Tsunami game taken off Web site

WASHINGTON – An online game to educate kids about tsunamis was pulled Friday from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Web site amid worries it trivialized last month’s devastation in Southeast Asia and beyond.

The game, which debuted on FEMA’s kids’ Web site in 1998, asked players to guide a car, a starfish, a surfboard and other objects back to their proper places after they were scattered by a tsunami. Winners were linked to a dancing frog.

“A tsunami has just hit FEMA Beach and has rearranged a few things,” the game directed. “Please put the 9 objects back where they belong to see the cyber-prize!”

FEMA spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said the game was first pulled from the award-winning kids’ site immediately after the Dec. 26 tsunami. But the agency later restored it after hearing complaints from teachers and educators who missed it, she said. It was removed for good on Friday because of “the current environment,” she said.

Educators who still want access to the game and other kid-friendly disaster education materials can contact FEMA, McBride said.

A spokesman for GiveWorld, a California-based online charitable organization, said the game risks trivializing the recent devastation.

The game “makes it look like after, life can be just be pulled back together,” said Upendra Bhatt, of GiveWorld’s board of directors. “And it’s not going to be that easy.”