WAVE OF DESTRUCTION
Death Toll Rises to 114,000
Associated Press
December 30, 2004 10:53 a.m.
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – The 12-nation death toll surged again Thursday to more than 114,000, as Indonesia dramatically increased its death count to nearly 80,000.
Indonesia's Health Ministry said its toll rose by an additional 28,000 after relief teams began counting in remote towns along the western coast of Sumatra island, the closest land to the quake's epicenter. The counting was far from complete, said ministry official Kardino, who uses just one name.
The World Health Organization said up to five million people in the affected Indian Ocean region lack access to the basic supplies they need to stay alive.
"This is the most serious natural disaster to affect the region for several decades," said WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook. "The health needs of the populations affected are immediate and substantial."
WHO estimated it needs $40 million to supply three million to five million people in the region with clean water, shelter, food, sanitation and health care.
Also Thursday, residents fled coasts in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, heeding warnings of new tsunamis.
Surveys of the swath of tropical Asia struck by Sunday's 9.0 earthquake and catastrophic tsunami were gaining ground, with relief workers still uncovering scenes of flattened villages and survivors living on coconuts.
Indonesia was worst affected, followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. With tens of thousands still missing, that number was certain to grow, amid fears that disease could bring a new wave of deaths. (See related article.)
The Indian government issued a tsunami warning about midday Thursday following aftershocks in the Indian Ocean region, prompting tens of thousands to flee the southeastern coast, although there were no signs of turbulent seas. But hours later, authorities dropped the alert, saying they had received bad information.
"We got into a truck and fled," said 40-year-old Gandhimathi of Nagappattinam in Tamil Nadu state, who said authorities told her to leave her home. "We took only a few clothes and left behind all of our belongings, everything we had."
Sri Lanka's military later told residents there to be vigilant but not to panic, while coastal villagers climbed onto rooftops or sought high ground. "There is total confusion here," said Rohan Bandara in coastal Tangalle.
Tsunami sirens in southern Thailand sent people dashing from beaches, but only small waves followed the alarms.
An estimated 5.7 magnitude aftershock was recorded in seas northwest of Sumatra by the Hong Kong observatory Thursday morning, along with earlier quakes at India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.
But a 5.7 quake would be about 1,000 times less powerful than Sunday's, and probably would have "negligible impact," said geologist Jason Ali of University of Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, military ships and planes rushed to get desperately needed aid to the ravaged coast of Sumatra, the Indonesian island closest to Sunday's quake. Countless corpses strewn on the streets rotted under the tropical sun causing a nearly unbearable stench.
Food drops began along the coast, mostly of instant noodles and medicines, with some areas "hard to reach because they are surrounded by cliffs," said government relief team chief Budi Aditutro.
On the streets of Banda Aceh, a provincial capital in Sumatra, fights have broken out over packets of noodles dropped from military vehicles.
"I believe the frustration will be growing in the days and weeks ahead," U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said.
The U.S., India, Australia and Japan have formed an international coalition to coordinate world-wide relief and reconstruction efforts, President Bush announced. "We will prevail over this destruction," Mr. Bush said from his Texas ranch Wednesday. (See related article.)
The number of deaths in Indonesia stood just shy of 80,000, and still more bodies were expected to be found.
Sri Lanka reported about 24,750 dead, India more than 7,330 and Thailand about 2,400 -- though that country's prime minister said he feared the toll would go to 6,800. A total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.
Throughout the world, people sought word of missing relatives, from small-town Sri Lankan fishermen to Europeans on sand-and-sun holidays.
On hundreds of Web sites, the messages were brief but poignant: "Missing: Christina Blomee in Khao Lak," or simply, "Where are you?" The body count mounted as survey teams reached remote areas. Peter Ress, operations support chief for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the overall toll could top 100,000.
Rescuers on Thursday plied dense forests of India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, where authorities fear as many as 10,000 more people may be buried in mud and thick vegetation. Many hungry villagers were surviving on coconut milk, rescuers said.
Mohammad Yusef, 60 years old, a fisherman who fled his village and was holed up at a Catholic church in the territory's capital Port Blair along with about 800 others, said all 15 villages on the coast of Car Nicobar island had been destroyed.
"There's not a single hut which is standing," he told the Associated Press. "Everything is gone. Most of the people have gone up to the hills and are afraid to come down," Mr. Yusef said.
Many villagers hadn't eaten for two days, and said that crocodiles had washed ashore during the disaster, compounding the horror of more than 50 aftershocks since Sunday's quake.
Bringing help to the homeless millions around the region has proved an enormous challenge, with impassable roads, destroyed railroads and cut telephone lines.
Nearly 100 doctors began arriving in Aceh's provincial capital Wednesday, but they complained of difficulties reaching many areas. "We can only reach a quarter of the western coast," said Doti Indrasanto. "The military tried to push through with heavy machinery, but they couldn't. We've got piles of food and medicine, and we can't get it through to these places."
Aid workers said fuel and vehicles were in short supply and roads were nearly impassable. The logistical nightmare forced relief supplies to back up at an airport in the region. Military planes tossed hundreds of food packets to survivors on the ground.
Relief operations confronted man-made challenges as well.
As trucks and cargo planes ferried supplies to welfare centers in Sri Lanka, officials in the east said at least four trucks bound for Tamil areas in the north were forcefully diverted by Sinhalese mobs and low-ranking government officials to predominantly Sinhalese areas. Selvi Sachchithanandam, a U.N. World Food Program spokeswoman, declined to comment on the report. Another 25 to 30 trucks were to be dispatched in the next day, she said.
Separately, Sri Lanka refused an offer of help from Israel because it included soldiers.
Still, other nations put politics aside, at least for the day. Malaysia Wednesday postponed a plan to deport nearly a million illegal immigrants, mostly Indonesians. Jakarta had asked Malaysian officials to delay the program, which was supposed to begin in January, while Indonesia struggles to cope with the crisis, said Malaysia's deputy prime minister, Najib Razak, who added that the crackdown will be postponed for a month.
In southern Thailand, crack rescue and forensic teams from Australia, Japan, Germany and Israel fanned out in a race to find survivors and identify rapidly decomposing corpses.
"We have to have hope that we'll find somebody," said Ulf Langemeier, heading a team of 15 Germans who combed a wrecked resort with three sniffer dogs early Thursday.
Mr. Langemeier said there's always a chance of finding survivors trapped under rubble after earthquakes, but "when waves enter a building you have no chance."
In one surprising development, Sri Lankan wildlife officials noted yesterday they found no evidence of large-scale deaths among animals, despite the huge rush of floodwaters into the country's largest wildlife reserve. "This is very interesting. I am finding bodies of humans, but I have yet to see a dead animal," said Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, whose Jetwing Eco Holidays runs a hotel in the Yala National Park. "Maybe what we think is true, that animals have a sixth sense."
Copyright (c) 2004 The Associated Press
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