Boxing Day Research Articles

As Seen on TV or was That My Phone? New Media Literacy

Media literacy studies traditionally have been the domain of the English and Language Arts classrooms. Cultural studies has not made significant inroads into school-based media studies although, like media studies, it too is concerned with the politics of image/text representations. Information literacy, which also passes as computer or technology literacy, has focused principally on the teaching of operational ‘how-to’ skills. In the last decade, consumers have abandoned newspapers, magazines and network television en masse in favour of cable and Internet news and entertainment sources. Fast news and 24/7 coverage – of 9/11, the US presidential 2004 campaign, world soccer, the 2003 Bali bombings, or the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami in South-east Asia – are global spectacles watched by billions. Given the rapid drift towards media convergence, and consumer shifts from ‘old’ to ‘new’ media, it is argued that media literacy studies, cultural studies, information or technology studies can no longer be taught independently of each other.

Tsunami, Text and Trauma: Hermeneutics after the Asian Tsunami

AbstractThis essay is about the political and hermeneutical ramifications of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which had such a devastating effect upon millions of people. The first section deals with how a national disaster like a tsunami becomes a vehicle for both decolonization and recolonization. In Dutch colonial Indonesia, an earlier tsunami became in the hands of nationalists an ideal gift to whip up anti-colonial sentiments. The current humanitarian reconstruction, with all its good intentions, lends itself to economic, cultural and spiritual neo-colonialism. The second section looks at how the biblical flood story was utilized for the justification of colonial projects such as the invasion of South America and also used as a benchmark to evaluate and judge other peoples' history and chronology, and how in the process the authenticity of the biblical account was established. The third section addresses the theological reactions of different faith communities, which tend either to blame an angry God for the misfortune, or attribute the disaster to the misbehavior of the people. The last section advances the idea that a possible place to look for an answer to the theological conundrum produced by the tsunami is in secular stories which, in contemporary society, act as surrogate sacred texts. The essay analyses two novels—José Saramago's The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, and Vicente Leñero's The Gospel of Lucas Gavilán, which shed new light on old stories and offer a complex picture of God.

Globalisation, Architecture and Peace-Building

From the targeted demolition of Mostar's Stari-Most Bridge in 1993 to the physical and social havoc caused by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, the history of cities is a history of destruction and reconstruction. What is the capacity for the design profession to assist in the physical and social rebuilding of cities and communities destroyed by war? This paper will examine the multiple roles of design professionals (which here includes architects, planners, urban designers and landscape architects) in the rebuilding of a range of cities decimated by armed conflict. By working 'sans frontiers', I suggest that architects and design professionals have a significant opportunity to assist peace-making and reconstruction efforts in the period immediately after conflict or disaster, when much of the housing, hospital, educational, transport, civic and business infrastructure has been destroyed. The aim of my exploration is to expand the traditional role of the architect from 'hero' to 'social reformer' and discuss how design practitioners and design educators can stretch their wings to encompass the proliferating agendas and sites of uncivil unrest.

Health surveillance among a team of Australian health workers assisting tsunami victims in Aceh, Indonesia

To determine the extent and nature of health-related behaviours and outcomes among members of the first foreign medical team to arrive in Aceh, following the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. A cross sectional survey of team members 4 weeks after return from Aceh. Compliance with antimalarial chemoprophylaxis and insect repellent was high while in Aceh, but only one-third completed the course of chemoprophylaxis. The provision of prepackaged food and water was likely to have prevented enteric disease. Members reported mosquito bites, fatigue, sunburn, headache and anxiety about earthquakes. Provision of prepackaged food and water, preventive measures and information to members may be important in avoiding illness in such teams.

Antinomies of generosity: Moral geographies and post-tsunami aid in Southeast Asia

The Indian Ocean Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004 generated a wave of private donations from Western countries – a paradigmatic case of generosity. However, more than a year after, a number of evaluation studies conclude that post-tsunami aid has achieved ambivalent results and that recipients of aid felt excluded from the reconstruction process, reduced to passive observers. This paper argues that there is a link between the abundance of generosity and the practices of aid: the practices of gift giving after the tsunami have developed a humiliating force for those who were at the recipient end of the gift chain, because the marketing of Western generosity by media and aid agencies reinforced those affected by the tsunami as “pure” victims, as “bare life” – passive recipients devoid of their status as fellow citizens on this planet. In a second step, the paper discusses the meta-ethics of these practices of generosity, thinking about the ambivalences inherent in bridging distance in encountering the “distant” other in our aid practices. Various forms of virtue ethics reflect this emphasis on the generous person, while neglecting the perspective of the person in need, and therefore implicitly reproduce those asymmetries of gift giving. In contrast to these conceptions, I want to argue that we need to ground our duty to help distant sufferers in their moral entitlement to be aided. This requires a meta-ethical approach that seeks a combination of a theory of justice with virtue ethics.

