The Faithful City has not failed them...

After a fund-raising drive at St Peter's Garden Centre in Norton, near Worcester, over the New Year, The Rotary Club of Worcester South has been able to provide 10 shelterboxes - each of which has enough equipment to house a family of 10.

"The response has been fantastic. We raised more than £5,000 at the garden centre. People were very, very generous," said senior vice president of the club, Ian Cutbill.

Each of the boxes - which will be shipped to Sri Lanka - contain a tent, 10 sleeping bags, cooking utensils and water containers, as well as equipment like hammers and pliers for rebuilding projects.

The contents of the boxes were on display so people visiting the garden centre could see what their money was buying, added Mr Cutbill.

"When people donate to us they can be sure that their money is reaching their destination, and is being used appropriately," he explained.

"The boxes are sent to places were they can be supervised by Rotary members," said Mr Cutbill.

Six members of the Rotary Club will be rattling their buckets at Worcester Garden Centre, on Droitwich Road, on Saturday and Sunday, January 8 and 9.

Phone firm is dialling 'm' for mercy

A MOBILE phone hardware stall will donate some of this week's profits to the Asian tsunami appeal.

Fone Market, which has a stall in Angel Place, Worcester, is going to donate £2.50 from every mobile phone cover sale, and £3 from every unlocking process it carries out this week to help victims of the disaster around the Indian Ocean. The unlocking service allows users to keep their number even if they switch to a new phone.

Delay is deadly

IT is perhaps only once in a lifetime or even in a generation that a calamity occurs of such colossal and earth-shaking proportions that it stops us in our tracks.

A calamity that impresses on us most suddenly and dramatically what not to take for granted, one that reminds us of destructive forces beyond our control... one that shakes us out of our ingrained habit of caring mostly for ourselves and those around us.

The current crisis in Asia is one such calamity. It has inflicted untold damage and casualties that can still only be guessed at, on some of the poorest places in the world.

Two of them - Sri Lanka and Aceh province in Indonesia - have recently suffered the horrors of civil war. At least the tsunami puts those conflicts into some kind of perspective.

But it is in my experience since I became Ambassador for Unicef in 2001, that the more we know about these things the more we realise what we do not know. Even now, only the sketchiest of reports have come in from the remotest and worst-affected communities.

There is an especially worrying lack of information from Nicobar and Andaman islands in the Indian Ocean, directly in the path of the tsunami, where 45,000 people are at risk.

What is tragically clear, however, is that across the affected countries it is the children who have suffered and are suffering, disproportionately. Unicef estimates that one third of the victims of this disaster are children.

The very young are the most vulnerable to the next stage of this killer catastrophe - cholera and other diseases arising from the destruction of fresh water supplies and the contamination of water by whatever human and animal remains may be decomposing in it.

Children need special help and are least able to take care of themselves. Unicef is working first and foremost to keep children in affected areas alive.

Their number one priority is the health, well being and protection of these children who are becoming more and more vulnerable to disease.

Aid flights are giving hope, but are nowhere near enough. With every day that passes the need will grow and I believe that we the British public have a special part to play.

We are a generous people. We are an international people. We need to do our bit.

Orphaned... and nowhere to go

SHE sat waiting vigil on the seashore for her parents to return. But the angry waves only returned a fraying cream skirt that 13-year-old Tamarashi now wears at the relief camp that was once a marriage hall.

Every day, now, ends with a sting in its tail. For Tamarashi there is just one scene that opens and shuts and then plays again in her mind - how the waves swallowed her mother and father both of who were sitting under a coconut palm trying to sell their catch of fish.

From the thatched grille of her kitchen, Tamarashi saw the seas suddenly erupt taller than the coconut palm on the shore. "It just took me a second to land on the beach front screaming loudly. My mother, who was in a red saree was lifted off the beach about six feet high, and was getting folded into the raging waves that receded back as quickly as it had advanced," said Tamarashi crying softly into the palm of her hand.

It was only after three days that relief workers could coax Tamarashi to leave the beach.

Now she sits with her head bowed on black marble top of table that is generally filled with a marriage feast.

Silence as city ponders the pain

ALL over Worcestershire thousands of people fell silent yesterday to remember the estimated 150,000 who died in the tsunami disaster.

In common with millions across Europe, many people stopped in reflection for three minutes at midday.

Some stopped at work, others while they shopped or travelled, while some paid their respects at Worcester Cathedral.

The cross of St George flew at half-mast and the bells tolled before noon to call passers-by to mark the silence.

A book of condolence was opened and the Jesus Chapel set aside as a quiet area for those who wished to spend time in reflective thought.

The Archdeacon of Worcester, the Venerable Dr Joy Tetley, led prayers before the silence began to remember those killed and the millions more affected.

It was a disaster that touched those in distant lands and those much closer to home with John and Annie Hofton from Wichenford, near Worcester, among those missing and feared dead.

At the Tesco superstore in St Peter's, Worcester, customers needed no persuasion to join in the three-minute silence, said manager Andy Sanderson.

"There were about 300 customers in the store and the silence was perfectly adhered to," he said.

Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service firefighters and non-uniformed staff marked the silence outside Worcester fire station in Deansway .

"We made an announcement just before 12 and people stopped still where they were and movingly remembered this unfortunate tremendous loss of life.

"It was quite strange that in a normally noisy store there was complete silence."

Staff at Tesco continue to raise money for the Tsunami disaster appeal, with almost £3,000 collected already and more to come after staff pay for a non-uniform day today.

Blair's pledge on UN appeal

TONY Blair has pledged that Britain would respond "positively" to a United Nations appeal for the victims of the Asian tsunami.

Speaking at his monthly Press conference, Mr Blair repeated predictions that official British aid would run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

He hailed the "remarkable" response of the British public to the Boxing Day tragedy.

And he said his heart went out to the hundreds of British families who have lost loved ones. Many of those now listed as missing would eventually prove to have died, he said.

Mr Blair said: " We will respond positively to today's UN flash appeal."

Brown calls for debt freeze CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown today called for a new deal between the richest and poorest countries and a "shared resolve" to do everything possible to help victims of the Asian tsunami.

He praised the "unprecedented" demonstration of generosity in response to the disaster and said there was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver a new deal for the world's poorest countries.

Mr Brown called for a modern-day Marshall Plan along the lines of the original scheme set up by the United States to help Europe recover after the Second World War.

""The true test of the international community will be how we can fund and assist both the immediate day-to-day emergency services needs but also the long-term reconstruction of these countries.