Tsunami One Year on
26/12/2005
The tsunami of 26 December 2004 devastated parts of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Around 400,000 people were killed and 1.6 million made homeless.
SOS Children had a central role in the first response, in part because it was well established with local staff already in situ across the region (this is important for child protection) and in part because its resources and expertise in child trauma, built over years of helping with genocide and disaster, is second to none. SOS Children has continued to have a central role in the long term, and as ever continues decades after the TV cameras have left. By coincidence, 2006 is the twentieth anniversary of Chernobyl, and hundreds of new children each year are still developing severe radiation sickness: the fact that SOS Children is virtually the only international NGO left in Belarus (whilst others are already withdrawing from tsunami work after only a year) illustrates our commitment to help children for as long as we are needed.
One year on, many people in the affected regions are still homeless and are desperately trying to cope with the loss of loved ones. Immediately after the disaster SOS Children provided food, water, clothing and shelter to desperate families; a year on, our focus has turned to rebuilding people’s lives. We are constructing new houses, opening schools, day care and medical centres, and building six new Children’s Villages so we can take care of those children who lost everything on Boxing Day 2004.
For further details see the summary articles for the Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia.