By Alan Wheatley, Global Economics Correspondent – 1 hr 2 mins ago
BEIJING (Reuters) – The earthquake that devastated northeast Japan displaced the country's main island by 2.4 meters and even tilted the axis of the Earth by nearly 10 centimeters. The shock sounds awesome but it was imperceptible. History suggests the same will be true of the economic impact.
The instinctive reaction when viewing the extensive damage and frantic efforts to secure damaged nuclear reactors is to assume economic havoc will follow.
But researchers who have studied similar disasters in rich countries reach a reassuring conclusion: human resilience and resourcefulness, allied to an ability to draw down accumulated wealth, enable economies to rebound quickly from what seem at first to be unbearable inflictions - be it the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York or Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the worst in Japan's history.
Japan itself provides Exhibit No. 1 in foretelling the arc of recovery. A 6.8-magnitude temblor struck the western city of Kobe on January 17, 1995, killing 6,400 people and causing damage estimated at 10 trillion yen, or 2 percent of Japan's gross domestic product.
The importance of Kobe's container port, then the world's sixth-largest, and the city's location between Osaka and western Japan made it more significant for the economy than the more sparsely populated region where the latest quake and tsunami struck. Extensive disruption ensued, yet Japan's industrial production, after falling 2.6 percent in January 1995, rose 2.2 percent that February and another 1.0 percent in March. GDP for the whole of the first quarter of 1995 rose at an annualized rate of 3.4 percent.
"Despite the scale of the disaster, it is hard to find much evidence in the macroeconomic data of the effects of the Kobe earthquake," said Richard Jerram, chief Asian economist at Macquarie in Singapore and a veteran Japan-watcher.
Indeed, Takuji Okubo, chief Japan economist at Societe Generale in Tokyo, noted that Japan's economy grew by 1.9 percent in 1995 and 2.6 percent in 1996, above the country's trend growth rate at the time of 1.5 percent. Private consumption, government spending and, especially, public fixed investment all grew above average in 1995 and 1996, Okubo said in a report. By analogy, the medium-term impact on growth from the latest quake was also likely to be positive, he said.
Today's circumstances are, of course, different. Japan's economy has floundered in the intervening 16 years and its public finances have deteriorated. On paper, the country, is perhaps less well prepared at this stage of the economic cycle to pick itself up off its feet.
But Mark Skidmore, an economics professor at Michigan State University, attaches greater importance to a rich society's capacity to constantly adapt to the risks it faces. In the case of Japan, prone to regular earthquakes, this means improving its disaster response systems and adopting the latest techniques to help buildings withstand shocks.
Most of the damage wrought in Japan was by the ensuing tsunami, for which there was no time to prepare, and not by collapsing buildings - even though the quake was 1,000 times more powerful than the Kobe one.
"We don't know yet how devastating this is going to be economically, or even in terms of human casualties, but Kobe was able to rebound very quickly and I think there is the same potential here," Skidmore said in a telephone interview.
Skidmore and Hideki Toya from Nagoya City University in Japan have examined data for 151 countries over the period 1960-2003 and found that countries with higher levels of income, education and financial development suffer fewer losses from a natural disaster. Other researchers have reached similar conclusions.
"As incomes rise in a society, you can devote more resources to safety. So economies that have relatively high exposure to earthquakes or hurricanes start taking the precautions they need. Japan is among the best prepared in the world because they have high exposure and high income," Skidmore said.
OPENNESS TO TRADE
Countries with an openness to trade are also better able to cope with disasters because they create supply chains as well as commercial and diplomatic relationships that prove to be important. A well-oiled, well-financed government that can spring into action and limit the spillovers of the disaster is also crucial. This bodes well for Japan.
"They have the resources. They have the social and economic and government infrastructure to effectively utilize the resources that may come in from outside as well as internally. They can focus not just insurance but also government assistance to respond effectively," Skidmore said.
Another U.S. academic who has studied the lessons from Kobe, the late George Horwich of Purdue University, noted that media reports said it could take the city as long as a decade to recover. In the event, within 15 months manufacturing in Kobe was at 98 percent of its pre-disaster trend; imports had fully recovered within a year and exports were back at 85 percent capacity; and 79 percent of shops had reopened by July 1996.
"Natural disasters in large advanced economies tend not to significantly reduce current aggregate output or induce an associated rise in the general price level. In geographically dispersed economies, disasters are almost always localized events. But in any economy, it is the capital stock, not output, that is directly reduced by the disaster," he wrote in a paper published in 2000.
Horwich concluded that physical capital is the most visible contributor to economic recovery but human capital is the dominant economic resource. And Japan has that in spades.
