A U.N. disaster team has been sent to the Solomon Islands to determine who the international community could help, following a tsunami that hit South Pacific country on Monday. At the request of the Solomon government, the United Nations sent a six-person disaster team to the area, where they will team with Telecoms sans Frontieres (TSF) to provide telecommunications support for relief operations. Part of this crisis, as with all these crises, is that the communications have been knocked out with all the other infrastructure, said U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker. The Solomon Islands government declared a state of emergency Monday, asking for donations of tents, tarpaulins, food, utensils, water, containers, medical supplies, clothing, and tools. In addition to physical help from the United Nations and TSF, a number of organizations have made monetary donations or in-kind assistance, including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which donated $53,000 to help 2,000 people, as well as the New Zealand government and New Zealand and Solomon Islands Red Cross societies.
