Tsunami Toll now 226.000

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Friday, 31 December, 2004, 18:14 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4138637.stm

Solemn new year on Phuket

By Dominic Hughes

BBC News, Phuket

A candle-lit ceremony to mourn the dead marked the beginning of a sombre new year on the island of Phuket.

Emotions were raw, many were in tears.

People on Phuket held a candlelit vigil for victims of the tsunami

One Thai woman cried: "I want to say to all the country, we are so sorry for we cannot control this thing."

It was all in marked contrast to the usual scenes here at this time of year. Holidaymakers would usually be getting ready to party through the night.

But it is hard to celebrate when you're surrounded by the death and destruction wrought by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Tom Travers, restaurant owner and party organiser, was looking forward to one of the biggest nights of the year.

But from the deck of his bar he looks out over a scene of utter devastation.

Wrecked building have been smashed to rubble by the waves:

"The overall feelings through Phuket and throughout many areas of Thailand is that it just doesn't seem fitting to have a celebration.

"I think it's going to be more a period of just reflecting on what's happened. I don't think a lot of people are in celebrating mood.

"I think it's going to pretty hard to open up bottles of champagne and pour them on each other when you know what's devastated the country and the surrounding area."

'Determined'

Most tourists have left the holiday island, but some have not.

Of those who remain, many have volunteered in hospitals and helping with the clear up.

And some, like Brian Downhouer, from Texas in the US, decided to travel to Phuket even after the scale of the disaster became clear.

"We thought a lot about what would be best for ourselves and the people here, and we determined that just us being here would help them get back on their feet a bit.

"Staying away would be just about the worst thing we could do."

Although most Thais would save their celebrations for Chinese new year in February, 31 December is usually a fairly riotous evening in Phuket.

But this year the government has cancelled all official celebrations and many hotels and bars are using their parties to raise funds for relief efforts.

The new year will be ushered in without the usual fanfare.

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Saturday, 1 January, 2005, 05:32 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4137799.stm

New Year begins as world mourns

Nations around the world have been marking the start of 2005 but celebrations have been restrained because of the Asian earthquake.

Festivities were cancelled in some of the countries struck by the disaster.

Along the coast of Thailand, locals and tourists held candles and white roses in vigils marking the tragedy.

In Paris, strips of black cloth hung along the central Champs-Elysees, and other European cities donated their fireworks fund to the relief effort.

Lights put out

In Indonesia, the country worst-hit country, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono cancelled official celebrations in the capital, Jakarta, and used his annual address to call for national unity.

"Let's welcome the New Year without a party because now we are filled with concern and sadness," he said, according to AP news agency.

"We are still mourning. Let's pray together and hopefully God will not give us another disaster."

In resorts on Thailand's Phuket island, staff and customers broke off their parties for a candlelight vigil at midnight.

One bar, the Tiger Discotheque roared back into life within sight of the shore where waves crashed in six days before.

In Sydney spectacular fireworks on the famous Harbour Bridge were preceded by a minute's silence.

Only hours before, an Australian navy ship began a journey from the harbour laden with aid for Indonesia's Aceh province.

Official celebrations were cancelled in India and Sri Lanka. In Delhi the lights in the presidential palace were extinguished, and Sri Lanka called a national day of mourning.

China's state broadcaster cancelled its New Year gala programme, while in Malaysia people packed churches and mosques for special prayers.

'Heavy step'

In Turkey, a country frequently hit by earthquakes, plans to hold a huge party in Istanbul's Taksim square were called off by the city's mayor

Parties went ahead in London and Berlin but many European nations flew flags at half-mast.

In London, a two-minute silence preceded a huge fireworks display attended by an estimated 150,000 people along the River Thames.

Goran Persson, the prime minister of Sweden, from where as many as 2,500 tourists are still missing, said: "Never has the step into a new year felt heavier."

In New York, a minute's silence was observed in Times Square to honour the earthquake victims. The city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg said the start of the new year was a time "to recognise how lucky we are".

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/2...aths/index.html

Tsunami kills more than 138,000

Saturday, January 1, 2005 Posted: 12:11 AM EST (0511 GMT)

(CNN) -- Relief officials are working to assess the death tolls from Sunday's tsunami that killed thousands of people in at least 11 countries.

CNN has confirmed that the undersea earthquake off Sumatra and the giant waves it triggered killed 138,631 people, and that number is expected to rise.

Deaths by country:

Indonesia: 79,940, with another 1, 240 missing.

Sri Lanka: 43,664. Sri Lankan officials say 27,008 have died in non-rebel-held areas. Tamil Tiger rebel officials say 16, 656 were killed in the island's rebel-controlled north and east and 18, 481 are missing.

India: At least 10,000

Thailand: 4,812. Thai prime minister says toll could exceed 8,000. 6,541 are still missing, more than 3,000 of them Swedish tourists.

Malaysia: 66

Maldives: 46

Myanmar: 90

Tanzania: 10

Bangladesh: 2

Somalia: Kenyan media reports hundreds dead.

Kenya: Kenyan media reports one death.

Seychelles: Unconfirmed reports of deaths.

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/3...aths/index.html

240 foreigners among tsunami dead

Friday, December 31, 2004 Posted: 9:30 PM EST (0230 GMT)

(CNN) -- At least 240 non-nationals have been killed in Sunday's tsunamis, and hundreds more are missing. Following is a breakdown from official sources in the citizens' countries, unless otherwise noted.

Australia: 10 dead; the government says it has "grave concerns" about 43 others; another 1,000 Australians are unaccounted for

Austria: 5 dead, more than 100 missing

Britain: 29 dead

Canada: 4 dead, 13 missing and another 74 unaccounted for

Denmark: 7 dead, 14 missing

Finland: 4 dead; the Foreign Ministry says another 214 people are missing

France: 21 dead, 18 injured

Germany: 26 dead, hundreds missing. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he fears "a significant three-digit number of Germans will be among the dead." Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl was vacationing in Galle, Sri Lanka, when the tsunamis hit and was stranded until rescued by a military helicopter.

Israel: 4 dead, 6 missing

Italy: 14 dead, 600 missing

Japan: 8 dead, according to Sri Lankan foreign minister.

New Zealand: 1 dead, 64 missing

Norway: 21 dead, 462 missing

Portugal: 8 missing; 7 unaccounted for but not yet listed missing.

Russia: 10 injured, some missing. Foreign Ministry has no confirmed fatalities; Thai authorities have said Russians are among the dead.

Singapore: 3 dead

Spain: Foreign Ministry has no confirmations of any deaths; 11 reported missing in Thailand.

Sweden: 59 bodies have been identified. Stockholm says the death toll could rise to as many as 1,000.

Switzerland: 9 dead

United States: 15 dead

Other: Dead and/or missing also have been reported but unconfirmed by CNN from Belgium, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey.

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/3...uake/index.html

U.N.: Tsunami toll approaches 150,000

U.S. raises pledge to $350 million

Saturday, January 1, 2005 Posted: 12:16 AM EST (0516 GMT)

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (CNN) -- Aid has begun to reach tsunami victims in remote areas of Indonesia, as the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator says the death toll is approaching 150,000.

Jan Engeland said he expects the number of dead in Indonesia alone to reach 100,000, based on estimates from U.N. workers in the field.

A total of 138,631 people have been confirmed dead following the quake and resulting Indian Ocean tsunamis.

"We will never have an exact figure because of all the nameless fishermen who are gone," Egeland said.

He predicted that 5 million people ultimately will be affected by the disaster, including 1 million homeless.

Aid workers were welcomed as heroes in Indonesia -- where almost 80,000 have been confirmed dead -- as they delivered supplies to residents in Aceh province.

It was the first sign that the world had not forgotten about them, said Sabine Rens of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), which made it to two coastal areas Friday.

"We just touched down, got out of the helicopter, and people started running toward us, shaking our hands, saying, 'Oh, my God,' " Rens said. "This woman fell into my arms and started crying."

Obstacles -- including a lack of coordination, fuel shortages, rough weather, airport logjams and impassable roads -- have prevented the distribution of aid to some of the most devastated areas in the 11 Asian and African nations affected by a magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunamis.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met Friday with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to discuss several issues, including U.S. assistance to the region.

The United States raised its contribution Friday from $35 million to $350 million, bringing total pledges from countries and the World Bank to more than $1.1 billion. (Full story)

President Bush said in a press release the United States had created a support center in Thailand and that 20 aircraft were dispatched to "assess the disaster and deliver relief supplies."

Powell and Bush's brother Jeb, governor of Florida, will lead a U.S. mission to the region Sunday. (Full story)

Officials said Friday that logjams of supplies at Asian airports and a lack of fuel threaten to hinder the aid effort. (Full story)

In areas near Medan, Indonesia, soldiers distributed necessities, but dwindling fuel supplies meant they could not reach some areas.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday it would begin an emergency airlift on Sunday to Indonesia that should get 400 tons of supplies to 100,000 people in Aceh province.

"We will be immediately providing shelter material for about one-fifth of the estimated affected population, but this is just the start of our operation," High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said in a press release.

Scenes of devastation

As workers and news crews arrived in washed out flattened areas -- villages and towns that just a week ago were filled with people and homes -- they saw striking signs of the will to survive.

People, some barely clothed, picked through rubble for food and supplies.

Elsewhere, the death toll in Sri Lanka is above 43,000. India and Thailand account for thousands more deaths.

In Sri Lanka, more than two decades of civil war have already ravaged large parts of the country. The tsunami washed up many land mines, leaving them scattered on the ground.

The Tamil Tiger rebels have established a virtual clampdown the northern and eastern regions of the country, hampering aid distribution.

Residents have been warned to stick to only the few major roads that leaders are trying to secure. No one can enter without going through rebel checkpoints.

In southern parts of Sri Lanka controlled by the government, more than 50 aid flights have arrived.

Sri Lankan officials have said they are coordinating with Tamil Tigers to get supplies to rebel-controlled areas, but some rebel leaders have accused the government of neglect.

Other nations and international aid groups want to send another 100 flights full of supplies, but the government has said it doesn't have the capacity for that many planes.

Tales of survival

Thousands of people in the country are living in Buddhist temples and churches. They share remarkable stories of survival.

One man said when the waves hit he took shelter in a tree, clinging to branches for days as the water remained high. He eventually fell down, fracturing a leg.

He counts himself among the lucky ones; he was reunited with his family.

Others in the shelters recounted having been in their boats in the harbor when the tsunami struck, saying they were tossed around like toys, but miraculously did not drown.

Chip Lyons with UNICEF said his organization's teams in the region still "have to get a handle" on the survival needs.

They have begun distributing tablets that mix with water and help cure diarrhea -- which he called the number one cause of preventable death among children after such disasters.

Aid groups will work to reconnect young people with extended family members or others who can take care of them, and will bring them together with other children.

Lyons said that at this time even a simple game of kickball and makeshift classrooms could help establish a semblance of normalcy.

Amid the devastation, Friday brought a glimmer of hope. In some places, as the new year arrived, people broke into celebrations. In Sri Lanka, they violated a national day of mourning that banned such events.

Thoughts for tsunami victims tempered New Year's Eve festivities. Several major cities canceled parties, and Australia held a minute of silence. (Full story)

CNN's Mike Chinoy in Banda Aceh, Indonesia; Atika Shubert in Medan, Indonesia; Hugh Rimington in Dodangoda, Sri Lanka; and Satinder Bindra in Galle, Sri Lanka, contributed to this report

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor.../ts_nm/quake_dc

2 hours, 26 minutes ago

Tsunami Toll, Feared at 150,000, Dims New Year

By Tomi Soetjipto and Dean Yates

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - A legion of ships and planes delivered aid to millions of Asian tsunami survivors on Saturday as New Year celebrations around the world paused to mourn victims of one of the worst disasters in living memory.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) called for a major logistical operation to help a half-dozen countries hit by Sunday's tsunami, which by the latest count had killed more than 124,000 people.

The U.N. emergency relief operations coordinator said the death toll was approaching 150,000 and Sweden's foreign minister said it could go as high as 200,000.

"We mourn, we cry, and our hearts weep witnessing thousands of those killed left rigid in the streets," Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a New Year's Eve address.

Rescue teams say aid has started to reach stricken areas, six days after the monster waves obliterated beach towns and swept tourists out to sea in a torrent of mud and debris.

They were racing against time with an estimated 5 million people in the disaster areas facing grave difficulty getting food and clean water. Health authorities warned of a second wave of deaths from contagious diseases.

Washington on Friday raised its aid tenfold to $350 million, bringing global emergency relief pledges to $1.36 billion.

Helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier were to start ferrying relief supplies on Saturday to Sumatra, an Indonesian island the size of Florida, where aid workers have encountered unimaginable scenes of devastation.

With more than 80,000 confirmed deaths, Indonesia was the hardest hit after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake less than 95 miles off the northern tip of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that ripped across the Indian Ocean to Africa.

Officials said the Indonesian figure may soar past 100,000. Sri Lanka has reported more than 28,500 deaths, while India says more than 10,000 have died.

"The true figure will probably never be known because people are burying the corpses where they find them," said Anjali Kwatra, leader of Sri Lanka's Christain Aid emergency team.

CANDLES AND WHITE ROSES

People held candles and white roses on Thailand's tsunami-hit island of Phuket at midnight on New Year's Eve, tearfully embracing as they grieved.

Party-goers and bar girls stopped their celebrations and lit incense sticks. The mournful Elton John song "Candle in the Wind" echoed through the resort.

Australia led the world in a global minute of silence, parties were canceled and trees on Paris's grand Champs Elysees were shrouded in black on Friday.

"This gives an opportunity for mums and dads to help to explain what happened to their children," a spokesman for Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.

European tourists who fled a dark winter for the sunshine and sands of Asia make up most of more than 2,200 foreigners killed in the disaster. More than 7,400 were missing.

Relatives and friends flying to Asia in the hope that loved ones were alive scoured gruesome mosaics of photographs of distorted faces pinned on bulletin boards alongside personal possessions that someone might recognize.

Amid a global flood of private donations, the Russian town of Beslan, which lost more than 330 people, mostly children, in a school siege, was giving $36,000, Interfax news agency said.

Hundreds of thousands of homeless now live in makeshift tent camps around the Indian Ocean. Thirteen countries were hit by the tsunami.

AIRPORT LOGJAMS

Aid trucks loaded with food, medicines and body bags rolled into tsunami-hit areas across Asia and aircraft dropped supplies to cut-off villages.

But military flights disgorging tons of emergency supplies at major Asian airports were creating logjams, threatening to hinder one of the world's biggest aid operations.

"The planes are going flat out," Australian army Major Grant King told Reuters at Banda Aceh airport.

But lack of fuel for trucks, impassable roads and downed bridges are hindering deliveries from airports to disaster areas.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was in the Straits of Malacca heading for Thailand. Another U.S. naval group built around the Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship, was on its way to Sri Lanka.

In Thailand -- where thousands of rotting corpses, many of them of foreign tourists, were stacked in Buddhist temples -- trucks were not only bringing supplies for the living, but also for the dead. One aid group alone was sending 1,000 body bags.

Aid workers were trying to dislodge corpses and dead animals from water drainpipes and wells to restore clean water supplies.

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) will tour devastated areas next week.

"The need is great and not just for immediate relief but for long-term reconstruction, rehabilitation, family support, economic support that's going to be needed for these countries to get back on their feet," Powell told reporters in New York.

Amid all the heartache were tales of miraculous survival.

A woman from an endangered tribe in Andaman and Nicobar islands survived for three days after the tsunami hit by clinging on to a tree and eating its leaves, The Times of India reported on Saturday.

"One by one, my uncles, aunts, all the children, went past me. I was hanging from one branch, like a bat, and the tree was rocking," said Brendina, a 28-year-old Jarawa tribal woman from badly-devastated Car Nicobar island where thousands are thought to have died. (For more news on emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org email: [email protected]; +44 20 7542 2432)

[Darknight]

Tsunami Toll, Feared at 150,000, Dims New Year

By Tomi Soetjipto and Dean Yates

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - A legion of ships and planes delivered aid to millions of Asian tsunami survivors on Saturday as New Year celebrations around the world paused to mourn victims of one of the worst disasters in living memory. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a major logistical operation to help a half-dozen countries shattered by Sunday's tsunami, which by the latest count had killed 124,622.

The U.N. emergency relief operations coordinator said the death toll was approaching 150,000 and Sweden's foreign minister said it could go as high as 200,000 with a third or more of them believed to be children.

"We mourn, we cry, and our hearts weep witnessing thousands of those killed left rigid in the streets," Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a New Year's Eve address.

Rescue teams say aid has started to reach stricken areas, six days after the monster waves obliterated beach towns and sucked tourists out to sea in a torrent of mud and debris.

They were racing against time with an estimated 5 million people in the disaster areas facing grave difficulty getting food and clean water. Health authorities warned of a second wave of deaths from contagious diseases.

Washington on Friday raised its aid tenfold to $350 million, bringing global emergency relief pledges to $1.36 billion.

Helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier ferried relief supplies on Saturday to Sumatra, an Indonesian island the size of Florida, where aid workers have encountered unimaginable scenes of devastation.

With more than 80,000 confirmed deaths, Indonesia was the hardest hit after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake less than 150 km (95 miles) off the northern tip of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that ripped across the Indian Ocean to Africa.

Officials said the Indonesian figure may soar past 100,000. Sri Lanka has reported more than 28,500 deaths, while India says more than 10,000 have died.

"The true figure will probably never be known because people are burying the corpses where they find them," said Anjali Kwatra, leader of Sri Lanka's Christian Aid emergency team.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...n_re_as/tsunami

World - AP Asia

26 minutes ago

Indonesia Says Death Toll Now Over 94,000

By LELY T. DJUHARI, Associated Press Writer

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Indonesia increased its death toll from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunamis to 94,081 on Monday, raising the total number of people reported killed in 11 countries in the Indian Ocean basin to at least 137,321. Aid agencies have said the death toll was expected to hit 150,000.

On Sunday, a Sumatran fisherman was discovered barely alive under his beached boat — the first survivor found in three days — but with tens of thousands still missing in crushed seaside settlements and in the flotsam washing the shores of the Indian Ocean, rescuers turned full attention to getting food and water to the living.

More than a week after the disaster struck the region without any advance notice, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also announced plans to work with the country's neighbors to establish an early warning system similar to that in the Pacific Ocean.

The discovery of 24-year-old Tengku Sofyan, who could barely speak and was badly dehydrated, came as relief efforts accelerated across the southern Asian destruction zone. He was sent to a hospital in Banda Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, the hardest hit region where an estimated 100,000 died when the most powerful earthquake in four decades ripped a fault line beneath the sea bed 100 miles off shore on Dec. 26. The tsunami it spawned turned the world upside down for people living as far away as Somalia, 3,000 miles away on the east coast of Africa.

With rescue teams focused on Sumatra, U.S. military helicopters flew in biscuits, energy drinks and instant noodles to hungry, homeless villagers. The operation was part of a $2 billion global relief effort announced as international donors began assembling for a conference on rebuilding in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday.

The Health Ministry said Monday that Indonesia's death toll had increased by nearly 14,000 people to 94,081 and that 271,908 people had been displaced by the disaster.

India and Sri Lanka also predicted that their tolls would rise by several thousand as hopes faded for finding the thousands still missing.

As the relief efforts drove deeper into the sprawling disaster zone, American pilots had some of the first glimpses of wrecked Sumatran coastal villages such as Keude Teunom, where survivors in tattered clothing grabbed at bottles of water dropped from helicopters.

Officials said 8,000 of Keude Teunom's 18,000 residents were killed in the disaster.

Reporters were given a look at the wiped-out village of Malacca, on the Indian island of Car Nicobar, where the only structure still standing was a statue of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. About 4,000 people are missing on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Indian territory off the coast of Malaysia.

In New York, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said more aid was getting to survivors, but there were still problems helping those in Indonesia.

"We are seeing that the assistance is becoming increasingly effective in all of the countries," he told reporters. "Overall I am more optimistic today than I was yesterday that we the global community will be able to face up to this enormous challenge."

Egeland said 1.8 million people in tsunami-hit countries would need food aid and that figure could rise. It would take about three days to get food to 700,000 people in Sri Lanka but much longer to reach the 1 million hungry people in Indonesia, he said.

He warned there were still difficulties in reaching survivors in Sumatra's Aceh province. "That is where we are behind really...90 percent of our problems are in those areas because they are more remote, because the damage was much bigger, because the roads are more damaged, because the air strips are fewer and they are more damaged."

In Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, witnesses said rescued fisherman Sofyan was at sea when the tsunami hit. His boat was tossed onto the beach at Lampulo where he was trapped for a week without food and water. He was the first missing victim discovered alive since Friday.

"He's in extremely fragile condition, especially mentally," Dr. Irwan Azwar said.

Rescue workers said finding more survivors bordered on hoping for miracles.

"If you survived the earthquake, you probably were killed by tsunami," said Lamsar Sipahutar, the head of the search team in Indonesia.

Rescuers in India, meanwhile, conducted an island-by-island search for thousands of people still missing. Late Sunday, the Home Ministry put India's official death toll at 9,451, with another 5,421 people missing and feared dead.

The exact number of dead will probably never be known. Five million people were homeless.

The American military was mounting its largest operation in southern Asia since the Vietnam War, delivering supplies from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln stationed off Sumatra and sending Marines and water purifying equipment to Sri Lanka.

Four Indonesian navy frigates loaded with supplies arrived off the coast of Meulaboh, the fishing village that was one of Aceh province's worst-hit spots. About half the town of 40,000 was destroyed. An Associated Press reporter who visited could see fewer than 100 residents searching for food among destroyed homes along the coast.

As a signal of U.S. concern, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) was to begin a tour of hard-hit areas on Monday. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Powell defended the administration's efforts against criticism that the United States was slow to respond with financial aid. Washington pledged $35 million at first, but raised that to $350 million Friday.

"The American response has been appropriate. It has been scaled up as the scale of the disaster became more widely known," Powell said.

Most of the hardest-hit countries, including Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka had no system in place to warn of the impending disaster as is common in the Pacific Ocean.

The Indonesian president gave few details about which countries would be involved in an early warning system or how the impoverished nation would fund it, but regional leaders were expected to endorse the idea during a regional donors' conference Thursday in Jakarta.

Health officials in the disaster zone said no medical crisis has yet emerged, although getting clean water and sanitation to hard-hit areas was urgent to prevent disease outbreaks.

In Thailand, officials borrowed six elephants from the Wang Chang elephant farm in the 17th-century Thai capital of Ayuddhaya for help in clearing away wrecked buildings and other debris from the ruined resort island of Phuket and Phang Nga province.

The animals — who were also used in recreated battle scenes for the movie "Alexander" — arrived Sunday and began work immediately on the muddy, hilly terrain.

"The six were chosen because they are smart and can act on command," said Romthongsai Meephan, one of the elephant farm's owners.

The Thai government said 4,993 people died in the tsunami, up from 4,985, including 2,230 foreigners.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra visited Phuket island on Sunday, hoping to prop up a tourism industry that is critical to the country's economy and pledging to set up a tsunami early warning system that scientists say could have saved many lives were it in place a week ago.

"Nice to meet you, enjoy your stay," Thaksin told tourists who had returned to battered Patong beach. "We'll try and make your stay happy."

___

Associated Press Writers Denis D. Gray in Keude Teunom, Indonesia; Miranda Leitsinger in Phuket, Thailand; Richard Vogel in Bang Nieng, Thailand, and Neelesh Misra in Car Nicobar, India, contributed to this report.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/0...uake/index.html

Death toll tops 155,000; thousands still missing

Sunday, January 2, 2005 Posted: 11:46 PM EST (0446 GMT)

(CNN) -- Hopes of finding the thousands still missing from last week's massive earthquake and deadly tsunami glimmers weakly as desperately needed aid finally reached areas that had been cut off by the devastation.

The death toll from Malaysia to East Africa stands at more than 155,000, after Indonesia's toll was raised by 14,000 to more than 94,000 early Monday by the country's health ministry.

Tens of thousands are still missing -- including many tourists whose vacations took an unexpected turn early on the morning of December 26.

And the area keeps shaking.

Dozens of aftershocks have followed the 9.0 magnitude earthquake -- the strongest on the planet since 1964 -- including more than 15 with a magnitude of 5.0 or higher since Friday morning.

The largest number of deaths in Indonesia, closest to the epicenter of the initial earthquake, were in its remote Aceh province -- home to a long-standing armed separatist movement that aid workers worry might complicate providing relief to victims.

But CNN's Mike Chinoy reports that the recovery effort in Aceh, after a slow start, is becoming more organized, with more armed forces and aid workers making their way to the capital, Banda Aceh, and then into the province's more remote areas.

Locals, too, are becoming more organized, Chinoy said, particularly in recovering bodies still buried beneath tonness of rubble.

One resident told Chinoy it could take up to four months to find all those killed in Banda Aceh.

It may be worse in the rest of the province.

Nothing remained of the bridge connecting Banda Aceh and the west coast -- just 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the epicenter -- except the low pillars that once held the roadway.

An Indonesian army garrison at the bridge was devastated -- of the 270 soldiers and their families stationed there, only 12 people survivied.

Where there were survivors, they swarmed military helicopters -- the only transportation that could reach most of the areas -- bringing packages of food, water and medical supplies.

Authorities set up a staging ground at the Banda Aceh airport where Australian C-130s and Indonesian military planes were bringing in supplies. U.S. helicopters from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln picked up the packages from there.

The United States also sent helicopters to Sri Lanka, where more than 46,000 people are dead and more than 24,000 others are are missing.

India's navy launched its largest relief operation, part of a $25 million effort to help Sri Lanka.

Eleven Indian ships were dispatched to the island nation and military helicopters also ferried in relief supplies.

Already, India has delivered six tonnes of supplies to the tsunami-hit areas and plans to ship in 20 tonnes more.

In addition to relief supplies, India is sending engineers and skilled workers to help rebuild Sri Lanka's devastated economy.

India itself was hit hard by the tsunami, with at least 9,500 people dead, most on its east coast and in the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, closer to Thailand and Indonesia than their mother country.

Madhusree Mukerjee, an Indonesian journalist and expert on the indigenous peoples of the islands, said the Andamans -- the northernmost of the islands -- "suffered property damage but little loss of life."

"The real devastation is in the Nicobar Islands," she told CNN.

Indian officials report more than 5,400 people missing on the islands.

Mukerjee said the population of the Nicobar Islands is about 45,000 and the tsunamis "washed over many of the Nicobar Islands many times."

In one, Car Nicobar, which is also home to an Indian Air Force base, "we have been told all 15 villages have been washed out," she said.

Mukerjee said the Indian government -- which declined international aid, saying it could handle the emergency itself -- was doing as good a job as could be expected.

But she said Andaman and Nicobar could have benefited from assistance from the much closer Thailand, which also declined international financial aid.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told CNN that his country did not need the financial aid but was appreciative of expertise and equipment.

Shinawatra said he was pleased to see cooperation between the private and public sectors -- and how fast the area "came back to normal activity."

Owners of hotels that survived the tsunami in Phuket, for example, are encouraging vacationers to return -- and some are. The owners say the return of the tourists is essential to their survival.

Some 70 percent of the hotels' reservations have cancelled, officials said.

But CNN's Aneesh Raman said the juxtaposition of tourists on the beach where thousands died a week ago was odd, as was watching relatively normal beach activities while knowing hundreds of thousands elsewhere were in desperate need of aid.

Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, said 1.8 million people needed food assistance across the affected area, adding that the number might rise further.

The World Health Program, he said, had estimated it would take it three days to set up a food distribution program to reach all those who needed it in Sri Lanka and longer still in Indonesia.

"However, air drops are being undertaken," Egeland said Sunday.

"It is the first, crude way to get food there. It is not, however, a good way to get water and medicine distributed."

Egeland said U.N. efforts were focused on Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Maldives and Somalia, and that other governments had said they were able to handle the disaster themselves.

The effort is proceeding under rising fears of disease -- and the possibility of thousands more deaths.

"I am very worried about it," Egeland told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

"Already the incidence of diarhea is up among children."

So far, Egeland said, more than $2 billion has been pledged toward the emergency relief effort, an amount Egeland said was larger than what was pledged for all other humanitarian emergencies combined in 2004.

But it still fell short of the $3.3 billion the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency provided Florida after four hurricanes struck the state last year.

