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Belgium sends fast intervention team to Tsunami-stricken areas
12/1/2005 4:03

Belgium sent on Tuesday a fast intervention team consisting of over 100 aid workers to the Tsunami-stricken areas in Southeast Asia.

The "B-fast", or the military and volunteer forces of Belgium, set off on Tuesday morning heading for Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which are among the hardest hit countries in the Tsunami disaster on Dec. 26 of last year.

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht and Defense Minister Andre Flahaut were at the Belgian military airfield Melsbroek to see off the team.

Around 70 members of the team are to help with the organization of refugee camps in the region around Galle (Sri Lanka). They will also be involved in the general clear up operation, the repair of fishing boats and the purification of water.

Defense Minister Flahaut added that this is a concrete mission that forms part of the reconstruction of the affected areas.

The rest of the team will first go to Medan and then to a place near Banda Aceh.

There, the team will help set up camps, offering shelter to some 3,000 people who have been made homeless by the disaster.

They will support a German medical team who have set up a fieldhospital there, along with some 120 co-workers.

Guy Verhofstadt told the press that the measures taken by Belgium are both important and necessary, adding that it is also important to continue to send workers to the affected areas in the coming weeks and months.

In total, Belgium is to send around 500 aid workers, volunteers and military to Southeast Asia.

There remain around 50 Belgians missing in Southeast Asia, and six were dead in the disaster.



 Xinhua