"Destroy any amount of physical capital, but leave behind a critical number of knowledgeable human beings whose brains still house the culture and technology of a dynamic economy, and the physical capital will tend to reemerge almost spontaneously," he said.
The 2008 earthquake in the western Chinese province of Sichuan, which killed nearly 90,000 people, is in line with the academic finding that strong institutions and human capital are central to the process of recovery.
As a developing country, China had not made enough buildings earthquake-resistant. Many schools crumbled. Yet the ruling Communist Party mobilized vast resources for rescue, relief and reconstruction. As a result, according to a government think tank, the disaster actually added an estimated 0.3 percentage point to China's GDP growth in 2008. Less than three years on, the office charged with reconstruction has been disbanded, its work complete, an official said on Sunday.
Compare and contrast with Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere. The 7.0 magnitude quake that struck on January 12, 2010, was much less powerful than that in Japan, but it killed at least 250,000 people, injured 300,000, left 1.5 million homeless and wrecked large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
With weak finances and no emergency fund to tap, Haiti's economy slumped at least 5 percent last year, and the release of billions of dollars in international aid has been too slow to settle the homeless and get basic services running again, let alone spur an economic recovery. A cholera epidemic and political instability over contested elections reflect the failures of reconstruction efforts and in turn have made recovery even more difficult.
Haiti's woes confirm the findings of numerous researchers that poverty, high unemployment, limited access for the poor to basic services and a lack of strong national and local institutions amplify the economic blow of natural disasters.
"The impacts of natural disasters on society and the environment are substantially greater in less developed countries," according to a paper by Reinhard Mechler, who heads the research group on disasters and development at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis near Vienna.
INDIAN OCEAN TSUNAMI
Another case in point is Aceh, at the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which bore the brunt of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004.
Of the 230,000 people killed by the speeding, towering waves, 167,000 were from Aceh, which suffered total damage of about $4.5 billion. A big relief effort was launched, but more than two years later a report from the Asian Development Bank Institute said key reconstruction targets had not been met and coordination among the many government agencies and international donors was poor.
With Aceh accounting for just 2 percent of Indonesia's economy, the catastrophe was not enough to move the needle of the country's GDP. But, as with Haiti, the shortcomings of the region's recovery stood In stark contrast to the experience in Kobe.
After the initial loss of output, disasters in advanced economies do not invariably result in a boost to economic activity.
Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody's Economy.com, a consultancy, has cited the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005: the city did not experience an economic bounce because so many residents left, government aid was slow to arrive and insurance payments were low.
But, as a rule of thumb, reconstruction jobs and the influx of emergency assistance apply balm to an economy's wounds. Take the 6.7 magnitude Northridge quake near Los Angeles in 1994 that killed 57 people, injured 9,000 and resulted in about $40 billion in property damage.
Daniel Blake, an economics professor at California State University Northridge, found a year later that the $18 billion in aid and insurance payments made by the federal government actually jump-started the area's fragile economy after four years of recession.
And after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which severely damaged major roads around the San Francisco Bay, an official estimate put the Bay Area's lost economic output at between $181 million and $725 million, a fraction of its 1989 gross regional product of $174 billion. Indeed, the California Trade and Commerce Agency later found that the Bay Area even managed to do better than many parts of the state in weathering the early 1990s recession.
A more recent example is that of Chile, where 500 people died in an 8.8 magnitude quake in February 2010 that caused an estimated $30 billion hit to the economy due to damaged infrastructure and property and lost productivity.
Both the government and central bank trimmed their growth outlooks after the quake, estimating it could shave around 0.25 to 0.5 percentage point off annual growth. But the economy grew about 5.2 percent in 2010, within the original range of projections. With the state only halfway through its rebuilding programme, GDP growth this quarter is likely to accelerate to around 8 percent.
"The impact of reconstruction on growth is becoming stronger as time goes on," said Finance Minister Felipe Larrain, who financed an $8.4 billion recovery package with a mix of bond issues, higher royalties levied on mining companies and savings from a boom in copper, Chile's principal export.
So what does all this mean for Japan?
Pete Wilson, California's governor at the time of the Northridge quake in 1994, says it was important to cut through red tape. By waiving the requirement for environmental impact hearings and setting incentives for building contractors, Wilson told Reuters he managed to reopen Interstate 10, then the world's busiest road, in just over two months. Some had feared it would take two years.
Chile's experience shows that a government is perfectly justified in resorting to deficit spending to cushion a natural disaster because of the shot in the arm it delivers to the economy, said Alfredo Coutino, Latin America director for Moody's Analytics.
