EDITORIAL
Help tsunami victims pick up the pieces

As the waves of Sunday's earthquake-charged tsunami in southern Asia recede, we are left with countless images of the dead and the devastated.

A boat of survivors passes a Thai hotel destroyed by the tsunami. Suzanne Plunkett | Associated Press

At Thailand's Patong Beach, Ann Sparrow banged into cars and furniture as she floundered in the giant swell that swept her husband out to sea. Later, at the hospital steps, she watched relief teams unload cart after cart of body bags. "If I could have walked, I would have gone up to see if any of them could have been my husband," she said.

And in eastern Sri Lanka, a train known as the Queen of the Sea had nearly reached its resort destination when a wall of water, some 30 feet high, lifted its cars off the track into a thick marsh, killing at least 800 people.

It will undoubtedly take some time for us all to fully grasp the human toll of this natural disaster: The towns and villages covered with mud and debris, mothers cradling dead children, anxious survivors peering under shrouds in search of loved ones, natives and tourists stranded without food, water and shelter.

The death toll has now surpassed 50,000, and continues to climb. And untold numbers of people remain unaccounted for.

Moreover, the World Health Organization has warned that diseases linked to contaminated water, poor sanitation and cramped living conditions — including cholera and malaria — could fell tens of thousands more.

But there are also positive forces at work. An international community of governments and humanitarian groups, otherwise split over the Iraq war, has joined together to launch the largest relief effort in history.

For its part, the United States has increased its aid contribution from $15 million to $35 million, about $4 million of which will go directly to the Red Cross. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has established a command center at Utapao, Thailand, to support the tsunami emergency relief effort and to serve as a staging base for U.S. military and rescue aircraft.

In Hawai'i, we, too, can do our part. We can contribute to funds to provide food, shelter and medicine.

Hawai'i residents have a history of opening their hearts and helping others in their time of need. And as an island community, we know that a tsunami could strike at any time; as the world's most isolated archipelago, we, too, would be dependent on immediate global relief.

As was summed up by Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations, "Hundreds of thousands of livelihoods have gone."

The task of rebuilding is daunting. Let's all do our part to help the survivors of this far-reaching catastrophe pick up the pieces.