MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Tsunami fisheries update.

More than two weeks have passed since huge tidal waves hit islands and countries in the Indian Ocean, taking thousands of human lives and devastating fishing communities throughout the region.

Unprecedented global response is now in full blow to rebuild the damaged areas and prevent any further loss of life, with pledges from world governments nearing the USD 4 billion mark.

In India, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) pledged INR 600 million (USD 13.7 million) and a comprehensive relief package for tsunami victims, which includes waiving outstanding loans for affected fishermen and interest-free loans to help them rebuild fishing fleets and gear.

More than 1,000 fishermen from the Indian-ruled Andaman and Nicobar Islands are still struggling to make ends meet after fears of contamination prompted a severe drop in seafood demand. Although fishers say they are ready to go back to sea, the Fisheries Department is not allowing them access to the waters.

About 2,500 fishermen from the Indian Rameswaram Island took to the sea one week after the tsunami on 600 vessels once the waters were deemed safe for plying, and returned with catches below expectations. They had expected plentiful landings tantamount to the ones that normally follow a cyclone or a similar phenomenon.

In the west of India, the outlook is quite different. The Gujarat region, for instance, is reporting a rise in seafood prices, between 30 and 75 per cent, attributed chiefly to a reduction in fish supplies.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan fishers, who returned home not only to find their coastal communities devastated but also to have their catches rejected by consumers for fears that their fish had been feasting on human corpses or infected with viruses, sent a shipment of fish to the president as part of efforts to encourage citizens to resume seafood consumption.

Surprisingly, Burma came out of the tsunami disaster relatively unscathed, with many fishing villages escaping serious damage.

In east Africa, 12,000 tsunami-affected Somalis have been supplied with 218 metric tonnes of food aid by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Most of the recipients are fishers whose boats, gear, and dwellings were destroyed by the 26 December disaster, which had reached 3,728 miles over to its shores. The WFP has already distributed 277 metric tonnes of food to aid 17,000 people, and further relief is forthcoming.

Despite warnings by the Hong Kong government urging residents to refrain from consuming seafood from affected areas, experts have allayed fears saying that the impact on fish was insubstantial. The city's health authorities had called on traders to stop importing seafood from South Asian countries on grounds that fish may have ingested heavy metals stirred up from the seabed by the seismic event.

Thailand's fishing and processing sector, on the other hand, is urging consumers to eat seafood. The Thai Overseas Fisheries Association said that over 50 per cent of Thai-consumed seafood comes from the deep ocean outside the nation's economic exclusive zone. Moreover, the Public Health Ministry's Health Department confirmed that most fish and shellfish do not feed on corpses. Instead, most species feed on living prey.

In the United States, the president of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), John Connelly, said he was "shocked and saddened" by the scale of the recent tragedy in the Indian Ocean, and announced the creation of the Seafood Community Tsunami Victim's Fund, which is campaigning to collect money from members of the US seafood community to support tsunami victims and help prevent additional loss of life.

By Robet Cox - FIS