"If one lesson can be learned from Chile's case, it is that Japan's government has to make a quick move in terms of implementing the reconstruction with a variety of funding sources: issue debt, reallocation of public resources, and international aid," he said.
Japan's problem is that its gross public debt, equal to about twice GDP, is already the heaviest in the world. With an aging population posing an ever-growing burden on Japan's public finances, rating agencies have sounded the alarm and warned of possible downgrades unless politicians bury the hatchet and come up with a plan to reduce the debt over the medium term.
"The earthquake should lead to somewhat expansionary fiscal policy. However, due to its already large deficit, it is unlikely that the Japanese government would plan a large scale fiscal stimulus," said Okubo, the Societe Generale economist.
YEN WILD CARD
The reaction of the yen in coming weeks is another wild card in assessing the impact on Japan's economy. The Bank of Japan, which meets on Monday, is widely expected to pledge as much money as needed to prevent the repercussions of the quake from destabilizing financial markets and the banking system.
Economists also expect the central bank will signal its readiness to ease monetary policy further -- even though its policy rate is already near zero -- if the damage from the quake threatens Japan's fragile economic recovery.
That prospect would normally weaken the yen, but economists are keenly aware that the Japanese currency gained sharply in the weeks after the Kobe catastrophe. It rose from 96 per dollar in late February and briefly punched through 80 to an all-time high on April 19, 1995, before reversing course after the BOJ cut interest rates.
Trade tensions with the United States were a driving force in 1995 and are absent today. A rush to bring capital back to Japan, especially by insurers anticipating large claims, was also a factor post-Kobe and could be again. But Jerram, the Macquarie economist, doubted that history would repeat itself.
"Significant yen repatriation that could push the currency higher and, at an extreme, disrupt global markets, looks unlikely," he said.
Another "known unknown" is whether serious damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will cause countries including Britain, China and Italy to reappraise plans to boost investment in nuclear power. If they do, it would be logical to expect higher oil, natural gas and coal prices.
"A serious accident like that will have repercussions in all countries with nuclear," Bertrand Barre, scientific adviser to French nuclear reactor maker Areva, told Reuters.
If there are clear lessons, we will apply them. We need to take time to work out the consequences and act.
Japan's earthquake is just the latest in a series of unwanted shocks for the world economy, which is still far from having shaken off the fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis. Political turmoil in North Africa has reduced oil supplies from Libya and raised the specter of wider disruptions to deliveries from the Middle East.
Food prices have climbed to record highs. The euro zone debt crisis is far from over, with bond yields for Greece, Ireland and Portugal at seemingly unsustainable levels. Policy makers in the main economies who have slashed interest rates close to zero and run up huge budget deficits would appear to have little ammunition left to fire if consumer, business and investor confidence takes a dive because of Japanese quake.
But economists at J.P. Morgan said it was important to bear in mind that most, if not all of these shocks will prove to be temporary and are unfolding against a backdrop of very strong fundamental supports for growth, including booming industrial production, improving labor markets and a 17 percent rise in global share prices since September.
The bank has recently trimmed its forecasts for the United States and the euro zone but its projection for global growth in the first half of 2011 remains at a rate of 3.7 percent, which is 1 percentage point above trend.
"Put differently, the shocks to date would have to magnify considerably to push global growth below this trendline." the J.P. Morgan economists said in their latest Global Data Watch publication.
(Additional reporting by Braden Reddall in San Francisco, Simon Gardner in Santiago and Kieron Murray in Mexico City)
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Sunday, March 13, 2011
japan neuclear radiation
GENEVA (Reuters) – As foreign rescue workers combed debris to locate victims of Japan's quake and tsunami, countries offered further aid from field hospitals to atomic physicists to address an unfolding nuclear crisis.
Fire-fighters, sniffer dogs, clothing and food have been proposed in an outpouring of solidarity with Japan, with offers pouring in from nearly 70 countries, U.N. officials said.
Even the poor southern Afghan city of Kandahar announced it was donating $50,000 to the "brothers and sisters" of Japan.
"I know $50,000 is not a lot of money for a country like Japan, but it is a show of appreciation from the Kandahar people," Kandahar Mayor Ghulam Haidar Hamidi told Reuters.
Japan has pledged $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan over the next five years, more than one-third of the total $13 billion in foreign aid pledged to the country over the next five years.
Japan fought on Sunday to avert a disastrous meltdown at three earthquake-crippled nuclear reactors as estimates of the death toll from the tsunami that charged across its northeast rose to more than 10,000.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan would extend all possible assistance to Japan.
"I have written a letter and we have offered them, if they need them, field hospitals, whatever assistance we can extend," Gilani told reporters in the central Pakistan city of Multan.
