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R/£ 68000 - And now disease could double tsunami death toll
December 29, 2004 Edition 1
Stricken countries on the Indian Ocean worked swiftly today to bury thousands of bodies as experts warned disease could kill as many people as the 68 000 already known to be dead in
Sunday's tsunami.
While rescuers ventured into outlying areas cut off for three days since perhaps the most catastrophic tsunami in more than 200 years, the UN mobilised what it called the biggest ever relief operation.
US scientists said the 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake off Sumatra that set off the killer wave permanently moved tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 30m, slightly shifting islands near Sumatra.
Survivors told harrowing tales of the moment the tsunami, up to 10m high, struck towns and resorts, sucking holidaymakers off beaches into the ocean, smashing people and debris through buildings, leaving more than 68 400 dead and thousands more missing and injured.
Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy said children could account for up to a third of the dead.
One of the worst-hit areas of southern Thailand was Khao Lak, a resort beach on the mainland north of Phuket island, where hundreds of bodies have now been discovered and hundreds more are missing.
"Rescuers are holding their breath while using their bare hands, axes, or shovels to dig through piles of wrecked buildings and debris at Khao Lak," said a senior Thai provincial
official, Chailert Piyorattanachote.
Disease could kill as many people as those killed by the wall of water, a top World Health Organisation (WHO) official said.
"There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," the WHO's Dr David Nabarro said.
Gerhard Berz, a risk researcher at Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, estimated the economic cost of the devastation at more than $13 billion.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, rejecting comments from a top UN official that rich countries were being "stingy", said the international community might have to give billions of dollars in aid. The UN official later backtracked from his remarks.
The United States more than doubled its pledge to $35m. Australia increased aid to $27m and said it, the US, Japan and India were considering setting up a core group to co-ordinate help.
"A lot of the economies, or sectors of the economies, of the affected countries have been close to destroyed and it is going to require a great deal of rebuilding and a great deal investment," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Indonesia has suffered the biggest number of victims, with 32 502 known to be dead.
Nearly all the deaths in Indonesia were in the north-western province of Aceh, at the tip of Sumatra. Rescue crews were still trying to reach cut-off areas.
Separatist rebels announced a truce while people search for their loved ones.
The stench of decomposing corpses spread over the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, where fresh water, food and fuel were in short supply. Bodies lay scattered in the streets.
One of the worst-hit cities was Meulaboh, about 150km from the quake's epicentre. The mayor, Tengku Zulkarnaen, said three-quarters of his city had been washed away.
In Sri Lanka, where nearly 22 000 died, hundreds of people were killed when a wave crashed into a train travelling to Galle from Colombo, wrecking carriages and uprooting the track it was travelling on.
Rescue teams headed out to the last of India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, cut off since Sunday, where people have been surviving on coconuts.
India's toll of nearly 12 500 included at least 7 000 on the islands. On one island, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population. "One in every five inhabitants in the entire Nicobar group of islands is either dead, injured or missing," a police official said. - Reuters
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