Political part : Biggest earthquake in 40 years hits Southeast Asia

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Giancarlo


How fast was "faster"? Still very slow right? A finnish girl died on the airport while waiting? That's unacceptably slow. What is with Europe?

You are a European, you should know.

[laurentius]

I watched the Press Conference. I guess I missed his "There are no casualties in Khao Lak". The governments job is not to act hastily but to coordinate the relief efforts and cooperate with local authorities.

You seem to have a fixation against Mr. Tuomioja, undoubtly because he is a social democrat. As for Mr. Niinistö, he didnt show statesmanship by whining about how he had to lie to some Finnish tourists. He was ******* again as usual.

[laurentius]

Pekka, why do you always need someone to blame? I'm sure everyone in Foreign Ministry has done 300% more than you have to help the victims. They are doing their best. And what exactly has Mr. Tuomioja done wrong besides been wearing a "30 € suit"?


Mr. Niinistö as a neo-liberal idiot has always stressed the fact that in the end everyone must take care of themselves. Now he whines how the Bankok embassy wasnt giving him enough help. He is just a flip flopping sorry ass hillbilly.

[Pekka]

That's right I'm pissed off. They said.. their response, today's response was 'we didn't know how big the disaster was, it came as a total surprise to us'. Well I was watching BBC and CNN and it was pretty obvious the disaster is horrible. They knew the next day there are over 2000 Finns there. So what the hell was the excuse for the slow response time?

Have you heard the survivor stories? They say they saw no Finns anywhere. They didn't see anyone on the airports. They had to use Swedes there to make up some plans, because there were no finns. ONE SINGLE Finn was sent to Bangkok to the airport as an action, because they expected some of our citizens will be there soon. One person!??! That's it.

Did you hear that NO ONE came to see anyone in the hospitals to gather the names of Finns for many days? it was the scuba diver guy who has done it all virtually. He is the hero in there, who gathers them together, or at least their names.

and HE says that there's no Finns around there, no one from embassy, ministery, or even travel agencies. For days?! It takes only one person to go over the nearest hospitals. No one came. NO ONE. For days? You call that excellent? That's ****ing horrible action. It has been the local people who have helped us in there, feeding them and rescuing, and some Finns have been rescuing themselves because no one is coming to help. They are super bitter, have you heard their comments? NO ONE has said they did a good job. virtually all have said they are pissed off, because they were totally left alone there for days. Thanks to locals is that they are now where they are. They are the ones who they are grateful.

They had the FRF, Finnish Rescue Force, trained for these things, and they weren't deployed. Even they said they were amazed no one called them to say GO GO GO. They were all mentally ready already right after they heard the news. No one sent them. Ministery made the call on that one. How can you call that excellent?

There will be many dead because of theri slow response time and incompetent follow up. They need to be airlifted out of there ASAP. The temperature is up, they have too much to take care on their own there already, and we're now fixing up a plane to get the badly wounded ones? Thanks to Finnair they actually could do it! It took 3 hours for the mechanics to turn one plane into ambulance plane. That's heroic effort. 3 hours! It took less than that to get granted the permission to turn the plane itno that and fly it from the aviation what ever federation. They got doctors and nurses, qualified ones fast who volunteered. The plane is about to go there soon. But people are dying there because of this ****. SO the pro's needed only so and so many hours to do all this, while our ministery is drinking coffee and thinking what should we do?

It's not impossible to start preparations first, and then see how it develops. This is what should have been done. And yes they are only humans. But humans do get fired from their jobs when they **** up. This **** up have costed lives.

[Pekka]

I already SAID what he has done wrong. Why do you keep defending this bastard? Oh they have done more than me? **** that's a surprise. If it would be the other way around we should hang them you know. Do you know the scuba diver has done more than the ministery, perhaps by 10000%?

I'm not the only one blaming. It seems like you're the only one defending him.

And yes, Niinistö was pissed off because TUomioja said there are no casualties in Khao Lak. Because he was there defending his life and his sons life. Would you not get pissed off when this cheap whore is there saying these things? because 'I haven't heard there were any casualties'. NO! That's wrong. He should have said 'I don't know yet!'. That makes him incomptenet.