Nearly a dozen countries have sent rescue workers following Japan's request, including teams from Australia, China, and the United States, the United Nations said. Seventeen more rescue teams including one from Israel were on standby.
"This is a country that regrettably is very experienced at this. But we all can see the scale of the devastation," U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told Sky News.
"I'm hearing reports that there are many parts of the country that even the search and rescue teams or the Japanese defense forces on the ground aren't able to get to those places because of fears of aftershocks," she said.
China's 15-member rescue team arrived in Japan on Sunday, state news agency Xinhua said, bringing with them four tonnes of equipment for search and rescue operations, including their own power supply and telecommunications equipment.
Australia's government has offered self-contained field hospitals and disaster victim identification teams. Two military transport aircraft carrying search and rescue teams, as well as sniffer dogs, had already left for Japan.
Britain has sent 59 fire service search and rescue specialists, along with two rescue dogs and a medical support team. The team will take up to 11 tonnes of specialist rescue equipment, including heavy lifting and cutting equipment.
NUCLEAR EXPERTS
Britain has also said that it would send nuclear physicists if requested.
Japanese officials worked desperately to prevent the fuel rods in the damaged plants from overheating after radiation leaked into the air. The government said a building housing a second reactor was at risk of exploding after a blast blew the roof off a different plant the day before.
But the World Health Organization said that the public health risk from the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 remained "quite low."
"There is no evidence to suggest otherwise," WHO spokeswoman Christy Feig told Reuters in Geneva.
Japan had not sought deployment of the U.N. agency's network of radiation experts known as REMPAN (Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network), she said.
"There is no need to go in, everybody is still in a holding pattern," Feig said.
Teams from Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) have reached Sendai, where they found "stark" damage.
"Although the medical situation in Sendai appears to be under control, the population has needs," Mikoko Dotsu, MSF assessment coordinator said in a statement.
"At the moment, there is very little electricity and no water supply. People need food, blankets, and water. These needs are bigger than medical needs at the moment," Dotsu said.
The Indian government is to ship planeloads of woolen blankets to affected areas to help fight cold weather conditions, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said.
Japan has declined Taiwan's offer of rescue team for now but has requested material aid including generators clothing and food, Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has donated $3.3 mln and has rescue and medical teams ready to go if Japan requests them.
(Additional reporting by Jonathon Burch in Kabul; Robert Birsel in Islamabad; Jeremy Laurence and Cho Meeyoung in Seoul; Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Matthias Williams in Delhi; Michael Holden in London; Rob Taylor in Australia; Shinichi Saoshiro in Tokyo; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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Fire-fighters, sniffer dogs, clothing and food have been proposed in an outpouring of solidarity with Japan, with offers pouring in from nearly 70 countries, U.N. officials said.
Even the poor southern Afghan city of Kandahar announced it was donating $50,000 to the "brothers and sisters" of Japan.
"I know $50,000 is not a lot of money for a country like Japan, but it is a show of appreciation from the Kandahar people," Kandahar Mayor Ghulam Haidar Hamidi told Reuters.
Japan has pledged $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan over the next five years, more than one-third of the total $13 billion in foreign aid pledged to the country over the next five years.
Japan fought on Sunday to avert a disastrous meltdown at three earthquake-crippled nuclear reactors as estimates of the death toll from the tsunami that charged across its northeast rose to more than 10,000.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said Pakistan would extend all possible assistance to Japan.
"I have written a letter and we have offered them, if they need them, field hospitals, whatever assistance we can extend," Gilani told reporters in the central Pakistan city of Multan.
Nearly a dozen countries have sent rescue workers following Japan's request, including teams from Australia, China, and the United States, the United Nations said. Seventeen more rescue teams including one from Israel were on standby.
"This is a country that regrettably is very experienced at this. But we all can see the scale of the devastation," U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told Sky News.
"I'm hearing reports that there are many parts of the country that even the search and rescue teams or the Japanese defense forces on the ground aren't able to get to those places because of fears of aftershocks," she said.
China's 15-member rescue team arrived in Japan on Sunday, state news agency Xinhua said, bringing with them four tonnes of equipment for search and rescue operations, including their own power supply and telecommunications equipment.
Australia's government has offered self-contained field hospitals and disaster victim identification teams. Two military transport aircraft carrying search and rescue teams, as well as sniffer dogs, had already left for Japan.
Britain has sent 59 fire service search and rescue specialists, along with two rescue dogs and a medical support team. The team will take up to 11 tonnes of specialist rescue equipment, including heavy lifting and cutting equipment.
NUCLEAR EXPERTS
Britain has also said that it would send nuclear physicists if requested.
