the sound of thunder, which is usually foreign in the Arctic circle.

Elders of these areas, have told oral folk myths, one of which warns that should the ice ever disappear during the summer, their way of life will end. This has been, until recently, a myth that seemed impossible, with the vast expanse of sea ice seeming to last forever.

For some, like the Kivalina of the coast of Alaska, the changes also include losing the very land they live on.

There is also the fact that islanders around the world will also become the world's first wave of Environmental Refugees, losing their land, national identity, and way of life through relocation to a mainland continent.

But that might take at least 10 years for some islanders and decades for others, so no rush, right?

The majority of countries won't be affected, right?

Well, there is the fact that this heating is destabilizing the ice caps on Greenland from the heating Arctic weather pattern.

What does that mean?

In Greenland, and to a lesser extent, Antarctica, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and more importantly, sliding in rapid bursts. This is caused by moulins, which are holes that melting water form from the top of a glacier to the bottom. The water then lubricates and melts the underside of the glacier, causing them to detach from the bedrock -- and creating a 'slip-n-slide' for glaciers that weigh in the megatons -- some the size of Manhattan.

Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat [Greenland] yesterday: "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 meters an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 meters deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year."
The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the sea although in surges it moves even faster. He measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.

The result, each 'slide' of these multi-ton glaciers sets off an 'ice quake' that register an average of 3 to 5 on the Richter scale. This might sound minor, but these are occurring multiple times a year. This means that the Earth is being jolted repeatedly by these ice quakes, destabilizing faults lines which has many, many consequences.

The latest scientific discipline to enter the fray over global warming is geology.
And the forecasts from some quarters are dramatic - not only will the earth shake, it will spit fire.

A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life.

(from Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina)

"When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed.

"They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."

And it is not likely to slow down, but may instead speed up:

...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.

But are these ice quakes causing anything to really happen?

Consider the multiple earthquakes and tsunamis that have been occurring in the past 3 weeks in Indonesia and Samoa.

But not in America right? From the BBC - 'Earthquakes weaken distant faults'.

"(Professor Taira) and his team studied repeating earthquakes because they provided a "background frequency" against which changes in the fault could be compared.
"These events happen regularly and the size of the event is about the same," he told BBC News.
"But after Sumatra (in 2004) the frequency changed - it increased - but the magnitude decreased.
"That is a signal of the fault weakening; you only have to push a little bit and the fault fails."

This fault that the team is studying, one that has weakened significantly since the Boxer Day earthquake and Tsunami in Sumatra, is the San Andreas Fault.

Well, it is not so bad, look on the bright side. You can vacation to Glacier National Park and you will be able to tell your kids and grandkids about what it was like to see a Glacier in the park.
Or you can book a cruise to the Arctic and watch calving glaciers -- lots of fun!

Hooray! What fun!!!!

Whatever, invest while you can, before this oil opportunity passes you by!
Profits are always more important than human life.

California Earthquake Drill On Thursday: Largest Disaster Exercise In History

2009-10-15T10:08:53Z

LOS ANGELES — School children dove under tables in Los Angeles and sirens sounded in San Francisco on Thursday as California practiced how to survive a major earthquake.

"Drop, cover and hold on," dozens of fourth-graders chanted just before the announcement of a simulated earthquake sent them scurrying under tables at the California Science Center at 10:15 a.m.

Samoa Hit By Earthquake AGAIN

2009-10-14T14:52:48Z

WASHINGTON (AP) - An earthquake with magnitude 6.0 has struck in the Pacific near Samoa, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.

The government seismologists said the quake was at a depth of 6.2 miles and occurred just after 2 p.m. EDT.

Its epicenter was 165 miles northwest of Hihifo, Tonga, and 1,630 miles north northeast of Auckland, New Zealand.

Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, says there is no threat of a tsunami. He says the quake's magnitude did not exceed the threshold for a tsunami.

The USGS announcement did not mention whether a tsunami was expected. An earthquake and a following tsunami killed more than 180 people on Samoa, American Samoa and nearby islands on Sept. 29. That earthquake was at 8.3 magnitude.

Check out HuffPost's BIG NEWS page on natural disasters for more on this earthquake and the previous tsunamis and quakes that hit the region.

