Politicians, stars keep tsunami interest alive

When Colin Powell visited the Thai resort island of Phuket soon after the Indian Ocean tsunami struck, he talked to reporters outdoors, not far from kids playing football.

There was none of the intense security which usually surrounds a US Secretary of State, no frisking, no metal detectors, no bag searches, just worried Secret Servicemen and a Thai sniffer dog who preferred a nap.

Nobody had time for the formal trappings of a visit by a top representative of the world's only superpower.

Little more than a week later, Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin landed on Phuket yesterday with two film crews and an entourage filling four vans to find out what his foundation could do to help.

He was happy to give interviews to text reporters on an island recovering rapidly from the damage, but film crews were told to stay away from him because famed US talk show host Oprah Winfrey had exclusive rights to the pictures.

"It's all about the most vulnerable, the children of Phuket," Mr Martin said.

"It's all about learning and seeing which ways I can help."

But visits like these - to be followed this weekend by the arrivals of the prime ministers of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Canada - create animated debate among aid workers about whether they are useful or mere distractions.

To experienced senior officials of aid organisations who know only too well how quickly public interest in horrifying natural disasters fades, such visits have to be accommodated as they mount the biggest aid operation in world history.

"Public interest remains, but it needs to be stimulated a litle so people are aware of what's going on," Unicef spokesman John Budd said in Indonesia.

In fact, world politicians have shown restraint in staying away from Aceh on Indonesia's Sumatra island, where the tsunami created the greatest havoc and the biggest loss of life as it killed more than 150,000 people around the Indian Ocean.

Mr Powell and United Nations Secretary Kofi Annan flew over the devastation, but landed only briefly. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in Jakarta for an aid summit, said he would be too much of a distraction and wouldn't go.

"I frankly think that at the moment the resources of the military and so forth in Aceh are better employed looking after the people who've been hurt," Mr Howard said. Still, getting the story onto television screens and into newspapers around the world is what matters, experts say. Mihir Bhat, director of India's Disaster Mitigation Institute, cites the example of former US President Bill Clinton's visit to Gujarat two months after an earthquake killed 20,000 people in the western Indian state in 2001. The telegenic Mr Clinton helped keep the public's attention on a disaster that might otherwise have faded from memories, he said.

Suriwan Mankong, a 21-year-old student who clung on to a coconut tree after her one-storey concrete house was swept away on the Thai mainland north of Phuket and is now living in a tent, hopes Ricky Martin will have the same effect.

"He's a foreigner who cares about Thai people and I hope I'll get to see him. He might forget us in a few months, but I hope he doesn't," she said near Khao Lak, where most of the 5,300 people killed in Thailand died and which Mr Martin will be visiting today.