Sri Lanka

When disaster strikes developing countries they often strike hard. Over 30 000 Sri Lankan people died in the first and the second tsunami wave end of December 2004.

Ericsson Response sent out two volunteers, Jan Herremo and Rikard Sohlberg, for a telecommunications assessment in Sri Lanka immediately after the disaster.

Relief work continues long after the actual disaster situation though, and the Ericsson Response volunteer Torbjörn Söderberg (employee at Ericsson Kumla, Sweden) has now been sent to Sri Lanka as support to the United Nations (UN) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP). On location he will assist the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) team, which is one of the cornerstones in WFP's operations, with radio and IT support.

WFP has shipped around 53 359 tons of food into Sri Lanka since January 2005, and as a direct support to the people that supply the food to the needy, Söderberg, together with rest of the ICT team, strives to ensure communication at all times for the staff in the field.

"One of our main objectives here is to see to that the staff in the field can reach the base station with the VHF hand held radios at any times." Söderberg says. He continues, "Today, an independent VHF system is essential for security and information purposes for staff working in the field."
 
Sri Lanka was already suffering years of civil war when the tsunami struck the north-east-south part of the country and made a lot of people lose their homes. Many communities were completely devastated.

Söderberg talks about his experiences, "I have traveled throughout the eastern part of Sri Lanka and visited a former flourishing village where the only remains now, 10 months after the tsunami struck, are concrete foundations of former beautiful buildings and peoples homes." He continues, "We also traveled throughout the lowlands in the northeast, with rice fields and palm trees along the roads. The trees are black to the color and rotten inside, and no crops can grew because of the salt water for the ocean has polluted the land and all the growing plants. One local person told me that it will take many years before the land is fertile again, and that they hope for heavy rains so that maybe they can start off slowly in the spring time."

Torbjörn Söderberg is deployed to WFP for three months and although he is stationed in Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka, he will also do several field trips to support the sub-offices around the country.