The humanitarian response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami saved lives and gave people the means to rebuild their futures, Oxfam says today.
A report published by Oxfam today looks back at the international agency’s emergency and long-term response to the Tsunami.
The tsunami on Boxing Day ten years ago was unprecedented. It hit 14 countries and affected 5 million people, killing an estimated 230,000 people and making 1.7 million homeless.
An estimated $13.5 billion (£8.6bn) was raised by the international community. Up to 40 per cent was donated by individuals, trusts, foundations and business, making it the highest ever privately funded emergency.
Globally, Oxfam received $294 million (£187m), with over 90 per cent coming from private donors. Most of this (54 per cent) was raised in the UK.
The generous funding meant that Oxfam was able to respond in seven countries – Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Thailand and Somalia, making it Oxfam’s biggest emergency response ever. The international agency provided emergency water, food and shelter, and then had enough to improve livelihoods over a five-year period.
Oxfam and its partners helped an estimated 2.5 million people between 2004 and 2009. In the immediate term, the international agency provided shelter for more than 40,000 people, provided blankets and trucked in clean water. Over the next three years, Oxfam continued to truck more than 300 million litres to Aceh, Indonesia, which was among the hardest hit.
Work from Oxfam and partners included improving or building more than 10,800 wells, 90 boreholes and 55 gravity flow water systems. In Aceh, a municipal system to supply 10,000 people was built and training provided for local communities to maintain it. A return trip to the communities in Aceh earlier this year confirmed that water systems are still running under the eye of local volunteers and that Oxfam’s wider response made a difference to people’s lives.
Oxfam also reached a further 960,000 people to help improve their incomes, either by recruiting people to help with clean-up projects or by restoring livelihoods such as replacing fishing boats, constructing docks in Indonesia and Somalia, improving agricultural practices and replacing livestock. Other work included constructing or repairing 100 schools in Indonesia and Myanmar.
Take a look at the full report – https://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/the-indian-ocean-tsunami-10-years-on-lessons-from-the-response-and-ongoing-huma-337007?cid=scm_tw