The Canadian government has decided not to send out the DART team, a group of 200 military that are equipped to provide emergency response for about 40 days. DART members provide basic medical care, water purification systems, communications and rebuilding of basic infrastructures.

The federal logic is that the team hasn’t been requested by any of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia coping with the December 26th earthquake and tsunamis.

The federal logic carries on with the information that the government is providing 4 million dollars and water purification tablets. The federal government has packed an airbus with relief supplies. And Foreign Affairs has a family hotline in operation. Many families in Canada still have no news on whether their loved ones are alive.

The federal response is to monitor. Impressive. It is pol-speak for Ottawa is on holiday.

Wow. So much for federal logic and response. Ottawa underwhelms again as it gives a few million bucks. Let’s hope the feds will step up to the task now that the initial 72 hours are over.
Air support teams along thousands of miles of coastline are unable to drop food and water to some areas of 11 countries. While the Canadian government decides what to do, the Canadian people are giving.

Doctors without Borders website is swamped with hits from people wish to donate and medical people answering the call for help.
Many hospitals and aid stations in Southeast Asia are overwhelmed attempting to treat crush injuries, and as body recovery continues and whole areas remain isolated - water born diseases are the next threat - cholera, dysentery and malaria.
Unicef estimates a third of the known dead are children and in the chaos of millions of people looking for relatives and trying to survive, the number of children orphaned is unknown.