Media Release

Internet Resource Centre to Support Tsunami Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction
www.geolanka.net
www.recoverlanka.net

The sufferings of the Tsunami victims were alleviated only by the extraordinary generosity of ordinary people, helping their afflicted neighbours. Ordinary people do what is necessary with no regard for publicity or reward. Many of us living both in Sri Lanka and overseas are numb, heartbroken and want to contribute as much as we can to assist such efforts. While centralized government operations are essential for the coordination of the relief efforts, there are many needs of the multitude who have become the first and sometimes only responders to this tragedy.

According to many reports relief operations were hampered by

• the lack of coordination,
• misallocation of resources,
• fears of people caused by false prophets,
• need for accurate and useable scientific / technical information. 

All of this is understandable given the lack of disaster preparedness and the difficulty that people have in Sri Lanka to access relevant information and data. In the hope of ameliorating these problems, we have created a website that provides

• Background information for Sri Lanka
• An expert mapping program that users can customize to generate maps of whatever they need
• A place for collecting the stories of ordinary folks
• A way to look for help, volunteer, donate, and request these services
• User interaction so that one can be updated on the evolving situation on the ground through first hand accounts and can post requests for assistance, offers of assistance, information on community organizations that are involved in relief, proposed projects, and post willingness to volunteer or request for volunteers.
• A place for people to post needs from the ground - some of these needs may then be addressed by harnessing the unique resources of a global pool of scientists and professionals on the Internet to rapidly respond with scientific and professional input to teams that are engaged in relief.

Indeed, there is a compelling need for scientific information whether it be regarding alleviating flooding hampering relief, the threat of epidemics, the risk of further Tsunamis, whether eating fish after a Tsunami is risky, how should new buildings be made disaster-prone particularly Tsunami disasters in coastal zones, what parts of Sri Lankan coast are most at risk from Tsunamis and how does one make sure that we manage disaster risks best. Indeed, government scientific, medical, agricultural and technological professionals are in many cases already overwhelmed.

To tap into the wealth of knowledge and expertise of those who want to help, we have created a bulletin board at a website where a relief worker can identify the need. Thereafter, a reputed scientist or professional takes the lead and taps into resources from all quarters to generate useable information.

For example, following a request for help from community groups regarding post-Tsunami flooding, suggestions to alleviate the flooding problems came from a mechanical engineer with expertise in pumps, a climate application scientist, a coastal engineer, a river basin manager, a remote sensing specialist and when the Irrigation Department 24 hours operations room learned of this they took action to study the ground situation and allocate pumps for evacuation.

The three of who have built the platform for this effort are also scientists and engineers with experience in the environmental sciences, the communication of science, interpretation of scientific information, geographical information systems, and information technologies locally (at University of Moratuwa, University of Peradeniya, Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka, Institute of Fundamental Studies) and internationally (IBM, Indian University-Purdue University, Columbia University).

Since many relief workers do not have access to the internet, we hope to compile summaries of relevant information into a concise printable format, translate these into Sinhala and Tamil, and make it available for printing and distribution online. Volunteers in various regions in Sri Lanka are needed to print and distribute the assembled dossiers and updates and to collect information from those without internet access particularly in regions close the affected zones. Please let us know if you can volunteer to contribute time, energy and resources. Please indicate how you can help and what you have to offer. Please contact us by our websites, email, fax or post.

Contact Persons: Zeenas Samsudeen / Janaki Chandimala / Manjula Siriwardhene
Address: Natural Resources Management Services, Dam Site, Polgolla.
Email: slmohn@sltnet.lk
Fax: 94-81-2494809

Site Developers
Neil Devadasan
Vidhura Ralapanawe
Lareef Zubair