DUBAI, 31 December 2004 — The huge Asian communities in Gulf Arab states have mobilized to send aid to victims of a massive earthquake and tidal waves across Asia as the death toll from the disaster neared the 120,000-mark and millions more were left destitute.

In Saudi Arabia, where the government has pledged $10 million dollars in aid, local and expatriate communities have joined the effort. (See Page 6)

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities have directed the country’s Red Crescent Society to send emergency aid to the disaster-hit areas.

The Dubai-based Emirates National Oil Company and its subsidiary Emirates Petroleum Products Company said they had set up a disaster appeal, with collection boxes in service stations across Dubai and the adjacent emirate of Sharjah.

Dubai’s Emirates Airline said its cargo division had already dispatched the first 100 tents of a shipment of 1,000 donated by a local Sri Lankan benefactor to Colombo, in addition to five tons of foodstuffs sent to the Maldives.

The head of the Sri Lankan Business Council in Dubai and the nearby northern emirates, Dulal Wyjeyasinghe, said an aircraft would fly to Colombo carrying medicines, foodstuffs and blankets, much of it donated by companies in the UAE, as professional associations join Sri Lankan missions in collecting relief aid.

Appeals for donations are also being made on the country’s radio stations.

In Kuwait, the Indian Embassy appealed to members of its 460,000-strong community to contribute to the prime minister’s national relief fund either directly to New Delhi or through the mission.

“People have started donating... We have received plenty of calls from people asking how to make the donations. We are asking for cash donations for the PM fund,” First Secretary A.K. Chandehoke told AFP.

The Sri Lankan Embassy is coordinating with Kuwait’s Red Crescent Society in shipping aid to Sri Lanka, where the society said it has flown some 40 tons of aid. Kuwaiti relief workers are on the ground there to help distribution.

The society, which has sent several planeloads of aid to disaster-hit areas, is also handling the dispatch of $2 million worth of aid donated by the Kuwaiti government. Expatriate communities have also swung into action in Oman.

“I’m trying to mobilize the British community with the help of the British Embassy,” Briton Chris Magness, a language center director, told AFP.

The Times of Oman appealed to the public to “spare a day’s salary for the victims of the biggest natural calamity of recent times.”

The Indian Embassy, whose nationals make up the largest foreign community in Oman, said a special account had been opened for donations, while the Pakistani Embassy said its 70,000-strong community in the sultanate was also contributing extensively to help the quake victims.

In Bahrain, an Indian Embassy official said a committee representing Indian associations in the Gulf state was collecting medicine, clothes and food and would soon launch a fundraising campaign.