Japanese officials worked desperately to prevent the fuel rods in the damaged plants from overheating after radiation leaked into the air. The government said a building housing a second reactor was at risk of exploding after a blast blew the roof off a different plant the day before.
But the World Health Organization said that the public health risk from the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 remained "quite low."
"There is no evidence to suggest otherwise," WHO spokeswoman Christy Feig told Reuters in Geneva.
Japan had not sought deployment of the U.N. agency's network of radiation experts known as REMPAN (Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network), she said.
"There is no need to go in, everybody is still in a holding pattern," Feig said.
Teams from Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) have reached Sendai, where they found "stark" damage.
"Although the medical situation in Sendai appears to be under control, the population has needs," Mikoko Dotsu, MSF assessment coordinator said in a statement.
"At the moment, there is very little electricity and no water supply. People need food, blankets, and water. These needs are bigger than medical needs at the moment," Dotsu said.
The Indian government is to ship planeloads of woolen blankets to affected areas to help fight cold weather conditions, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said.
Japan has declined Taiwan's offer of rescue team for now but has requested material aid including generators clothing and food, Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has donated $3.3 mln and has rescue and medical teams ready to go if Japan requests them.
(Additional reporting by Jonathon Burch in Kabul; Robert Birsel in Islamabad; Jeremy Laurence and Cho Meeyoung in Seoul; Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Matthias Williams in Delhi; Michael Holden in London; Rob Taylor in Australia; Shinichi Saoshiro in Tokyo; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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japan tsunami march 2011
By FAKHRURRADZIE GADE, Associated Press – 2 hrs 53 mins ago
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – Tears streamed down Maisara Mucharam's face as she watched aerial shots of the tsunami pummeling Japan's coast and remembered the day, six years ago, when her youngest daughter was ripped out of her arms by the heavy salty sea.
Survivors of the 2004 tsunami that started off Indonesia sat glued to their TV sets, stroking each other's hands, as images of last Friday's disaster in northern Japan flashed repeatedly across the screen.
"I heard someone screaming and ran to see what was going on," said Mucharam, who also lost her husband and two other daughters.
"I tried, but couldn't stop watching," the 38-year-old said, her voice trembling. "It was exactly the same, except they have this horrible footage, events unfolding right before your eyes."
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck on the morning of Dec. 26, 2004, spawned a tsunami that smashed into coastal communities, beach resorts and towns in 12 nations, killing more than 230,000 people.
Two-thirds of them died here in Indonesia's remote Aceh province, and it took days for images to emerge. Even then, most showed the aftermath: crumpled buildings, flattened landscapes and row upon row of swollen corpses.
"Unbelievable," whispered 39-year old Cut Chalidah, who lost a son and nine other family members, as she watched the 23-foot (7-meter) high wall of water wash over Japan's coast, rolling up everything in its path. "So this is what it looked like."
She sat silent as the television showed cars, ships and even buildings lifted up and carried inland, tossed about in the debris-strewn water like floating toys in a running bath.
Click image to see photos of quake, tsunami damage
AFP/Yomiuri Shimbun
The images left 13-year-old Zaki Ramadhan, orphaned in the 2004 disaster, struggling to breathe.
"My chest was tight, I couldn't feel my legs," said the boy, now being raised by his grandparents. "All I could think of was my mom and dad, my sisters. ... They disappeared under water, just like that."
In Sri Lanka and Thailand, both also hit by the 2004 tsunami, some survivors said the pictures brought back tears and nightmares that had all but stopped.
"It's exactly like what happened in my village," Tharmalingam Komila, who lives in Sri Lanka's coastal village of Passikudah, said as she watched the rescue operations in Japan on TV.
"I was dragged away by the wave into the sea," said the 29-year-old, who lost more than two dozen relatives. "I was holding onto a big plastic jar and a log for five hours before people in an army helicopter saw me and saved me."
For others, the unfolding events reminded them of Japan's outpouring of support after the 2004 tsunami, the food, medical supplies and other assistance delivered to Indonesia by ship, plane and helicopter even after others had scaled back operations.
"I wish there was something I could do," said Muhammad Nazri, 42, who lives in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. "I'd like to go there, really, even if it was just to share my feelings of grief."
The only piece of good news, some said, was that it appeared the 2004 disaster had raised awareness in coastal area of the dangers posed by tsunamis.
Tsunami warnings were issued in many countries and widely heeded after Friday's earthquake off Japan. Even in remote corners of Indonesia, far from the epicenter, villages turned into ghost towns as thousands of people, responding to warnings on television or mobile phone text messages, fled to the hills.
