At the height of the floods in Thailand in October and November, the Jesuit Foundation Prison Ministry continued to reach out to the many prisoners it has befriended in the country’s overcrowded prisons. Vilaiwan Phokthavi, Director, Jesuit Prison Ministry tells us how the floods affected prisoners in three prisons.
An estimated 20 million people across Southeast Asia have been affected by flooding since June. Most are in Thailand, but typhoons struck the Philippines in October, and Laos was hit by cyclones in July and August. About 1.8 million people in Cambodia and Vietnam are also suffering from the worst flooding in a decade. Myanmar also is experiencing flooding, though the extent is unclear because little information has been released from the country. Local media there reported some 30,000 people were hit by flash floods last month that killed more than 160.
On October 30, 2011
As the floodwaters in Cambodia recede, the work of recovery and reconstruction begins. Fr Greg Priyadi SJ, Director of Jesuit Service Cambodia, reflects on the damage caused of by worst floods the country has experienced in years and the tough times faced by the people who have lost their homes, their harvest and their livelihoods.
Floods have devastated Cambodia since August and at the beginning of October had affected 1.2 million people. Tess O’Brien, a volunteer with Jesuit Refugee Service in Cambodia, provides an update.
The earthquake and resulting tsunami that killed some 14,000 last March in Japan has caused another tsunami, this time of solidarity and outreach, said the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.
“Caritas Internationalis has done a great job coordinating all these resources. This effort has enabled Caritas Japan in recent weeks to provide food, blankets and basic necessities to more than 10,000 people affected,” said Cardinal Robert Sarah in an interview with XENIT upon his return from a mission trip to Japan in May during which he visited the most affected places.
She sat quietly at the corner bench. The crowd was pressing in that small omise (a videoke snack bar which draws memories from times past when entertainers/ talents came in droves to almost all corners of Japan to earn a living, in an illusive quest for a dream, most of which turned to a nightmare). But, these are different times. The omise was not for “happy hour”, rather to break the sad news that not much of control is being gained over the nuclear reactors affected by the tsunami.
A group of volunteers from Tokyo spent the last week of March in Sendai, helping out at the emergency centre set up by the Sendai Diocese with the cooperation of Caritas Japan to coordinate humanitarian aid operations in Sendai. Among them was Fr Yasunori Yamauchi, one of our newly ordained Jesuits in Japan. He shares his reflection here.
On 04 October, Fr Heribertus Pardjijo Bratasudarma (IDO) wrote, “In Siem Reap the floods started on Wednesday morning, but it came to the church only on Wednesday evening. The Siem Reap River that divides Siem Reap town was overflowing. Over half of Siem Reap town was flooded. Most parts of Old Market were flooded. The 
church was flooded from the water from the river and from the water that kept flowing from the back of the church from villages.
May 2nd marked the anniversary of the Cyclone Nargis which devastated the Delta in Myanmar, leaving around 150,000 dead and 2.4 million affected.