Statistical Simulation of Boxing Day Tsunami of The Indian Ocean and a Predictive Equation for Beach Run up Heights Based on Work-Energy Theorem

The tsunami similar to the one that has occurred in December 26, 2004 (Boxing Day Tsunami) in the Indian Ocean is simulated using the expression derived from Modified Weibull Distribution (for maximum wave height simulation) for extreme wave height predictions. The tuning coefficient plays a significant role in estimating the tsunami heights at various stages. It follows well defined mathematical laws at different stages. It is time dependent in the first three stages and depth dependent in the last two stages. The beach run-up heights estimated by the expression derived from the work-energy relation are comparable with observed values with reasonable accuracy.

BARBER, A. J., CROW M. J. & MILSOM J. S. 2005. Sumatra. Geology, Resources and Tectonic Evolution. Geological Society Memoir no. 31. ix + 290 pp. London, Bath: Geological Society of London. Price £85.00, US $153.00; GSL members' price £42.50, US $77.00; AAPG/SEPM/GSA/RAS/EFG/PESGB members' price £51.00, US $92.00 (hard covers). ISBN 1 86239 180 7

BARBER, A. J., CROW M. J. & MILSOM J. S. 2005. Sumatra. Geology, Resources and Tectonic Evolution. Geological Society Memoir no. 31. ix + 290 pp. London, Bath: Geological Society of London. Price £85.00, US $92.00 (hard covers). ISBN 1 86239 180 7 - Volume 143 Issue 6

Lessons learned from tsunami damage in Sri Lanka

Around 300 000 people were killed by the tsunami that followed the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake on Boxing Day 2004, making it one of the worst disasters in modern history. Up to 40 000 died in Sri Lanka alone, where around 80 000 houses were also destroyed when waves up to 15 m high swept ashore. This paper reports on how coastal buildings and infrastructure in Sri Lanka behaved under various tsunami wave heights and the many lessons learned for reducing vulnerability to future events. In particular, newly published national guidelines for reconstruction emphasise the importance of tying down structures against upward and lateral loads as well as the need to anticipate and reduce soil scour around foundations, especially of backfilled earth.

Comments on “Coastal mangrove forests mitigated tsunami” by K. Kathiresan and N. Rajendran [Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 65 (2005) 601–606

In a paper published recently in the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Kathiresan and Rajendran (2005) present a case study on the mitigating effect of mangroves on lives against tsunami. They use simple linear regressions to identify factors responsible for differences in per-capita mortality between 18 coastal hamlets in Tamil Nadu, India in the wake of the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. They find that mortality is significantly associated with hamlet elevation, distance from sea and the area of coastal frontage given to From these analyses, they primarily conclude that human habitation should be encouraged...behind dense mangroves and or other coastal vegetation. This is a potentially important finding and, if true, could save many lives in future. However, we have found several fundamental errors in their statistical analysis that undermine their main conclusion. We discuss these issues below.

Responding to the Boxing Day tsunami disaster in Aceh, Indonesia: Western and South Australian contributions

To describe the Western and South Australian response to the Boxing Day tsunami disaster in Aceh, Indonesia. Reports from three of the responders. Comment has been made on organising a response, the first team to Banda Aceh, the second team to Banda Aceh, and lessons learned. These experiences have identified areas in which we could be better prepared for the next international disaster response.

Disability, Tsunamis and Other Acts of God

This Australian author reflects on the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami, the use of the phrase acts of God to explain catastrophes like this, and the impact on people with disabilities of a fundamentalist interpretation.

Responding to the mental health and psychosocial needs of the people of Sri Lanka in disasters

This paper describes the mental health and psychosocial response to the Boxing Day tsunami in Sri Lanka. The need to deal with the immediate psychological distress of survivors and provide psychosocial support after the tsunami was recognized early by the President of Sri Lanka and advisory group set up. In conjunction with the WHO regional office and local representatives, a National Plan of action for management and delivery of psychosocial and mental health care needs was set up. Advice was provided on the right type of psychological approaches to use when dealing with survivors–for example, not forcing people to relive their experiences, listening without offering opinions and not diagnosing or labelling people as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The early response and community level work are described in this paper as well as how this has led to a new level of disaster preparedness and a new national mental health policy and proposals for new mental health legislation.