The waves never came, but at least they knew what to do, said Zainal Abidin Latif, an Aceh resident, who lost all three of his children in 2004.
Others said they hoped the latest disaster would serve as a loud warning to governments to improve alert systems, most of which rely on electronic buoys to detect sudden changes in water levels.
Among them was Maitree Chongkraichak, who lost his father, nephew and about 40 other relatives when the 2004 tsunami hit Thailand.
"I feel so sad for what has happened in Japan," he said. "I know what it's like for their families right now."
___
Associated Press writers Grant Peck in Bangkok and Krishan Francis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed to this report.
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BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – Tears streamed down Maisara Mucharam's face as she watched aerial shots of the tsunami pummeling Japan's coast and remembered the day, six years ago, when her youngest daughter was ripped out of her arms by the heavy salty sea.
Survivors of the 2004 tsunami that started off Indonesia sat glued to their TV sets, stroking each other's hands, as images of last Friday's disaster in northern Japan flashed repeatedly across the screen.
"I heard someone screaming and ran to see what was going on," said Mucharam, who also lost her husband and two other daughters.
"I tried, but couldn't stop watching," the 38-year-old said, her voice trembling. "It was exactly the same, except they have this horrible footage, events unfolding right before your eyes."
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck on the morning of Dec. 26, 2004, spawned a tsunami that smashed into coastal communities, beach resorts and towns in 12 nations, killing more than 230,000 people.
Two-thirds of them died here in Indonesia's remote Aceh province, and it took days for images to emerge. Even then, most showed the aftermath: crumpled buildings, flattened landscapes and row upon row of swollen corpses.
"Unbelievable," whispered 39-year old Cut Chalidah, who lost a son and nine other family members, as she watched the 23-foot (7-meter) high wall of water wash over Japan's coast, rolling up everything in its path. "So this is what it looked like."
She sat silent as the television showed cars, ships and even buildings lifted up and carried inland, tossed about in the debris-strewn water like floating toys in a running bath.
Click image to see photos of quake, tsunami damage
AFP/Yomiuri Shimbun
The images left 13-year-old Zaki Ramadhan, orphaned in the 2004 disaster, struggling to breathe.
"My chest was tight, I couldn't feel my legs," said the boy, now being raised by his grandparents. "All I could think of was my mom and dad, my sisters. ... They disappeared under water, just like that."
In Sri Lanka and Thailand, both also hit by the 2004 tsunami, some survivors said the pictures brought back tears and nightmares that had all but stopped.
"It's exactly like what happened in my village," Tharmalingam Komila, who lives in Sri Lanka's coastal village of Passikudah, said as she watched the rescue operations in Japan on TV.
"I was dragged away by the wave into the sea," said the 29-year-old, who lost more than two dozen relatives. "I was holding onto a big plastic jar and a log for five hours before people in an army helicopter saw me and saved me."
For others, the unfolding events reminded them of Japan's outpouring of support after the 2004 tsunami, the food, medical supplies and other assistance delivered to Indonesia by ship, plane and helicopter even after others had scaled back operations.
"I wish there was something I could do," said Muhammad Nazri, 42, who lives in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. "I'd like to go there, really, even if it was just to share my feelings of grief."
The only piece of good news, some said, was that it appeared the 2004 disaster had raised awareness in coastal area of the dangers posed by tsunamis.
Tsunami warnings were issued in many countries and widely heeded after Friday's earthquake off Japan. Even in remote corners of Indonesia, far from the epicenter, villages turned into ghost towns as thousands of people, responding to warnings on television or mobile phone text messages, fled to the hills.
The waves never came, but at least they knew what to do, said Zainal Abidin Latif, an Aceh resident, who lost all three of his children in 2004.
Others said they hoped the latest disaster would serve as a loud warning to governments to improve alert systems, most of which rely on electronic buoys to detect sudden changes in water levels.
Among them was Maitree Chongkraichak, who lost his father, nephew and about 40 other relatives when the 2004 tsunami hit Thailand.
"I feel so sad for what has happened in Japan," he said. "I know what it's like for their families right now."
___
Associated Press writers Grant Peck in Bangkok and Krishan Francis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, contributed to this report.
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latest news
WASHINGTON – The potential White House candidates need cash.
But donors aren't eager to shell out until the hopeful prove they're credible.
Which they can't — until they have the cash lined up to start their campaigns.
This helps explain why the 2012 Republican primary race has yet to begin in earnest.
"It's a little sluggish. The major donor folks are sitting back a bit," said Rob Bickhart, a former Republican National Committee finance chairman helping ex-Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]
"The major donor folks, I think, are a little slower getting started because the whole process was slower to get started," said Bickhart, who helped raise money for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney four years ago. "The last one started, it seemed, after World War I and folks were just exhausted."