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Ann M. Veneman: The Philippines: Destruction, Heartbreak and a Plea for Help

2009-10-10T15:45:28Z

A series of tropical storms that have recently battered the Philippines continue, just yesterday causing additional flooding and mudslides. Earlier this week I returned from a trip to the country, seeing first-hand some of the extensive damage and visiting with victims and relief workers.

The amount of rain that poured down in just a few hours was equal to what the region normally gets in a month. The last storm to hit with such force was more than forty years ago. The aftermath has resulted in loss of life, destruction and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of children and families to emergency shelters.

The devastation was clear in the village of Santa Cruz village, a low-lying area near Manila. It had experienced floodwaters that neared four feet. Homes and businesses were destroyed, cars overturned, and many families forced to evacuate to nearby shelters on higher ground.

A school I visited there was a shelter for more than 700 people, 300 of them children. There, I met a mother who was staying in a classroom with her family and five other families. Crying, she explained the difficulty since the storms. Her husband is sick and because of the flooding he doesn't have work, leaving the family with no money for medicines. Their home is now only accessible by boat or by wading in knee-high water. Her older children are guarding the house and their belongings, while the little ones, including the youngest, just 10 months old, remain with her at the shelter.

UNICEF, along with other United Nations agencies, is helping in the aftermath. Working together with the government and relief organizations, UNICEF is providing family kits containing necessities such as water cans, blankets, mosquito nets and sleeping mats for the evacuees. We are helping restore safe water supplies, delivering medicines to help prevent disease and working to register and protect children who have been separated from, or have lost, their parents.

Bringing normalcy back into children's lives is a critical element in post-disaster recovery. While at the school, we gathered with the children and teachers, to distribute new books so learning and interaction with other students could continue. This is so important to children and helps to ease the trauma associated with the disaster.

Also this week the United Nations issued a flash appeal for $74 million in international assistance to help rebuild in the aftermath. It will take time to restore the roads, schools, water supplies and houses that now sit in ruins. That was a reality clearly understood in the meetings we had with President Arroyo, other government officials and relief workers who will lead those efforts in the months ahead.

Our hearts go out to those who continue to suffer through the devastating results of these storms. This reinforces the urgent need for the international community to join together in the call for action in helping the people of the Philippines not only cope during this tragedy but to rebuild during the aftermath.

Ann Veneman is the Executive Director of UNICEF. To learn more about UNICEF, relief efforts in the Philippines and how to help, go to www.unicef.org.

Catholic Relief Services: Sumatra Quake: Man Amputates Leg To Free Himself From Rubble

2009-10-09T17:02:15Z

By Tim O'Connor, Caritas Australia

"I was just thinking I have to save my Adik (little brother)", says Eman a construction worker with an incredible story of courage and survival in the wake of the recent Sumatran earthquake.

It was 5.16pm local time on a humid 30th of September in Padang city. Ramlan was working with his friend Eman and their team on the seventh floor of a construction site and their long day was nearing an end.

Yet everything was about to change. Within seconds the building was shaking violently and huge chunks of concrete and debris began to rain down. The workers quickly fled to get out to the street below. But as they did, Ramlan was left behind.

One can only imagine the fear that must have welled within Ramlan as after several minutes the quaking stopped and he came to the realization that he was trapped. A massive concrete girder had squashed his right foot up to his shin.

In this earthquake prone province, it is well known that the first quake is often followed by aftershocks. Lying in the billowing dust Ramlan quickly realized he must free his leg and get down before the building crumbled.

He was stuck fast though and no matter how hard he pulled, his leg was trapped. And with it, he was too.

The awareness quickly dawned. He had to cut off his leg if he was going to survive. Reaching around in the rubble, Ramlan's hand grasped a hoe. Bracing against the pain he hacked it into this leg. The pain was excruciating. Yet after several attempts he realized the hoe was too blunt and could not get through the bone.

Thinking quickly, he reached into his pocket and called his friend and co-worker Eman.

Eman explains his feelings when he took the call, "I just thought I have to save my friend and I raced back up to the where he was. I did not think of the danger just of the welfare of my friend".

