Military Sealift Command supplies a dozen ships for tsunami relief
The U.S. Military Sealift Command will dispatch about a dozen ships to South Asia to perform tsunami disaster relief work.
The squadron has 43 machines that are capable of producing 600 gallons of potable water per hour from seawater. Five of the ships are capable of making 25,000 gallons of fresh water a day using the ships’ evaporators. The ships can pump water from ship to shore from up to two miles away using a system of floating hoses.
Two Military Sealift Command oil tankers will provide fuel to U.S. Navy ships in the tsumani relief area. Also, two Military Sealift Command oceanographic ships have been ordered into the affected area to conduct hydrographic surveys of the ocean bottom where the 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred Dec. 26.
The Military Sealift Command operates more than 110 non-combatant, civilian-crewed ships that provide replenishment and other logistics services to the Navy.