Japan is the largest contributor, pledging $500 million; the United States was second, with $350 million committed. (Contributions by country)

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has said that figure might not be "the end number," left Sunday to visit the region, accompanied by U.S. President George W. Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and other U.S. officials. (Full story)

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will also visit affected areas after the conference, but Egeland said his itinerary, other than Aceh on January 7, was incomplete. (Full story)

As relief supplies began reaching survivors, a World Health Organization official said the primary concern now was to provide clean water and proper sanitation.

"Given the very difficult conditions in which people are now living, it seems very, very likely that we're going to get some increases in disease and therefore death," said Dr. David Nabarro, executive director of Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments for the WHO.

CNN's Mike Chinoy in Banda Aceh, Indonesia; Atika Shubert in Medan, Indonesia; Satinder Bindra in Galle, Sri Lanka and Aneesh Raman in Phuket, Thailand, contributed to this report.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...nd_050103042321

Sun, Jan 02, 2005

Thailand focuses grim search for dead on hardest hit districts

1 hour, 23 minutes ago Asia - AFP

BAAN NAM KHEM, Thailand (AFP) - Thai officials are narrowing their grim search for bodies to focus on districts worst hit by killer tsunamis, including this fishing town where police say thousands are missing

Eight days after tidal waves ripped into southwestern tourist resorts and fishing areas, the country's confirmed death toll remained at 4,993 including 2,461 foreign holidaymakers, with 3,810 missing.

Reports from devastated areas suggested the death toll would eventually rise sharply -- Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has predicted 7,000-8,000 dead.

Environment Minister Suvit Khunkitti, quoted by local newspapers, said the collection of bodies in most areas is expected to end Wednesday.

The focus would be on a few places where many victims were feared trapped, such as lakes and ponds in Baan Nam Khem and mangrove forests in Takua Pa.

Both locations are in the mainland province of Phang Nga, which according to official figures accounted for 3,943 of the known deaths including 2,203 foreigners. The province includes the newly developed resort district of Khao Lak where there was massive loss of life.

The Nation newspaper said 4,700 dead have so far been found in Phang Nga.

Suvit, quoted by Matichon newspaper, said divers are expected to arrive in Khao Lak later Monday and the underwater search would be the final phase of the operation there.

Divers would also be used at Kho Khao island and at Baan Nam Khem.

Lim Saephu's wife of 57 years may be in one of a series of small lakes behind Baan Nam Khem town. One of his sons is also missing.

The 80-year-old was working on the second floor of a partly built hotel when the waves struck but his wife was at home at ground level.

"My wife was in the house and it just swept all the houses away," he told AFP. "I cannot find my wife. I am looking every day and I look at everybody they find and I will keep looking every day till I find her."

Somsakun Nisarut, head of an NGO called Poh Teck Tung, said many bodies still have to be found in the town.

"There are many, many lakes. We are having to dredge each lake one by one," he said. "I do not know how long it will take -- maybe one week, maybe two weeks."

A police officer said Sunday that thousands are missing and feared dead in the town.

"There are 5,000 people in this town. We don't know how many are dead but we think about 3,000 are missing and we think most of those will be dead," Police Captain Chanarong Pungantatmongkol told AFP.

"It is hard to know the true number because there were many people here illegally from Burma (Myanmar)."

The town has been battered almost to pieces, with fishing craft tossed into the streets. One was perched atop a ruined home.

Some 20 European nations whose people were vacationing on Thailand's Andaman Sea coast are struggling to locate thousands of missing -- many of whom may be dead and some of whom flew home without notifying authorities.

The Swedish government on Sunday revised the official death toll among its tourists in Thailand down to 52 from an earlier 59.

The figure of those missing now stands at 2,915, down from an earlier estimate of 3,500.

Norway counted 21 dead, 462 missing and another 980 who may have been in south Asia at the time of the wave disaster and have not been accounted for.

German, Britain and France also have hundreds of people unaccounted for.

Several Thai government agencies began building homes for those whose villages were swept away. Thaksin has said the government will swiftly rehabilitate the crucial tourism industry with cheap loans.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/0...toll/index.html

Saturday, January 1, 2005 Posted: 11:32 PM EST (0432 GMT)

Somber Swedes await Thailand toll

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Thailand's tsunami death toll could reach 8,000, with more than half of those foreign tourists holidaying in the nation's southern resorts when the disaster struck.

There are more than 3,000 visitors from Sweden among the missing in Thailand, and the Scandinavian nation is braced for what could be the worst natural disaster toll in its history.

Swedes greeted the New Year with a national day of mourning Saturday, flying flags at half-staff and lighting candles for the missing.

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Saturday many of those who were still listed as missing were likely to be dead.

"Many corpses will be floating in the sea," Thaksin said, according to wire reports.

"Of the 6,500 missing, it is likely that they could mostly be dead as many days have passed."

Thailand's official death count is 4,812.

As the search for bodies continues, Thaksin said his government would investigate why tsunami warnings largely failed to reach officials and tourist resorts.

"We will have to investigate the whole incident, when it happened, why we were not warned," Thakisin said in his weekly radio address.

Officials at the country's meteorological department did issue some warnings before the waves slammed into tourist resorts and fishing villages, but they only got through to a handful of officials, the Associated Press reports.

It is thought around 20,000 Swedes had travelled to Thailand this holiday season, to escape the harsh winter of northern Europe.

While only 59 Swedes have so far been confirmed dead, authorities are fearing this tragedy may well become the worst natural disaster in the nation's history.

With a population of only 9 million, Sweden's expected loss of life proportionately matches that of Indonesia, and is exceeded only by Sri Lanka.

Along with Sweden, other Nordic countries have been hard hit by the tsunamis' impact in Thailand.

In neighboring Denmark, Queen Margrethe started her annual televised New Year's speech by addressing the tsunami disaster that has killed seven Danes and left 466 missing.

