By Stephen Jolly, Socialist Part Melbourne
The massive response from ordinary people in Australia to the disaster has put corporate Australia and the Government to shame. The public has donated about $40 million so far (up to 2nd January) with much more to come as big events such as the special international cricket match at the MCG and a music concert to be telecast on all three commercial TV stations and radio station MMM which will all collect millions through phone and online donations. (more…)

The Tsunami has also become the biggest natural catastrophe of our time to affect Sweden. Among the far more than 100,000 killed are at least two thousand western tourists. Many of those, whose attempt to celebrate their Christmas in holiday paradises like Khao Lak and Phuket was turned into a hell, came from the winter cold of the Nordic countries.

By Arne Johansson, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI, Sweden) (more…)

The Indonesian ‘province’ of Aceh on the island of Sumatra is only 155 km from the epicentre of the arthquake. After several days the Indonesian government has finally given in to massive pressure to open up the closed war zone for international journalists and aid workers. Now the full and horrifying scale of the Tsunami catastrophe can be seen. (more…)

Read this excellent and detailed socialist analysis on Tsunami tragedy. Everyone in the region and tens of millions elsewhere in the world with access to some form of media is shocked and bewildered by what happened on the shores of the Indian Ocean on the morning of 26 December. (more…)

Despite the biblical scale of floods and destruction, the death along the Indian Ocean coastline was no ‘Act of God’. It was not inevitable that an earthquake beneath the sea, 600 miles from the Indonesian island of Sumatra, would lead to the loss of more than 100,000 lives over the following hours.
By Jon Dale, Socialist Party (more…)

The tragic devastation wreaked by the earthquake and tidal wave in the Indian Ocean has killed tens of thousands of people. In Sri Lanka alone, the death toll has reached 13,000 and is still rising. A number of members of the United Socialist Party (CWI Sri Lanka) are missing, including comrade Piyatilake, a member of the USP’s Central Committee who was living and working in Galle, one of the towns in the South of Sri Lanka to have been hardest hit by the ‘Tsunami’. (more…)