International Response to the Earthquake in Japan
Posted, March 12, 2011 @ 00:00
Brussels, 12th March 2011 - Nirj Deva MEP, Vice-Chair of the Development Committee and ECR spokesman for International Development said:
"In December 2004 I was in Sri Lanka when the Tsunami hit the coast. I witnessed the devastation and human suffering caused by a natural disaster that we could neither predict nor control. Today Japan faces a similar tragedy. The death count is estimated in the region of 600 people and still rising. 215,000 people have been forced from their homes and thousands more are now either stranded or staying in evacuation centres.
We cannot prevent natural disasters from occurring. However, we can and must act with all alacrity to minimise the loss of human life that they cause. I am heartened to see the massive national and international response ongoing in Japan. The country has already mobilised more than 1000 troops, 300 planes and 40 ships dedicated towards disaster relief; rescue teams are arriving even now from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Singapore and President Obama has pledged one US Aircraft Carrier in the area with another one on its way. Japan's Red Cross, supported by the international Red Cross is also providing crucial on the ground assistance to victims.
However, we must ensure that the international effort delivers efficient and transparent aid to the people who so desperately need it. We must ensure that there are medical teams present to prevent outbreaks of typhoid and cholera that so often prove just as devastating to victims of natural disasters as the disasters themselves. Search and rescue teams must be put in place to rescue stranded survivors, still at risk from the aftershocks that Japan is experiencing. At this very moment between forty and sixty thousand people are stranded along the 600 mile affected coastline, still at risk and in many cases without water, food or shelter. The thousands of victims now left in evacuation sites across the country must also be provided with blankets, water and food; the basic necessities that they need to survive. It is also critical that after the explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant this morning that there are teams in place, monitoring radiation levels and on stand by to control any subsequent leaks.
What Japan requires now is not an inflow of money. It needs expertise, experience and assistance in disaster relief. The international response must be swift with the firm priority of helping affected people. I urge that countries in the region with first hand experience of tsunamis and earthquakes, such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka, fully commit their resources towards helping the victims in Japan. As a British Conservative MEP I also call on Britain to aid in the international relief effort and in cooperation with the EU, due to their expertise in decommissioning nuclear power plants, most notably in Russia, to send experts immediately to Japan to assist in the efforts to contain the leak at the Fukushima plant. Natural disasters occur globally and must be met by a united international community, resolved in minimising the devastation that they cause."