"We are just happy tourists seeking a warmer sun and a sea that is more blue than our coasts," the monarch said in her speech aired live on major television and radio channels.

"Let us not only just think of our losses but also of the many thousand people who now must see their whole existence broken into pieces."

Finland is also mourning its dead with 14 believed killed and 194 still missing.

The devastation has hit one Finnish family particularly hard with 14 members of one family swept away while on vacation at the Thai resort of Khao Lak.

Leon Eklof is in Thailand looking for his missing family members, including three of his grandchildren, his daughter and his son-in-law, according to a report in The Australian newspaper.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4140563.stm

Sunday, 2 January, 2005, 16:09 GMT

Tsunami recovery 'to take years'

CONFIRMED DEATH TOLLS

1. Indonesia: 94,081

2. Sri Lanka: 29,744

3. India (inc Andaman and Nicobar Is): 9,451

4. Thailand: 5,046

5. Somalia: 142

6. Burma: 53

7. Maldives: 74

8. Malaysia: 67

9. Tanzania: 10

10. Seychelles: 1

11. Bangladesh: 2

12. Kenya: 1

Areas hit by the Asian tsunami could take up to 10 years to recover, the UN secretary general has warned.

Kofi Annan spoke of the "sheer complexity" of the relief effort, which is spread across a dozen nations.

Aid supplies are piling up in regional warehouses, but in some places, heavy rain has provided an extra obstacle to delivering them to outlying areas.

Mr Annan will travel to Indonesia on 6 January to take part in a meeting of world leaders to discuss further aid.

In other developments:

US Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George W Bush's brother Jeb head for Thailand and Indonesia later on Sunday as part of an American delegation to see the devastation at first-hand

The United Nations says $2bn has now been raised in aid for the victims, including up to $500m in emergency assistance pledged by Japan

Aid supplies have been air-dropped onto all of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, according to the military commander in charge of relief operations, after strong criticism from survivors that aid was slow to arrive

Flash flooding in Sri Lanka is hampering aid distribution and increasing the risk of disease

US navy helicopters bring relief supplies to Indonesia's Aceh province from an offshore aircraft carrier.

Survivors are still emerging from the ruins left by the huge quake-triggered waves, which struck a week ago.

At least 124,000 people have been confirmed dead around the rim of the Indian Ocean, with Aceh in Indonesia worst-hit.

The UN has warned the final death toll is likely to be more than 150,000 - and may never be known.

Map of affected countries and their death tolls

Colin Powell will travel to Asia accompanied by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the president's brother, who has dealt with the aftermath of several powerful hurricanes in his state in recent months.

Clusters of survivors

In Indonesia, aid is finally being distributed, but only in small quantities, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Aceh.

US military helicopters have visited remote areas to distribute aid.

However, a spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme said that in some coastal villages outside Banda Aceh, helicopter crews had to throw food and other supplies to the ground after desperate mobs prevented them from landing.

The aid operation in Aceh remains without a visible strong leadership.

In this sensitive region - scene of a long-running conflict between Jakarta and separatist rebels - the government is unwilling to allow the US military unfettered access, says our correspondent, and there are few UN personnel on the ground.

But speedy, well-led and co-ordinated action is crucial to save the isolated clusters of survivors spotted on the Sumatran coast and islands, who may have spent a week without food and clean water.

In Sri Lanka, heavy rains have brought flash flooding, cutting off parts of the east and south-east of the island and seriously disrupting aid distribution.

Fears of an outbreak of waterborne disease among the hundreds of thousands of people thought to be flocking to emergency camps are high.

There are similar fears in Aceh, where heavy rains have also hit.

But there have been amazing stories of survival. The Indonesian Red Cross is reported to have dug a man out from under the ruins of a house in the provincial capital Banda Aceh after hearing his cries for help.

And on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a woman who escaped the killer waves gave birth in the forest, AP news agency reported. She named her son Tsunami.

The Indian army says planes have managed to drop supplies of food and water to all the inhabited islands in the remote chain, some of which are only a short distance from the epicentre of last Sunday's earthquake.

The military commander in charge of the relief effort, Gen BS Thakur, said the most remote locations had now been reached.

Six thousand people are officially listed as dead or missing on the islands, while at least 10,000 more are thought to be unaccounted for.

Donations soar

The UN's relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said the $2bn in aid promised so far, pledged by 40 countries, was more than all the donations made to the UN's other humanitarian appeals in 2004 put together.

"The international compassion has never been like this," Mr Egeland said.

He said the aid effort would focus on feeding one million Indonesians and 700,000 Sri Lankans for months to come.

"The biggest constraints are the logistical bottlenecks," he told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

"We need to make small, damaged airstrips some of the busiest airports in the world."

The international compassion has never been like this

Jan Egeland

UN Humanitarian chief

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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050103/325/f9jqp.html

Monday January 3, 07:45 AM

Thais order tourists' kin away from morgues

By Darren Schuettler

PHUKET, Thailand (Reuters) - Thai police have ordered families and friends of foreigners to stay away from tsunami-hit areas, including Buddhist temples turned temporary morgues where they have searched for missing loved ones.

Police said on Monday the move was necessary to allow hundreds of forensic experts to get on with the job of identifying bodies of thousands of Thais and foreigners through DNA samples.

"Friends and family members must refrain from visiting the tsumami-affected locations, temples, mosques, all operational grounds, including DNA gathering sites and autopsy sites," Police Lieutenant Tuaytup Dwibyunsin said in a statement.

"We appreciate your assistance very much, but we have to get organised," he said. "We don't want you risking your lives".

Hundreds of foreigners have scoured temporary morgues in the past eight days, searching for family and friends either dead or missing after the killer waves slammed into Thailand's Andaman Sea coast and islands.

