UPDATE 5th January, 2005

TIM COSTELLO

Nothing could have prepared me for the scenes of devastation and despair that I have witnessed over the past few days.

I have been in Sri Lanka for less than a week but it seems so much longer than that. During this time I have seen bodies piled high and people distraught after losing their loved ones. While some bodies are being identified others are being buried in mass graves just to stem the spread of disease. This disaster has meant that people who have lost their loved ones are also being robbed of the opportunity to provide them with a dignified burial.

The thousands who have fled their homes are taking refuge in temporary camps that have been set up in schools and temples and the main priority has been to ensure that they have food and clothing. But we need to continue to support them as they return to what was once their homes. The aid that we give is not just for the short-term but for the long term.

I travelled down to Galle on the southern coast, which should have taken no more than three hours, but due to part of the road still under reconstruction, cars taking food and even sight-seers it took us eight hours to get there. The roads are also clogged as people try to return to their villages.

Galle, once a popular tourist resort, now looks as if it has undergone intensive bombing. What once must have been a stunning oval is now strewn with debris including cars and buses that were simply swept away by force of the tidal wave and then dumped hundreds of metres away. But the worst is the scene outside the oval, where bodies are being amassed. Fingers are being cut off with the hope that even after the bodies are they can be identified. The bodies are then piled onto a cart with the added distress that a number of them are children.

During the journey from Colombo to Galle I spoke to Prashant, a fisherman, who had lost his 18-year-old sister. All he could do was stare despondently out to sea, a man completely defeated. He told me I can’t even mourn and grieve properly, without anybody to convince me she is dead.

I also witnessed what was left of large fishing boats that had just been lifted up and thrown by the force of the ways as if they were toys. The boats, which can carry 30 people, are now completely destroyed along with the livelihoods of the families that depended on them.

In a centre that has been set up in a school just outside Colombo, I helped to give out food to some of the 250 families sleeping there. One mother, a widow with three young daughters, told me how she had lost her home. Like many others she has yet to return and witness the devastation that will greet her.

It will take many, many months for families and communities to rebuild their lives in all the countries that have been affected by this appalling catastrophe. This disaster has hit some of the poorest nations. We are one of the richest nations and it is our responsibility as well as humanitarian duty to help them. So far I am proud to hear how Australians are responding to this challenge with enormous generosity and I am constantly telling Sri Lankans that the Australians will stand with them.

Tim Costello is the chief executive of World Vision Australia.

30th December, 2004

DAVID ADAMS

“Densely populated coastal towns have just been completely destroyed. I met one fisherman Prashant who managed to save his children but all he could do was watch as his 18-year-old sister was washed out to sea...And the worst is that there are countless stories such as his.”

Those are among the words Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, uses to describe what he has witnessed in Sri Lanka since flying into Colombo earlier this week.

With some organisations now predicting the death toll could top 100,000, people in nations across the globe are mobilising what is being described as one of the world’s largest ever humanitarian relief efforts.

As many as five million people living in countries around the Indian Ocean are now reportedly waiting for food and clean water with the threat of disease growing by the hour.

The United Nations’ emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland told a press conference that it was “beyond belief” how many people had been lost in the Banda Aceh region alone where in some parts, every fourth person was killed.

Costello describes the devastation in Sri Lanka as “something out of the apocalypse”.

“In the southern coastal town of Galle the devastation is unbelieveable. Buses and cars are lying dumped on the cricket oval while thousands of bodies have been piled up outside. The scale of this goes on and on and on.”

He says that what should have been a three-hour journey from Colombo to Galle took more than eight hours.

“There was utter devastation along the roads, which were also clogged as people start to return to homes that no longer exist. They, and other victims of this catastrophe, need all the help we can give them.”