I did a search, and could only find T'owd lads topic that seemed to "almost" fit the bill.
However, seeing as the news is always filled with Britain's magnaminus donations to foreign aid, does anyone know what the provisions are for the ever mounting damage for disasters in britain?
It seems to me, that a lot of the damages caused by flooding and coastal erosion, are dismissed with the "excuse" that prevention would be too expensive.
Surely, the billions set aside for overseas aid, would be a great help in sorting out the problems here at home.
I realise that the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean was a major disaster, but the Bascome and North Yorkshire flash floods were definitely a disaster to the people concerned. The same follow on problems, of rebuilding, and damage to future business etc.
There would also be a fair chance of controlling where the money is spent.

Got to agree with you to a fair degree on that point.

Just read recently that whilst the ongoing development goes on in the Far East as they try to rebuild their lives, there are still great stockpiles of stuff in storage not going anywhere fast.

One of the causes of that is because of the following action;

The local tradesmen have also apparently jumped on the bandwagon now and they have formed collectives where they all charge the same rates/quotes but they now charge what are known as UN rates which are highly inflated becuase they know they are the only people avaliable locally capable of doing the rebuilding.
Talk about ripping their own people off.

Local government has also now kicked in allowing the local fishermen to have their houses rebuilt but they have to be either 5 or 6 kms inland.

Okay so at least they can get back working and earning a living and they are obviously panicking which is why they are building the houses so far away from the shore.

The location will be no good to the fishermen as they will be too far away from the boats and all their kit and if another Tsunami hit, it would probably still hit their houses anyway.

Whenever I read about foreign countries needing aid , I can't help thinking about China .I'm probably a bit biased because I'm living there at the moment and there's such a lot I admire about their way of life.
Anyway , the point is , put very simply , is that since 1949 , China has , "pulled itself up by its bootlaces ". I can't ever remember vast amounts of aid going regularly to China ? And yet , they have tranformed the largest populated country in the world and are rapidly heading towards being a modern , fairly prosperous society. This is despite everything that Nature could throw at them :---floods , earthquakes , drought.
How have they done this ? Mainly , I'm sure by sustained hard work , organisation and having a vision. Things are far from being perfect here and bad things have happened in the past-------but I don't think the Chinese authorities have behaved more cruelly than those in many African countries and if you're ruling a country the size of America and with 1,200,000,000 people there has to be a strong , even ruthless central control , as in the case of the Soviet Union's modernisation process.
All in all , China has shown that you can , "go it alone" , if the spirit is willing and you actually get down to the hard work.

but the disasters in this country are generally covered by insurance. Why , for example, should I give money to some millionaire whose house was flooded in North Yorkshire? They will undoubtedly be covered by their insurance.

Which ever way you look at it someone is sure to argue the opposite, I agree with Fareast that the Chinese are to be admired for the way they have brought their country up from being a near bankrupt state to the super power that it is now. However I do still have visions in my mind of the Tiananmen Square bloodshed and that clouds my judgment on China.

I do worry that the Tsunami disaster will turn into another get rich quick scheme for the rulers of those countries affected by it, but I couldn't say hand on heart that it would prevent me from giving to that disaster fund even if only a small percentage of donations make it to those affected then surely it has to be a risk worth taking.

You pay your money and take your pick.

Some people seem to be missing the point here. There have been a few "Re-Visits" to areas that have been flooded, some of them for the second time in a year, and many of them have not been able to move back to their homes yet. Most of these people are definitely not millionaires, and most of them will be charged very high rates for insurance in the future.
Blair and Brown are making much of the fact that they are wiping out debts for third world countries, which enables the leaders to buy another personal jet, or a couple more armoured limosines. Not to mention their personal swiss bank accounts.
They make much of starting trade schemes etc. but at the same time, they are back-tracking on their responsibilities to their own people. The scandal of the "Tax Credit" repayment demands. The flood prevention schemes that are "Too Expensive".
Why don't they wipe out the Council tax debts for pensioners?
Improve the pay for NHS workers?
Build more Hospitals here? Not in Africa.?
I have first hand experience of "Aid" for Africa, and Owd Lad is right in saying that only a few pennies of the donations trickle through to the needy.