Seeing Ramlan trapped, Eman quickly assessed the situation. He found a concrete trowel and handed it to his friend who attempted again to sever the lower leg. It too was not sharp enough. Eman looked around and found a wood saw.

Ramlan, incredibly still conscious through all this, took the saw in his right hand and began to saw through his own leg.

The pain was too great and his strength was wavering. He could not continue.

Eman took the saw and unperturbed, proceeded the gruesome task of successfully amputating the leg and freeing Ramlan.

Eman wrapped the wound which was bleeding profusely and taking his friend in his arm, quickly descended to the street.

Within minutes he was in the Yos Sudarso Catholic hospital where doctors quickly staunched the bleeding.

Two hours later a further amputation slightly higher up had cleansed the wound and although the leg is gone forever, Ramlan due to his own courage and the solidarity of his friend Eman, is now on the mend.

We meet Ramlan and Eman eight days after the earthquake in a makeshift clinic set up in the grounds of the crumbling Yos Sudarso Catholic hospital. Ramlan reclines on a hospital bed one of twelve lined up in two rows covered by blue tarpaulins. And beside him sits is his savior Eman.

Although Eman, 53, calls Ramlan 'Adik' which translates as little brother, it is a term of endearment rather than of familial connection. They live in the same street and have always been friends but their recent incredible experience has brought them much closer. For eight days Eman has sat here, ensuring his friend is ok.

Despite the tragedy there is no hint of it in the eyes of the young Ramlan. His smile lights up the makeshift ward. The resilience of Ramlan is undoubtedly exceptional but the strength of the people affected by the earthquake is seen across the devastated area. Ramlan, like all the people across Padang and throughout the neighbouring provinces that have been affected by this earthquake, have had their lives changed forever. Caritas and our local partners will be there for the long haul to make sure we give them all the support they require.

Deluge in rain-soaked Philippines kills over 160

2009-10-09T01:50:14Z

MANILA, Philippines — Driving rain on the heels of back-to-back storms triggered dozens of landslides across the northern Philippines on Friday, burying more than 160 people, washing away villages and leaving almost an entire province under water.

The latest deluge brought the death toll to nearly 500 from the Philippines' worst flooding in 40 years after storms started pounding the country's north on Sept. 26.

VANUATU EARTHQUAKE: Tsunami Alert After 7.8 Quake

2009-10-07T19:03:52Z

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Three strong earthquakes rocked the South Pacific near the Vanuatu archipelago Thursday, generating a small tsunami just over a week after another, massive wave killed 178 people in the Samoas and Tonga.

There were no immediate reports of damage, and all tsunami warnings and watches were soon canceled.

Mark Shriver: Put Kids on Obama's New Orleans Tour

2009-10-07T10:50:24Z

The White House announced Monday that President Obama would be visiting New Orleans this month -- his first visit since taking the presidential oath.

During his two-day swing, the President will only see a small fraction of the challenges New Orleans confronts four years after Katrina, such as the closure of a key public hospital and the difficulty local residents have in finding affordable housing.

But if the President wants to help ensure that New Orleans's future is as vibrant as its past, he should pay special attention to the city's children.

Katrina affected everybody in New Orleans, but the long term effects of days in crowded shelters, months of homelessness, and years of changing schools have proved especially destructive to children. More than half of Louisiana's children now experience some effect from the disaster - such as a behavior disorder that puts them at risk of a less-than-bright future.

While we can't stop hurricanes, we can ensure that the treatment of children during disaster relief doesn't become a disaster in its own right. At the National Press Club on Monday, I spoke about how government can better meet the needs of children the next time a disaster strikes.

Most of what I described is common sense, but it has tragically not become policy. We need national standards at shelters to meet children's needs, a requirement that state child care agencies include disaster planning as a licensing standard, and the integration of children's needs into disaster planning.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Craig Fugate joined me at the Press Club and discussed the steps that FEMA has recently taken to address our recommendations, like assigning a senior FEMA staffer to children' issues.

When President Obama visits New Orleans this month, I hope that he will see the progress that has been made in rebuilding the city and where progress is still lacking. But I also hope that he will absorb what can happen when government does not prepare to meet the needs of all men, women and children during disasters--and take bold action.