- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 410
The National Post, and Global TV yesterday kept the slow DART response alive by asking how the Italian DART was able to get to Sri Lanka in under 48 hours.
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2fe4ce56-5cfc-4a41-93f6-8dad973ae1d6
A Slow-moving DART
Canadian unit still packing a week after Italian team arrived in Sri Lanka
Chris Wattie
National Post
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
KINNIYA, Sri Lanka - By the time Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team lands in Sri Lanka, its Italian counterparts will have been up and running in this devastated city for more than a week.
An Italian team of doctors, paramedics and firefighters was rushed to this island nation two days after the tsunami that killed more than 30,000 people here, caused about $1-billion in damage and left a million people homeless.
In Kinniya, a city of 80,000 on the east coast just north of where the Canadians will be based, thousands were left with only two doctors and no medical facilities after the only hospital was destroyed.
"The hospital was completely washed away by the wave -- it was completely knocked down," Commodore J.S.K. Colombage, deputy area commander for the Sri Lankan military, said yesterday as a group of burly firefighters handed supplies from a truck draped with an enormous Italian flag.
"We were very glad to see them, I can tell you that," he said.
While Ottawa was debating whether to send the 200-member Canadian Forces emergency team, the Italians were setting up a temporary field hospital in Kinniya, which went into full operation last Friday, just five days after the tsunami.
They were starting work yesterday on a more permanent, 80-bed facility, complete with a maternity ward and operating rooms. It will be almost half done by the time Canada's emergency team arrives in the field.
"We badly needed a hospital in this area because the population is quite large and they've lost everything," said Cdr. Colombage.
"The Italians came with a container load of essential drugs and tents. They have two planes in the country for them to shift goods from Colombo to here, and they're quite willing to undertake any task."
Bill Graham, the Defence Minister, announced on Monday the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) would be sent to Ampara, just south of Kinniya.
The soldiers, doctors and military engineers will begin leaving Canada tomorrow, along with four planeloads of equipment for a field hospital, water purification plant and construction work. They are expected to be in place early next week.
The Liberal government has been sharply criticized for being slow to respond to the disaster, particularly in holding off on deploying the Canadian Forces unit, which was last used in 1999 after an earthquake in Turkey.
Alain Pellerin, director of the defence lobby group Conference of Defence Associations, said from Ottawa that DART was slowed to a near crawl by government indecision.
"The response last week was very slow ... they should have been considering deploying the DART right away," he said.
But Mr. Pellerin said the Canadian Forces were also struggling with a shortage of transport aircraft. The air force's Hercules transports are nearly 40 years old, and there are not enough of them to handle the team's heavy equipment.
"They don't have the ability to deploy it rapidly ... they just don't have the airlift," he said. " [So] the DART is not a capability, it's a concept -- just an idea on paper."
Mr. Graham did send a small reconnaissance party from the Canadian Forces team to Sri Lanka last week to assess whether the full unit should be sent and where it was needed most, a process that took several days.
However, the Italians in Kinniya, one of several emergency response teams co-ordinated by their government's Civil Protection Department, said they arrived just in time.
"There were just two doctors here, working around the clock," said one harried physician working in the Italian facility.
"And the backlog [of patients] was growing. We're seeing 800 people a day, a few with injuries from the wave, but some with hepatitis we think."
Kinniya was hit particularly hard by the tsunami, which was funnelled toward the city by two points of land that magnified the height and force of the wave.
The seawater reached more than a kilometre inland and struck with such power, half the hospital's thick walls collapsed and the interior was flooded. When the waves receded, they left beds, neonatal incubators and even heavy surgical equipment in a twisted jumble of wreckage.
Gianlucca Alberini, one of the heads of Rome's mission to Sri Lanka, said the Italian disaster response system -- which includes firefighters, national police and medical and military teams -- is designed to react within hours of a natural disaster.
"We moved very quickly," he said, surveying the abandoned warehouse his team will convert into a more permanent hospital.
"The first teams arrived in place, not just in Sri Lanka but in other affected areas ... on the day after the disaster."
He said the Italian government has learned the first few days after a natural disaster can be critical.
"So we moved right away, right away."
Military emergency response teams from other nations have also arrived in Sri Lanka, including forces from the United States, Finland and Russia.
However, Mr. Alberini said there is some Canadian content to the Italian effort in Kinniya: The two cargo aircraft his team is using to ferry medicine and other supplies were built by Canadair.
