HELP ARRIVES:

RAHAM LINCOLN – Desperate, homeless villagers on the tsunami-ravaged island of Sumatra mobbed American helicopters carrying aid Saturday as the U.S. military launched its largest operation in the region since the Vietnam War, ferrying food and other emergency relief to survivors across the disaster zone.

From dawn until sunset on New Year’s Day, 12 Seahawk helicopters shuttled supplies and advance teams from offshore naval vessels while reconnaissance aircraft brought back stark images of wave-wrecked coastal landscapes and their hungry, traumatized inhabitants.

“They came from all directions, crawling under the craft, knocking on the pilot’s door, pushing to get into the cabin,” said Petty Officer First Class Brennan Zwack. “But when they saw we had no more food inside, they backed away, saying `Thank you, thank you.'” . . .

More than a dozen other ships were en route to southern Asian waters, with the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault vessel carrying Marines, headed for Sri Lanka, which along with Indonesia was the worst-hit area. The mission involves thousands of sailors and Marines, along with some 1,000 land-based troops.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: More her

…excerpt from: instapundit.com…

HERE’S AN INTERESTING LIST of tsunami blog links.

…excerpt from: instapundit.com…

Oops… It looks as though you may have to be an actual Canadian in order to have the Canadian government match your donation, as I stated here recently. I’m not entirely certain of how this would work in practice, however, as there are Canadians all over the world, all of whom should qualify to have their donations matched, and I’ve read that the great majority of donations are being made via the Internet. I suspect that the government’s qualification may come after the fact of someone having not fully worked out the implications of the quasi-post-geographical nature of the present (happens to the best of us): They may simply not be expecting non-Canadians to start donating via .ca charities.
…excerpt from: www.williamgibsonbooks.com…

Excerpt from:
CJAD 800 : News
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (CP) – After the devastation wreaked by the seas, a deluge from the skies deepened the misery for tsunami-stricken areas of southern Asia on Saturday, triggering flash-floods in Sri Lanka that sent evacuees fleeing and increasing the threat of deadly disease as survivors shivered in relief centres.

The death toll was expected to hit 150,000. A magnitude 6.5 aftershock jolted Sumatra as the world’s aid efforts shifted into high gear in ways big and small: elephant convoys working in Thailand, global assistance reaching $2 billion with a fresh pledge from Japan and the U.S. military launching one of the biggest relief missions in history.

The confirmed death toll from the quake and tsunamis that hit a week ago Sunday passed 123,000 and the United Nations has said the estimated number was approaching 150,000. Thailand said it expects its death toll to reach 8,000.

Excerpt from:
The Australian: Gerard Baker: Tsunami must be fault of the US [December 31, 2004]
INEVITABLY, confronted with a tragedy of unimaginable scale, the human mind looks for someone to blame. In the Dark Ages, disasters were ascribed to the wrath of God. Now, in an odd inversion that we like to think of as progress, they are adduced as evidence of no God.

In the absence of a deity to decry or appease when the earth moves in such devastating fashion, humankind reaches for the next best thing – worldly authority. Authority should have known it was coming. Authority didn’t do enough to prevent it. Authority was too preoccupied with its own nefarious priorities to care.

There is plenty of authority to blame for the devastation caused by the Sumatran earthquake this week. Governments in Bangkok, Jakarta and Colombo will shoulder some of it. Governments farther afield will be inculpated for the poverty of their response. Media organisations will be attacked for being too callous and too mawkish. Unsurprisingly, perhaps the most inviting target is the US.

In the past three days I have been impressed by the originality of the latest critiques of the evil Americans. The earthquake and tsunami apparently had something to do with global warming, environmentalists say, caused of course by greedy American motorists. Then there was the rumour that the US military base at Diego Garcia was forewarned of the impending disaster and presumably because of some CIA-approved plot to undermine Islamic movements in Indonesia and Thailand did nothing about it.

To be fair, even the most animated America-hater, though, baulks at the idea of blaming George W. Bush for the destruction and death in southern Asia. But the US is blamed for not responding generously enough to help the victims of the catastrophe. A UN official this week derided Washington’s contribution as stingy.