OT: How awful - 22,000 Dead, Millions Homeless in Asia
Dec 27, 3:53 PM (ET)
By DILIP GANGULY
(AP) People displaced by the tsunami mourn their losses as they sit inside a relief camp at a temple in...
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Rescuers piled up bodies Monday along southern Asian coastlines devastated by tidal waves that obliterated seaside towns and killed more than 22,000 people in 10 countries. With thousands missing and the death toll expected to climb far higher, aid agencies and nations rushed to help millions of people left homeless or without clean water.
Hundreds of children were buried in mass graves in India, and morgues and hospitals struggled to cope with the catastrophe. Somalia reported hundreds of deaths, some 3,000 miles away from the earthquake off Indonesia that sent tsunamis raging across the Indian Ocean.
The International Red Cross reported 23,700 deaths and expressed concern about waterborne diseases like malaria and cholera. Jan Egeland, the U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, said millions of people were affected - by lost homes, polluted drinking water, destroyed sanitation - and that the cost of the damage would "probably be many billions of dollars."
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