Just a note, with Red Cross and I'd guess with the others you can specify
that your donation is to go to a particular crisis rather than into their
general fund.

Thank you for the sites.  I always feel better about contributing to a place
where I contact them rather than one that contacts me and may not be what it
seems.

I have a friend who was already on a plane to Paris with M?decins Sans
Fronti?res
by the time I even heard about the earthquake.  I don't know if she will
stay there to coordinate or go on from there to a specific area.

Jo

you're welcome, here in Sweden we get a lot of information about the tragedy
and how to possibly help with donations and otherwise, it's in printed
papers, on news websites, on teletext and there are people going around
collecting in shops/on streets. Since the Sunday we have half-hourly extra
newscasts on PBS TV and so on.

A lot of Swedish tourists are missing and killed - as from our neighbouring
Nordic countries Norway, Finland and Denmark. Most of these were vacationing
in Thailand and some in Sri Lanka. Some 30.000 Swedish nationals are
estimated to have been in the area and around 1.500 are not yet accounted
for (we are about 9 million inhabitants in Sweden). Thailand especially have
been a very popular place for vacations for us in our winter, I spent
Christmas and New Year's at Kata Beach in Phuket myself six years ago.

In one of the worst affected resorts in Thailand, Khao Lak, mainly Swedish
and German tourists were staying and several hundreds of those are still
missing. I know other countries with lots of tourists to Thailand are
France, the UK and Australia, I remember also diving with some people from
the US and other countries when I was there, I'm sure a great number of
nationalities have been directly affected.

Here in Sweden there are children arriving back here without parents,
parents who have lost children and people missing spouses and friends, it's
unreal. And many who are hurt that need sick transport back, they are in too
bad shape to manage the long trip except on a breach and with medical
attention.

And then again, it's so much worse for those stricken countries and all the
people there who have lost family and loved ones and also their homes,
fishing boats and means of supporting themselves. The estimation for
Indonesia alone seem to get up to around 80.000 dead now so there clearly
must be a lot more than 100.000 killed totally. And the hardest stricken
areas are already troubled by civil war and/or poverty.

So expressions like "the worst disaster of our time" is no understatement.
But how can you understand something like that?

I understand a day of national mourning will be called for here in Sweden on
New Year's day. Even by then I am sure it won't be clear how many really
lost their lives in this tragedy.

-------------------------------------------------------------
lewemi at yahoo dot se || cat pics: photos.yahoo.com/lewemi

I also donated to http://www.unicefusa.org/ as they have a direct donation
to the tsunami fund.

lewe wrote:

Krista, you seem to have developed a stutter!!  ;>

Hugs,

CatNipped

Krista responeded:

I was watching the BBC Worldnews (helps me stay informed), they said that
Sweden had the largest number of tourists in the areas of the diaster and that
1400 of them could be lost. This is in a country with a population of 8mil.
Suz
Macmoosette
=^..^=   =^..^=   =^..^=   =^..^=  =^..^=  =^..^=

    "People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life."
    --Faith Resnick

(=':'=)
(")_(")