Tsunami Relief Fund

The Red Cross now claims the earthquake-generated tsunamis in the Indian Ocean may have killed more than 100,000 people in 11 different countries The latest verified death toll is 78,000, which already makes this the worst tsunami disaster in modern history, but thousands more are still missing and some remote areas have yet to be reached and assessed. The amount of damage is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars in these economically poor countries.

Monetary assistance is desperately needed to prevent a second round of deaths from infectious disease and famine that could kill as many people as the waves. Water sources are contaminated by raw sewage and the corpses of people and animals and millions of people are homeless without any means of livelihood. Governments of the affected countries can't begin to cope with these problems unless they receive massive relief aid.

The Indonesian island of Sumatra suffered the largest death toll with 37,000 bodies counted so far and estimates running as high as 80,000.

If you would like to help, you can make an online donation to the Red Cross.

The second worst-hit country was Sri Lanka, an island nation of 19 million just south of India. The latest count is 25,000 dead with over 1 million homeless. I visited Sri Lanka several years ago and the vast majority of the population lives on the edge of survival in the best of times.

If you would like to make a donation specifically to the Sri Lanka tsunami relief fund, go here.

It was only the luck of geography that prevented the tsunamis from reaching Hawaii. The largest Indonesian islands blocked the path to the northeast and absorbed the energy of the waves.