Less than a year before the lead-off primaries and caucuses, many of the Republican Party's biggest fundraisers aren't aligned with any one candidate. Mindful of the lessons of 2008, many are holding back to see who emerges as a front-runner in a field that lacks one.
"I have spoken to just about everyone," said Larry Bathgate, RNC finance chairman under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Bathgate isn't sold on a 2012 candidate yet.
"The general gist is, 'We have to get rid of Obama ... he's too leftist and out of touch,'" Bathgate said.
He agrees. But that doesn't mean he's ready to open his vast network of donors to a candidate right now. None has convinced him that he or she can run a successful national campaign.
Four years ago at this point in the campaign, Republicans hoping to succeed President George W. Bush were on the road in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Their fundraisers were burning up phone lines to pay for the frequent trips.
Not this time.
All-but-certain candidates Romney and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty have lined up pieces of their fundraising teams; others are moving more slowly. None is eager to start spending cash.
They remember what happened in 2008.
Arizona Sen. John McCain spent heavily in the early days of his campaign and then went into the summer broke, relying on volunteers to shuttle him from town hall to town hall. It limited what his advisers could plan and resulted in a strategy overhaul, returning to a grassroots-focused effort that ultimately won him the nomination.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee wasn't so lucky. He won the Iowa caucuses but was cash poor. Poised to harness that momentum, he found himself on the phone with supporters, asking for money instead of talking with voters.
That has left him skittish about jumping into the 2012 campaign and starting to spend. Instead, he's looking at a delayed entry, perhaps as late as fall.
"If you can concentrate it to fewer months, you have more money to air campaign ads and less money spent on overhead and office space," Huckabee said.
Those lessons are coloring discussions among donors about which candidate is laying the right groundwork for a protracted primary fight and a costly contest against Obama. In conversations, the candidates and their allies are emphasizing how Obama could be defeated — if the donors ante up.
"The key is the economy. It's still the Clinton thing. The Republican candidate will have to run on a jobs platform," said Lew Eisenberg, one of the party's top money men who's supporting Romney because of his economic message.
"It's one of the overriding reasons I'm with Mitt. There's nobody at the moment who has actually created jobs in the private sector or run a state in a positive way as Mitt has done."
But even some donors already supporting candidates aren't entirely convinced.
"It's an open field," said Mel Sembler, a real estate mogul and former RNC finance chairman.
Romney "is out lining up his supporters around the country. He'll be formidable, but that doesn't mean he's walking away with this thing," Sembler said days before hosting Romney at his Florida home.
There are also the rewards, which Sembler knows well. President George H.W. Bush named Sembler as ambassador to Australia after he raised millions for Bush's campaign. Sembler raised millions for the younger Bush, and a posting as ambassador to Italy followed.
Early financial backers — of both parties — are often given plum posts.
John Roos, a California technology lawyer and campaign fundraiser, went to Tokyo as the U.S. ambassador. Before leaving, he collected at least $500,000 for Obama's campaign. Same for Charles Rivkin, Obama's ambassador to Paris. The former financial analyst at Salomon Brothers raised more than $500,000 for Obama.
Such roles are never promised, but it's part of the thinking for many donors.
They also consider how viable these candidates are. They ask questions about campaign structure and staff, about fundraising schedules and the amount of time the candidates are willing to spend on the phone, asking for money themselves.
They're not going to promise their own cash and ask their buddies to do the same without some assurances.
"Until the candidate has launched an exploratory committee, it's tough to raise money," said Ron Nehring, the California Republican Party chairman.
It gets easier with a top-flight fundraiser to lend credibility.
Bickhart is leading Santorum's political action committee and is expected to remain with his college friend should he run as expected. Morgan Stanley executive Bill Strong helped Pawlenty's political committee raise millions and is expected to aid his presidential fundraising from Chicago.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former RNC chairman who has a Rolodex full of allies and donors, will draw on his connections built over decades to raise money as his own de facto finance chairman. The same can be said for Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker who has raised millions for his nonprofits and political committees since leaving office.
Others, such as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Huckabee, have been less aggressive in building their finance teams, a potential sign they may not seek the White House. Before anything starts, the candidates want to build a fundraising system before they turn on the lights of a campaign office.
"The strategy is build, launch, build. Not launch, build," Nehring said.
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But donors aren't eager to shell out until the hopeful prove they're credible.
Which they can't — until they have the cash lined up to start their campaigns.
This helps explain why the 2012 Republican primary race has yet to begin in earnest.
