LONDON (AlertNet) - Battered by a typhoon, lashed by torrential rain, rattled by an earthquake, washed out by a tsunami - Southeast Asian nations and the Pacific Samoan islands have been hit hard this week by Mother Nature.
The sudden onset of four big natural disasters in almost as many days has stretched international aid agencies to the limit as they scramble to assess the scale of the devastation in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and Samoa - and rally the funds to pay for an emergency response.
"It's an unusual number of fairly large disasters in a fairly short space of time," Nick Guttman, head of the humanitarian division at Christian Aid, told AlertNet. "It puts a lot of pressure on us but it's our business to deal with emergencies, though obviously we have to work much harder."
Here's a round-up of the disasters:
* On Sept. 26, Typhoon Ketsana tore through the Philippines, submerging houses, triggering landslides and killing nearly 300 people.
* On Sept. 29, an undersea earthquake sparked a series of tsunamis in the South Pacific that tore buildings apart and washed people to sea, some still in their beds. The death toll in Samoa, American Samoa and neighbouring Tonga nears 200.
* A day later, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia's Sumatra island, toppling hundreds of buildings in Padang city, killing more than 1,000 people and trapping many more under rubble. Within 24 hours another quake struck Sumatra.
* Vietnam and Cambodia have been battling rising floodwaters and landslides, caused by Typhoon Ketsana, which has killed a combined 96 people; while the Philippines declared a nationwide state of calamity on Oct 2 as a "super typhoon" bore down.
HOW TO COORDINATE A RESPONSE?
As part of efforts to coordinate a response, international aid agency workers have been on the phone to colleagues in country offices to determine what manpower they have on the ground and the amount of stockpiled relief goods available for distribution.
Others have had talks with donors about the money they might donate to an emergency response and what their priorities are - food, shelter or health.
Several international aid groups, such as World Vision and CARE International, have deployed teams to Padang, where the death toll has been highest, to assess the scale of the disaster. However, the quake has also badly damaged roads and bridges, cutting off access to affected communities around Padang.
"At this stage we really don't know the size of it and the scale of it. With resources stretched in so many directions, it's going to be a case of prioritising because we can't do everything everywhere," said Chris Webster from World Vision's global rapid response team.
"It's very hard to make decisions and commitments about your level of response without really knowing the level of the need. When you've got multiple disasters and unclear information it's very difficult," he told AlertNet. "We would love to over-respond rather than under-respond but we have finite resources so that information is vital."
Early reports sent via text message from a CARE aid worker who has just landed in Padang suggest that telecommunications remain patchy, power supply is unreliable and everyone is sleeping in the open in fear of aftershocks. Bahtra Tarigan said he believed international aid agencies were focusing too much on Padang when the most affected area may be the district of Parlaman, some 40 km from Padang.
Aid groups say another factor to consider in the early response was the fact that some of their local staff were not only battling to provide relief but were themselves disaster survivors, losing their homes and possibly friends or relatives.
EMERGENCY FUNDING
Several aid groups such as World Vision, Oxfam, the British Red Cross, Malteser International and CAFOD have launched emergency appeals as well as using a portion of their internal emergency response kitty to kickstart operations.
So far, more than $15 million in humanitarian aid for the Philippines has been pledged -- of that a total $5.3 million from the European Union and some member states, including Spain, France, Germany and Switzerland.
For Indonesia, among others the European Commission has allocated 3 million euros ($4.4 million) for an initial emergency response, China has offered $500,000 in emergency aid, South Korea the same, Singapore said it would provide $50,000 worth of emergency relief supplies.
Aid groups were quick to point out that although the spotlight was on this week's natural disasters, protracted crises such as drought and hunger in the Horn of Africa, which is affecting 20-25 million people, had received less public attention -- and less funding.
"If we were just looking at this from a humanitarin point of view, then the situation in Pakistan, the situation that's emerging in the Horn of Africa with the food crisis and ongoing drought, the situation in Indonesia would all merit significant funding," said World Vision's Webster.
"But inevitably it's easier to raise funds for something that has happened as opposed to something that might happen."
Relief groups also raised concerns about the longer-term impact of these disasters on communities who have lost their means of earning a living, warning that recovery could take years.
"The Philippines for example has been completely devastated. It's sitting there waiting to be hit by another typhoon. This could knock back years or decades of development," said Paul Conneally, a spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Typhoon Parma was gaining strength on Friday as it churned toward the Philippines mainland, bringing heavy rain. It was expected to make landfall in or near the northeastern province of Isabela on Saturday. The area is mountainous and not heavily populated, but Parma was likely to lash Luzon with rain over the next two days, making life worse in flood-hit regions.
"While we may somehow have limited the loss of life, there are nevertheless thousands and thousands of people whose livelihoods will have been destroyed -- they'll have to start from scratch. It's quite difficult, often, in 2 years' time, in three years' time to still find funding to support them in their recovery," he told AlertNet.
(Additional reporting by James Kilner)
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