"We have put them at the disposal of the Sri Lankan air force, and they've found them very useful," he said.
© National Post 2005
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2fe4ce56-5cfc-4a41-93f6-8dad973ae1d6
A Slow-moving DART
Canadian unit still packing a week after Italian team arrived in Sri Lanka
Chris Wattie
National Post
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
KINNIYA, Sri Lanka - By the time Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team lands in Sri Lanka, its Italian counterparts will have been up and running in this devastated city for more than a week.
An Italian team of doctors, paramedics and firefighters was rushed to this island nation two days after the tsunami that killed more than 30,000 people here, caused about $1-billion in damage and left a million people homeless.
In Kinniya, a city of 80,000 on the east coast just north of where the Canadians will be based, thousands were left with only two doctors and no medical facilities after the only hospital was destroyed.
"The hospital was completely washed away by the wave -- it was completely knocked down," Commodore J.S.K. Colombage, deputy area commander for the Sri Lankan military, said yesterday as a group of burly firefighters handed supplies from a truck draped with an enormous Italian flag.
"We were very glad to see them, I can tell you that," he said.
While Ottawa was debating whether to send the 200-member Canadian Forces emergency team, the Italians were setting up a temporary field hospital in Kinniya, which went into full operation last Friday, just five days after the tsunami.
They were starting work yesterday on a more permanent, 80-bed facility, complete with a maternity ward and operating rooms. It will be almost half done by the time Canada's emergency team arrives in the field.
"We badly needed a hospital in this area because the population is quite large and they've lost everything," said Cdr. Colombage.
"The Italians came with a container load of essential drugs and tents. They have two planes in the country for them to shift goods from Colombo to here, and they're quite willing to undertake any task."
Bill Graham, the Defence Minister, announced on Monday the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) would be sent to Ampara, just south of Kinniya.
The soldiers, doctors and military engineers will begin leaving Canada tomorrow, along with four planeloads of equipment for a field hospital, water purification plant and construction work. They are expected to be in place early next week.
The Liberal government has been sharply criticized for being slow to respond to the disaster, particularly in holding off on deploying the Canadian Forces unit, which was last used in 1999 after an earthquake in Turkey.
Alain Pellerin, director of the defence lobby group Conference of Defence Associations, said from Ottawa that DART was slowed to a near crawl by government indecision.
"The response last week was very slow ... they should have been considering deploying the DART right away," he said.
But Mr. Pellerin said the Canadian Forces were also struggling with a shortage of transport aircraft. The air force's Hercules transports are nearly 40 years old, and there are not enough of them to handle the team's heavy equipment.
"They don't have the ability to deploy it rapidly ... they just don't have the airlift," he said. " [So] the DART is not a capability, it's a concept -- just an idea on paper."
Mr. Graham did send a small reconnaissance party from the Canadian Forces team to Sri Lanka last week to assess whether the full unit should be sent and where it was needed most, a process that took several days.
However, the Italians in Kinniya, one of several emergency response teams co-ordinated by their government's Civil Protection Department, said they arrived just in time.
"There were just two doctors here, working around the clock," said one harried physician working in the Italian facility.
"And the backlog [of patients] was growing. We're seeing 800 people a day, a few with injuries from the wave, but some with hepatitis we think."
Kinniya was hit particularly hard by the tsunami, which was funnelled toward the city by two points of land that magnified the height and force of the wave.
The seawater reached more than a kilometre inland and struck with such power, half the hospital's thick walls collapsed and the interior was flooded. When the waves receded, they left beds, neonatal incubators and even heavy surgical equipment in a twisted jumble of wreckage.
Gianlucca Alberini, one of the heads of Rome's mission to Sri Lanka, said the Italian disaster response system -- which includes firefighters, national police and medical and military teams -- is designed to react within hours of a natural disaster.
"We moved very quickly," he said, surveying the abandoned warehouse his team will convert into a more permanent hospital.
"The first teams arrived in place, not just in Sri Lanka but in other affected areas ... on the day after the disaster."
He said the Italian government has learned the first few days after a natural disaster can be critical.
"So we moved right away, right away."
Military emergency response teams from other nations have also arrived in Sri Lanka, including forces from the United States, Finland and Russia.
However, Mr. Alberini said there is some Canadian content to the Italian effort in Kinniya: The two cargo aircraft his team is using to ferry medicine and other supplies were built by Canadair.
"We have put them at the disposal of the Sri Lankan air force, and they've found them very useful," he said.
© National Post 2005
