Calls for world relief agency

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32461, 23 November 1970, Page 15

Calls for world relief agency

fJV.Z.PjI.-Reuter—Copyright? LONDON, Nov. 22. The people of the Ganges Delta did not attract much attention until they were dead,” the “Sunday Times” says today.

Its editorial then asks: “Will enough, at last, have died to persuade the rich nations to protect the poor, against whom these acts of God so often strike?” Plainly, the “Sunday Times” adds, the United Nations would be the agencybest equipped to establish a permanent “anti - disaster operation.’’ “The main need is for a flexible administrative network which would draw troops from any nation, and arrange with member-states to stockpile medical and other supplies,” the newspaper says. “Above all, it could act preventatively by making available to poor people, as well as rich, the information and other fruits of satellites and other technology. The “Observer” says that the slowness with which relief is reaching the stricken people of East Pakistan is a matter of reproach to the whole world. “For years there has been talk about setting up perm-

anent disaster organisations, but they had never got beyond paper,” the “Observer” says. “The time has now come for the world’s richer nations to create what they can easily afford—a global network of relief depots, where drugs, food, tents, water-sterilisation equipment, and other life-saving necessities are permanently available. “No less Important, as disasters in Turkey and Peru have also shown, is a standby pool of helicopters and communications equipment, from which units could be rushed anywhere in the world to assess damage and speed aid on its way,” the “Observer” adds. The “Sunday Telegraph" also emphasises the lamentable delays in the dispatch of aid, blaming them on the absence of any appropriate organisation. The newspaper adds its voice to the call for an international rescue service, saying: “The time to make a start is now, before the next great natural disaster.”