Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-12-Speech-3-054"
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"en.20050112.4.3-054"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the scale of the disaster in Asia leads us to reflect on the fragility of human life in the face of the force of nature and on how other matters pale in comparison with a human tragedy on this scale. It also makes us consider the nature of national- and European-level political action aimed at dealing with the impact of natural disasters such as this one. I feel that this is an appropriate time for us to think about our instruments and our policies and about the ways in which we coordinate our efforts and in which we share responsibilities among national authorities and European institutions.
My trip to Jakarta last week gave me some sense of the actual scale of the tragedy caused by this earthquake and the tsunami that followed. The trip also confirmed to me that the international community, including the EU and the Commission, was capable of responding swiftly by raising substantial amounts of money and providing other forms of support.
Commissioner Michel was shocked by what he saw when he was in the area. The giant wave completely swept away any human presence along 500 kilometres of coastline, destroying everything in its path and reaching places more than five kilometres inland. The biggest tragedy is that most of the population lived on the very coastal strip that was completely devastated. Similarly alarming stories have reached us from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and the Maldives and the havoc caused in other, less accessible, countries, is only now coming to light. The tragedy also reached as far as the coast of Africa.
This enormous natural disaster has left 150 000 dead in its wake, and more than 5 million people homeless and traumatised, who now have to face the challenge of picking up what remains of their devastated families, rebuilding their homes, restoring economic activities and, in short, trying to start their lives again."@en1
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