 Prime Minister John Howard has announced Australia is sending a Navy ship and helicopters to Indonesia and the Government has also offered to set up a field hospital in Aceh. Mr Howard says the Asian tsunami is a human tragedy of mammoth proportions and everything must be done to help the people of neighbouring nations. Mr Howard says Australia will be involved in a coalition of countries, including Japan, India and the United States, to co-ordinate the international humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts. "The purpose of that is to ensure there is co-ordination of the relief effort," he said. "It is simply a group of countries who will just co-ordinate, exchange information, pool their assessments of what is needed."
| As opposed to the UN, he means. |
To further help with the rescue and retrieval effort, Mr Howard says Australia will send an Antonov aircraft with three Iriquoi helicopters to Aceh and there is also further medical assistance on the way. "We will offer a light field hospital which has about 90 beds to the Indonesian Government for use in the affected area," he said. "I'm also able to announce that HMAS Kanimbla will sail from Sydney tomorrow and it will take helicopters and engineers to assist in the reconstruction effort." Mr Howard has also urged Australians in the region who are not looking for family members or friends to return home as soon as possible due to the risk of disease. "There're three problems: impurity of water, contamination of food and there's poor sanitation," he said. "I'm a non-medical man but my understanding is that they are the three principle causes of the carriage of diseases such as typhoid and cholera and other related diseases." |