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| Thursday, 30 December 2004 |
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Asian disaster toll could top 100,000 - Red Cross BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Wednesday (Reuters) Reeking corpses rotted in the tropical sun from India to Indonesia on Wednesday and many who escaped death from one of the worst tsunamis in history fought for survival against thirst and disease. Rescuers scoured remote coastlines around the Indian Ocean for survivors of Sunday's devastating seawater surge. "I would not be at all surprised that we will be on 100,000 (deaths) when we know what has happened on the Andaman and Nicobar islands," Peter Rees of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. The federation currently puts the death toll at 77,828. The United Nations mobilised what it called the biggest relief operation in its history to cope with the disaster. David Nabarro, who heads the World Health Organisation's health crisis team, said up to five million people lacked the basic essentials to survive. The colossal surge was triggered by a undersea earthquake of magnitude 9.0, the biggest in 40 years, off the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It spread an arc of death from Indonesia to Sri Lanka and beyond to Africa. U.S. scientists said the quake that set off the wall of water had moved tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean by up to 30 metres (100 feet), causing the Earth to wobble on its axis and permanently shortening the day by a fraction of a second. Survivors told harrowing tales of the moment the tsunami, up to 10 metres (33 feet) high, struck towns and resorts, sucking holidaymakers into the sea, surging through buildings, sweeping cars from roads and smashing a train off its rails. "The water was just too strong," said Surya Darmar, lying on an army cot outside the emergency ward of a military hospital in Banda Aceh on Wednesday, covered in cuts and with a broken leg. "I held my children for as long as I could, but they were swept away." UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said children could account for up to a third of the dead. Indonesia has suffered the biggest number of victims, with 36,268 known to be dead, although the toll could rise to 80,000 in Aceh alone, the province closest to the quake's epicentre. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spoke of "frightening reports" from Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra. Troops and rescue crews reached the town of Meulaboh on Aceh's west coast, about 150 km (90 miles) from the epicentre, to find dead bodies and rubble. "Today so far 3,400 bodies have been found in Meulaboh. Eighty percent of the buildings are wrecked," Chief Security Minister Widodo Adi Sutjipto told reporters. But a senior U.N. official in Indonesia said the toll in Meulaboh could reach 40,000. Soldiers and volunteers were collecting scattered corpses for mass burial. The stench of decomposing bodies spread over the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, where as many as five percent of the 300,000 population were believed dead, as shocked survivors wandered among the rubble in search of lost family. "I have given up searching for their bodies," said Rohani Amad, 40, wiping her eyes with a black Muslim headscarf, days after two sisters and her 16-year-old daughter disappeared. "I have lost my house. I just don't know what to do," she sobbed. In parts of India's Tamil Nadu state officials gave up trying to count the dead and were counting survivors instead, while burying bodies as quickly as possible in mass graves. In Thailand, where thousands of tourists had been enjoying a peak-season Christmas break away from the northern winter, many west-coast resorts were turned into graveyards. The official toll in Thailand is 1,600, but 3,500 foreigners were unaccounted for, including more than 2,000 Scandinavians. More than 1,800 bodies have been recovered from Khao Lak beach, north of Phuket island, and more than 3,000 people may have died there alone, police said. More than 300 dead had been found on Phi Phi island, made famous in the film "The Beach". Bloated and decaying bodies continued to wash ashore on the island as hopes of finding survivors amid the rubble of hotels and shops faded slowly. |
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