[laurentius]

Did you even watch the interview? I did and he never said such thing.

According to Ilta-Sanomat website online poll 53 % of 12000 people agree with me.

[Pekka]

I have been watching telly more than just today's conference. So that wasn't it. It happened earlier FYI.

yes, and 47 disagrees. You realize, if 53% say they did OK job, and 47 say they ****ed it up, they ****ed it up.

They are doing good now. They didn't do it in the critical moment, and that's the big difference.

[Pekka]

OK. I make more .. coherent post.

THe actions they are now taking are just fine. They are doing all they can. I agree.

Response time, pathetic. They say they couldn't have known. They seem to be the only ones not watching news then. They were horrible lagging on their info. That is incompetent behaviour. They should be on the top of the sitaution, what ever it is.

Now, they started the big preparations after their response. Not before, after. We would have had that ambulance plane ready to go there on tuesday, had they just decided to do that. At that point they had the data of Finns, they had 'at least 200 are missing, more injured'. They knew the coniditions of the place, the medical conditions and the severety of the situation. It's only now starting to grow as more horrible disaster. If we have those teams, whose sole purpose is to save our citizens in distress in disasters in foreign lands, why weren't they sent AT ALL? What kind of a disaster it has to be. 200 isn't enough? And why can't they prepare it so they are ready, when the decision is made?

They just can't handle these crisis situations professionally. They're newbies. What they should have done is get suggestions and then ask 'what is the worst case scenario, what are we talking about'. That's it! They knew there were over 2000 finns there. SO the worst case scenario is 'BAD'. Next up 'OK, prepare, use these measures, have them ready in case we need to send in..'.
And then with their late response they could have anounced 'we have sent x and y already'. NOT 'we're thinking of measures we can take'. You know, it's matter of hours for many in there injured.

You call everyone up, you start the measurements and follow the situations. You don't call someone, follow the situation half assed and then decide something.

[laurentius]

I guess you would have done everything so much better. I wonder why you arent coordinating these things. Just what we need right now, another Besserwisser

EDIT: 54% agree with me.

[Ming]

While you can use this thread to further your own political agendas... and people who have no interest in listening to such rants can avoid this thread...

We will not tolerate personal insults or flaming... so be civil, or be restricted.

[Pekka]

No, I'm saying we need to have competent people in there. Now that they proved to be not so good as possible, they need to go and we put people there who know their stuff. We're talking about crisis managment. You need to have professionals there.

You know, you're basically saying 'they're doing their best'. Too bad, their best isn't enough. We need better people up there whose best is better than these average joe's.

[Chemical Ollie]

Apart from rescuing our own citizens, a Swedish water treatment team and a Finnish-Norwegian field hospital are on their way to Sri Lanka. But much more would be needed. Our own citizens are just a minor part of the disaster, after all.

[Arrian]

I think a good point was made in the main thread: the final figures aren't going to be in for a while. And it's quite important to keep in mind that individuals will give lots and lots of money to aid organizations - and accurately tallying all of that will likely not happen. The donation I made, for instance, might not be counted because I donated to the Red Cross international response fund, which isn't solely dedicated to the Tsunami relief effort.

So this business of "my country gave more money than your country" is a fools game. I agree that the US should take a major role in the relief effort, and it seems that we are.

-Arrian

[Pekka]

Also note that in that poll, the question asks if you are disappointed at the actions of the Finnish leadership.

The ones who say no say no. The ones who say yes, most of them say they are pissed off at Tuomioja and want him to resign. See the difference? I haven't blamed the president, whjo is also social democrat. I haven't blamed the red cross who is taking the bigger action, or anyone else. Just Tuomioja. And he's the one getting ALL the flak from the 46% of people.

I'm not disappointed at the rest of them. Tuomioja, bye bye. Unfortunately he won't even consider resigning.

[laurentius]

He has no reason to. He has said to have done excellent job by everyone who has been working with him.