I just did my online donations for the South East Asia Crisis. The links I used are "Doctors without Borders" http://www.msf.ca/ and "Canadian Red Cross" http://www.redcross.ca/. I encourage everyone to do what they can. I don't know how to put into words how sorry I feel for everyone who has been impacted by this tragedy. While the immediate needs of food, health and finding loved ones needs to be met, also, I think that this is really going to affect the quality of life of so many over the next decade. Tourism is the top industry of countries like Thailand and employs so many people. These countries do not have the same level of social security that we have in Canada. It will take time to rebuild the infrastructure and businesses, but even once they do rebuild it will take a while for the world to feel safe booking a trip to SEAsia. Maybe we do an anti-boycott, to get as many travellers to visit SEAsia to help rebuild the tourism industry, but of course not right away.
Although this could happen anywhere in the world and was completely unpredictable. Or is it? I know a lot of scientists have been studying earthquakes and volcanos trying to predict when they will occur. Just think of how many lives could have been saved if they had a warning. Maybe this will help to prompt more research into this field.
My heart goes out to everyone grieving for loved ones, and for those who are injured or still searching for missing people.