Editorial: Catastrophe a challenge to the world

Opinion

They are calling it the first global disaster, not because of the number of dead but because the toll touches so many countries who had citizens in the tourist resorts and because the time and place of the disaster - Boxing Day in reasonably accessible countries - has permitted maximum news coverage. In the festive season there are few other events to draw the world's attention, and in places such as Thailand, Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka governments do not try to keep calamities quiet. Technology has played its part, too. Cellphones and video cameras are everywhere; little happens that is not caught on somebody's camera.

The toll taken by the South Asian tsunami - 127,000 confirmed dead, 150,000 expected - brings new realisation of the scale of disasters in China in 1976, when an earthquake killed 255,000, and Bangladesh in 1970, when 300,000 died in floods caused by a cyclone. The world read about these things but they did not dominate the news the way this disaster does.

The problems of dealing with so many dead, with the identification and disposal of decomposing bodies, must have been as terrible in those disasters, too. Likewise the difficulties facing the survivors whose homes and communities had been destroyed. They would have faced the same hunger, homelessness, loss of clean water and heightened risk of disease. They had assistance from international agencies but their plight had to compete with many other events attracting people's attention. This one is the first global disaster in the sense that it is being vicariously experienced almost everywhere as constantly as if it had happened on every coast.

The Pope said the tragedy shows that we are part of a global community. British Prime Minister Tony Blair describes it as "a world catastrophe". France's President, Jacques Chirac, said it demonstrates that "regardless of distance we form the same, single humanity". Fine words, but the task now is to turn the first truly global disaster into a new scale of global relief. This is a rare opportunity to organise international agencies to respond more rapidly and effectively to emergencies of this kind.

This should be the aim of the international conference called in Jakarta this Thursday by the Prime Minister of Singapore, which will be attended by the United Nations Secretary-General and delegations from many countries of Asia and the Pacific. New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff, who will attend, says he wants to ensure that this country's aid fits properly into a co-ordinated international effort. That suggests that so far relief is being delivered independently and haphazardly. New Zealand has just hired a private helicopter operation based in Borneo to get emergency supplies into Aceh, where the toll seems to be greatest and the distribution of aid least well organised.

The Jakarta conference is expected to be followed by a larger gathering of donor countries in Geneva on January 11 and the following week the United Nations will host a conference on responding to natural disasters. There will be no shortage of enthusiasm. Already the tsunami has shocked or shamed leading countries to greatly increase their financial contribution. New Zealand should be doing so, too. An offering of just $3.6 million at this stage seems paltry. While the Government promises in addition to match private contributions dollar for dollar, it could surely find substantially more from its surplus.

Plenty of aid is being flown into the tsunami zone. Airports in the worst-hit places, Aceh and Sir Lanka, are said to be unable to cope with the number of delivery flights. But it is not enough to deluge survivors with blankets, milk biscuits and whatever else may be in the aid cupboard. A co-ordinated global response could provide them with food, first aid, shelter, desalination services and restoration of their basic infrastructure within days of a disaster. That's the global challenge.