"It's a little sluggish. The major donor folks are sitting back a bit," said Rob Bickhart, a former Republican National Committee finance chairman helping ex-Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]
"The major donor folks, I think, are a little slower getting started because the whole process was slower to get started," said Bickhart, who helped raise money for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney four years ago. "The last one started, it seemed, after World War I and folks were just exhausted."
Less than a year before the lead-off primaries and caucuses, many of the Republican Party's biggest fundraisers aren't aligned with any one candidate. Mindful of the lessons of 2008, many are holding back to see who emerges as a front-runner in a field that lacks one.
"I have spoken to just about everyone," said Larry Bathgate, RNC finance chairman under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Bathgate isn't sold on a 2012 candidate yet.
"The general gist is, 'We have to get rid of Obama ... he's too leftist and out of touch,'" Bathgate said.
He agrees. But that doesn't mean he's ready to open his vast network of donors to a candidate right now. None has convinced him that he or she can run a successful national campaign.
Four years ago at this point in the campaign, Republicans hoping to succeed President George W. Bush were on the road in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Their fundraisers were burning up phone lines to pay for the frequent trips.
Not this time.
All-but-certain candidates Romney and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty have lined up pieces of their fundraising teams; others are moving more slowly. None is eager to start spending cash.
They remember what happened in 2008.
Arizona Sen. John McCain spent heavily in the early days of his campaign and then went into the summer broke, relying on volunteers to shuttle him from town hall to town hall. It limited what his advisers could plan and resulted in a strategy overhaul, returning to a grassroots-focused effort that ultimately won him the nomination.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee wasn't so lucky. He won the Iowa caucuses but was cash poor. Poised to harness that momentum, he found himself on the phone with supporters, asking for money instead of talking with voters.
That has left him skittish about jumping into the 2012 campaign and starting to spend. Instead, he's looking at a delayed entry, perhaps as late as fall.
"If you can concentrate it to fewer months, you have more money to air campaign ads and less money spent on overhead and office space," Huckabee said.
Those lessons are coloring discussions among donors about which candidate is laying the right groundwork for a protracted primary fight and a costly contest against Obama. In conversations, the candidates and their allies are emphasizing how Obama could be defeated — if the donors ante up.
"The key is the economy. It's still the Clinton thing. The Republican candidate will have to run on a jobs platform," said Lew Eisenberg, one of the party's top money men who's supporting Romney because of his economic message.
"It's one of the overriding reasons I'm with Mitt. There's nobody at the moment who has actually created jobs in the private sector or run a state in a positive way as Mitt has done."
But even some donors already supporting candidates aren't entirely convinced.
"It's an open field," said Mel Sembler, a real estate mogul and former RNC finance chairman.
Romney "is out lining up his supporters around the country. He'll be formidable, but that doesn't mean he's walking away with this thing," Sembler said days before hosting Romney at his Florida home.
There are also the rewards, which Sembler knows well. President George H.W. Bush named Sembler as ambassador to Australia after he raised millions for Bush's campaign. Sembler raised millions for the younger Bush, and a posting as ambassador to Italy followed.
Early financial backers — of both parties — are often given plum posts.
John Roos, a California technology lawyer and campaign fundraiser, went to Tokyo as the U.S. ambassador. Before leaving, he collected at least $500,000 for Obama's campaign. Same for Charles Rivkin, Obama's ambassador to Paris. The former financial analyst at Salomon Brothers raised more than $500,000 for Obama.
Such roles are never promised, but it's part of the thinking for many donors.
They also consider how viable these candidates are. They ask questions about campaign structure and staff, about fundraising schedules and the amount of time the candidates are willing to spend on the phone, asking for money themselves.
They're not going to promise their own cash and ask their buddies to do the same without some assurances.
"Until the candidate has launched an exploratory committee, it's tough to raise money," said Ron Nehring, the California Republican Party chairman.
It gets easier with a top-flight fundraiser to lend credibility.
Bickhart is leading Santorum's political action committee and is expected to remain with his college friend should he run as expected. Morgan Stanley executive Bill Strong helped Pawlenty's political committee raise millions and is expected to aid his presidential fundraising from Chicago.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former RNC chairman who has a Rolodex full of allies and donors, will draw on his connections built over decades to raise money as his own de facto finance chairman. The same can be said for Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker who has raised millions for his nonprofits and political committees since leaving office.
Others, such as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Huckabee, have been less aggressive in building their finance teams, a potential sign they may not seek the White House. Before anything starts, the candidates want to build a fundraising system before they turn on the lights of a campaign office.
"The strategy is build, launch, build. Not launch, build," Nehring said.
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