Lessons Learned from Large‐scale Comparative Dental Analysis Following the South Asian Tsunami of 2004

The aim of this study was to examine the quality of the ante-(AM) and postmortem (PM) dental data that were submitted for entry into the PLASS data system in Phuket, Thailand, following the Boxing Day (December 26) Tsunami, 2004. The investigators were two forensic odontologists who were part of the New Zealand Disaster Victim Identification team that worked at Wat Yang Yao morgue and at the Information Management Center in Phuket. Our findings underline the usefulness of dental data in human identification, but point to a number of significant sources of error. Of the 78 PM records received, only 68% of radiographs and 49% of photos confirmed the accompanying dental charting. This underlines the value, particularly of photographs of the dental arches, in quality control. It also points to a large error component, which may have been due to inexperience of the operators, fatigue, poor conditions in the temporary morgue, or the problem of tooth-colored fillings. Of the 106 AM records received, 62% were of unacceptable quality and 64% were either not accompanied by radiographs or had poor quality radiographs. These results indicate that AM data collection ideally needs to be collated and checked by a forensically trained dentist(s) in the country of origin.

Democracy of Emotion

Democracy of Emotion

Anaesthesia in a Disaster Zone: A Report on the Experience of an Australian Medical Team in Banda Aceh following the ‘Boxing Day Tsunami’

We report on the experience of a 23-member Australian medical team in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Arriving 13 days after the tsunami that devastated the city, killed 100,000 of its inhabitants and injured thousands more, we carried out 130 surgical procedures in austere conditions over a 12-day period. Most surgery was peripheral, principally for plastic surgical or orthopaedic procedures to lower limb injuries. Intravenous ketamine anaesthesia was the technique of choice, with good surgical conditions and few significant side-effects.

Killer waves at Yuletide: A hair-raising experience

I wake up suddenly about 8 am on Boxing Day morning—I blearily recollect a sharp repetitive sound, perhaps a knock on the door. I subside into semiconsciousness, only to be reawakened by the same rattling sound, this time localized to my bedside table. My wife Evelyn also wakes and asks me what's going on. I tell her my table is inexplicably wobbling, but it stops and my thoughts turn to breakfast and our plans for recreation in this delightful beach resort of Dusit Laguna Phuket. I get up to clean my teeth and am surprised to see my image in the mirror swaying—then I feel the building oscillating.

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy. July to December 2004

By the end of 2004, John Howard and his Coalition Government had emerged unequivocally victorious over the Labor opposition. From July 2005, the government will control the Senate and its increased margin in the House of Representatives will make it difficult for Labor to take government at the next election, due in 2007. Pilloried as a foreign policy dilettante in his first term of government, the subject of extensive criticism at home and abroad, particularly in Asia, Howard has placed his imprimatur on Australian foreign policy. The Hawke/Keating/Evans legacy of foreign policy has been well and truly erased by Howard and Downer. Support for multilateralism has been replaced unequivocally by bilateralism and an independent foreign policy within the US alliance has been replaced by slavish devotion to US security aims. Through the Australia/US Free Trade Agreement and a series of other bilateral trade deals, the Howard Government has shifted the direction of trade policy. Terrorism now dominates Australia's foreign policy and has huge implications for Australian law. But perhaps most surprising has been Howard's acceptance in Asia (at least for now) despite a myriad of mistakes and domestic electioneering. The commitment in January 2005 of a billion dollars to aid the Indonesian victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami generated widespread support both at home and in the region. Never one to lose himself in hubris, as was the case with his Labor predecessor, Howard has succeeded where Keating failed. No doubt Labor's efforts in the 1980s and 1990s were important for allowing room for Howard's mistakes in Asia, but the irony must be delicious for Howard, Downer and the Coalition: the affectionate, doting, even obsessed Asiaphile losing out to the US-enamoured, hard-to-get Anglophile.

Touch of humanity

Born in Jakarta to a Dutch father and Indonesian mother, London-based Magdalena Verheyen was profoundly affected by the Boxing Day tsunami, and flew to Sumatra to help.

Prelude and sarabande

Prelude and sarabande

The Asian Tsunami in Sri Lanka—a personal experience

At 9:30 a.m. local time (03:30 GMT) on Boxing Day, 26 December, my wife Lillian and I were eating breakfast at the beachside Triton Hotel, Ahungalla, Sri Lanka (about 30 km north of Galle). The previous week we had been touring Sri Lanka, ending our trip traveling through Yala National Park and Galle—places we hardly knew of before but images of which are now indelibly imprinted on the world (of about 150 staying at the Yala Safari Game Lodge, only 11 survived; the centre of Galle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a 16–17th century Portuguese/Dutch fort and port, is essentially gone).