The World’s Friendliest Countries 

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They say you can never go home again–and you may not want to after relocating to Canada, Bermuda or South Africa.

These are the countries where it’s easiest to befriend locals, learn the language, fit into the new culture and integrate into the community, according to respondents to HSBC Bank International’s Expat Explorer survey, the results of which were released late last month.

Canada was most welcoming for the second year in a row; more than half of survey-takers there said they’d made friends with locals. In Bermuda 57% have had the pleasure, and the same for South Africa.

To determine the world's friendliest countries, Forbes looked at the results of HSBC Bank International's Expat Explorer survey in four categories: ability to befriend locals, success in learning the local language, capacity for integrating themselves into the community, and ease in which they fit into the new culture.
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The top 10 are;

1. Canada

Expats based here typically integrate well within local society, according to the HSCB survey, with 45% claiming they go out with local friends as much as fellow expats--the highest score of all 25 countries.

Bermuda

Photo: Thinkstock

2. Bermuda

Those who have relocated to Britain's oldest colony (and beach paradise) report relative ease with local language and cultures.

South Africa

3. South Africa

A culturally diverse nation, this host country proved to be well equipped for welcoming all sorts of foreigners.

The U.S.

Photo: Thinkstock

4. The U.S.

The results of the survey suggest that ease of learning the local language and adapting to the local culture are areas in which the U.S. fares well in as an expat destination--despite low scores in organizing finances and health care.

Australia

Photo: Thinkstock

5. Australia

One of the main advantages of becoming an expat Down Under, according to the survey, is the ease of setting up in the country.

6. Spain

For the overall integration categories, Spain scored the highest--especially when it came to local friends, shopping, food, culture and language--suggesting that once expats in Spain settle in, they feel completely involved in their communities.

7. France

This country got high scores on integration, with expats especially enjoying the local food and culture, making it one of the most friendly, culturally rich and inclusive locations.

8. U.K.

Though it ranked poorly in terms of quality of life (with issues like crowded urban transportation systems dragging it down), the U.K. does well on ease of integration and of befriending locals.

9. Malaysia

Expats found it relatively simple to integrate themselves into this cosmopolitan locale, a blend of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures.

10. Germany

Despite difficulty making friends and learning the language, expats here reported it was a relatively easy place for integrating, with 46% saying they enjoyed the local entertainment and adapted well to the food.

 

Scores Die as Tsunami Hits Samoa Islands

SYDNEY, Australia — Powerful tsunamis generated by an undersea earthquake have killed at least 89 people and wiped out several villages on the tropical islands of American Samoa and Samoa, according to government officials, the police and local residents.
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Debris near a church in the village of Leone, American Samoa, on Wednesday.
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Times Topics: American Samoa
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Ardie Roque/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The roof of a destroyed house sits on a road in Leone, in American Samoa, on Tuesday morning.
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Christopher Moore of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looked at projected tsunami travel times at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. (Many tsunami warnings were later canceled.)
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The downtown of Fagatoga was flooded when a tsunami hit American Samoa early on Tuesday.

The earthquake, with a magnitude of 8.0, struck around dawn on Tuesday, as many residents were preparing for work and getting their children ready for school. Over the next 12 hours, 15 smaller quakes rumbled through the Samoan islands region and 14 more were recorded near Tonga, to the south, according to the United States Geological Survey.
At least 24 people were killed in American Samoa, according to officials there, and the territory’s governor, Togiola T.A. Tulafono, said in a news conference that the worst damage had been caused by the second and third waves in a series of four. There was also widespread devastation reported in the American Samoa capital of Pago Pago.

In a statement from the White House, President Barack Obama declared that “a major disaster exists in the Territory of American Samoa,” and he authorized federal aid to supplement local recovery efforts.

Filipo Ilaoa, deputy director of the American Samoan office in Honolulu, said that the tsunami struck the territory’s coast in “a matter of minutes” after the quake, and that many residents would not have had much time to run for higher ground.

“American Samoa is a small island, and most of the residents are around the coastline,” he said. “There was no warning or anything at all. By the time the alert was out of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, it had already hit.”

On Samoa, by Wednesday afternoon, 65 people had died and 145 had been injured, according to the general manager of the National Health Service, who spoke to the BBC.

There were reports late Wednesday that six people had been killed on Tonga, but those reports could not be immediately verified.

Officials and rescue teams worked throughout Wednesday to assess the damage and to begin relief efforts, and they said heavy destruction was being seen in the southern parts of Samoa and American Samoa, a United States territory with about 60,000 residents.

Samoa, governed by New Zealand until gaining its independence in 1962, has a population of 180,00 spread across its islands. Upolu, the second-largest of the islands, has numerous resorts and guesthouses along its southern shores, and initial reports from the coast described widespread destruction.

A Red Cross worker, Sati Young, speaking to Radio New Zealand, said waves 10 feet high had flattened beachside resorts on Upolu, and that residents told him the tourist zone of Lalomanu had been crushed by a 33-foot wall of water.

Graeme Ansell, a New Zealander, told the radio station that every building had been destroyed in the beach village of Faofao Beach Fales on Upolu’s southeastern coast.

“There’s not a building standing,” he said. “We’ve all clambered up hills, and one of our party has a broken leg. There will be people in a great lot of need around here.”

Damaged telephone lines on both islands hampered efforts to count the casualties and obtain comprehensive damage assessments. The earthquake struck below the ocean about 120 miles southwest of American Samoa and 125 miles south of Samoa, and it was centered only 11 miles below the seabed, according to the geological agency.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at Ewa Beach, Hawaii, raised a regionwide alert that extended from American Samoa to New Zealand, though minimal damage was reported elsewhere.
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On Wednesday morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami advisory for the entire eastern coast of Japan. The advisory carried warnings of high waves, but by early evening the agency scaled back the advisory to parts of southern Japan, Okinawa and northern Hokkaido.

Tsunami awareness is relatively high in this earthquake-prone part of the world, particularly after the devastating earthquake and tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004, that killed 227,898 people around the Indian Ocean, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Both Samoan islands are just east of the international date line, which is why it was early Tuesday morning when the quake occurred, but it was already early Wednesday in Japan, China and Australia.
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