Thailand's national disaster centre said 5,046 bodies -- 2,459 of them foreigners -- had been recovered from smashed luxury hotels and fishing villages, a popular destination for sun-starved foreigners during the cold northern European winter.

Nearly 4,000 people are still missing -- a number which dropped from about 6,500 after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the list was being reviewed -- including more than 1,600 foreigners, many of them Scandinavians.

While respecting their grief, Tuaytup said the order was necessary to "prevent tampering of evidence and obstructing official gathering of DNA information".

It was addressed to "friends, family members searching for loved ones, foreigners, foreign volunteers and members of the press" and aimed at protecting them from potential disease.

Foreign volunteers must register with the authorities and needed permission to enter restricted areas, it said.

TASK FORCE

The clampdown comes a day after a 19-nation forensic task force was announced to oversee the grisly work of identifying bodies -- mainly through dental records and DNA testing -- which will take many months to complete.

Some bodies may never be recovered or identified, task force leaders said. They said the corpses -- badly decomposed after more than a week in the tropical sun -- were now beyond recognition and families and friends should go home.

Search teams zeroed in on the hardest hit areas on Monday, and Thai and Japanese navy ships scoured the seas for more dead.

Rescue teams expected to finish clearing bodies from Phi Phi island, made famous in the 2000 film "The Beach", after pulling out 50-60 rotting corpses on Sunday, Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula told reporters.

Thaksin, eager to rebuild a key part of Thailand's lucrative tourist trade quickly, was to tour Phi Phi later on Monday.

Bhokin said the main search effort continued in Phang Nga province, where thousands of foreign tourists and Thai villagers were swept away from the area around Khao Lak beach by giant waves eight days ago.

"We should clear them from Phi Phi on Monday. Phuket and Krabi have finished and the only work that remains is in Phang Nga," he said, referring to the island of Phuket, one of Asia's premier beach resorts, and the mainland province of Krabi.

"After this, our work will focus on reconstruction," said Bhokin, who hopes to finish the recovery phase of the operation by January 7.

SWEDEN REELING

Sweden, reeling from a disaster that may have claimed 1,000 Swedish lives, pushed for another search of the Andaman Sea coastline by Thai and Japanese navy vessels, Bhokin said.

About 70-80 bodies have been scooped out of the water near the Similan Islands off Phang Nga, a naval officer said.

Elephants have also joined the search for bodies in Khao Lak, heading into debris-strewn forests with rescue teams to retrieve corpses where heavy earth-moving equipment cannot go.

"The elephant is like a four-wheel drive. They walk in the forest all their life," said elephant trainer Laitonglian Meepan.

Investment bank JP Morgan said in a research note that the tsunamis had dealt a "hammer blow" to portions of the region's tourist industry.

"Thailand is the severest casualty as some of its prime tourist areas have been devastated by the tsunamis," it said.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4144417.stm

Tuesday, 4 January, 2005, 05:29 GMT

Powell hails quake relief effort

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has pledged America's full support in the Asian quake and tsunami relief effort.

He was speaking in Thailand at the start of a visit of the worst affected nations, before attending a summit on the crisis in Jakarta on Thursday.

"The US will certainly not turn away from those in desperate need," he said.

Earlier, the UN warned the number killed in the disaster, about 150,000, could rise sharply as aid had not yet reached some remote areas.

In other developments:

Relief efforts in the worst-hit area, Indonesia's Aceh province, suffered a setback early on Tuesday when an accident closed the Banda Aceh airport runway

An Indian helicopter dropping food and water over the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands is attacked by tribesmen using bows and arrows

The first planes bringing home the bodies of some of the 52 Swedes known to have died in the tsunami disaster are expected to arrive in Stockholm.

More than 1.8 million need food aid, and about five million are homeless after the earthquake nine days ago.

Mr Powell and the US president's brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, are visiting Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka to see for themselves the worst affected areas.

The US secretary of state said the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean was a "tragedy for the entire world".

He said the US would help Thailand and other countries to establish a tsunami early warning system, and if more aid was needed, it would be provided.

Earlier on Monday, President Bush joined two of his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George Bush Senior, to urge Americans to aid the Asian tsunami's victims.

Around $2bn in aid has been pledged by governments and international agencies.

UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said the response had been "truly overwhelming" and that some of the world's poorest countries had responded with substantial assistance and even cash.

He confirmed the number of dead was about 150,000, but warned the number could "grow exponentially" as aid agencies finally get to remote parts of Sumatra, closest to the quake's epicentre.

It was previously thought the town of Banda Aceh, in Sumatra's Aceh province, had been the worst affected, he said.

But a team from the Red Cross and Red Crescent fears 40,000 people - about 80% of the population - have been killed in the town of Meulaboh, 150kms south of Banda Aceh.

It says the survivors are walking round in a daze, and are in desperate need of help.

Cow on runway

The BBC's Christian Fraser in Banda Aceh, says the aid effort to the area has been hampered by the accident at the airport.

A commercial cargo plane hit a cow as it landed and came to rest two-thirds of the way down the runway, leading to the closure of the airport.

It is a further frustration to the UN who already have concerns about the limited capacity of the airport where civilian and military aircraft share the same runway, say correspondents.

For the rest of the day the aid, sitting in the provincial town of Medan, 500kms south, will have to be moved by helicopter.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ke_050104064656

Top Stories - AFP

UN fears tens of thousands more tsunami dead as aid push gets star power

27 minutes ago

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) - The United Nations (news - web sites) is saying tens of thousands more people may have died in Asia's tsunami disaster as former US presidents to rock stars mobilise to feed the millions of destitute.

Two days ahead of a crisis summit of world leaders in worst-hit Indonesia, the unprecedented flow of donations for survivors was so overwhelming that one aid agency in Australia told donors to stop giving.

The international global disaster has taken nearly 150,000 lives, with 52 countries reporting that its nationals were dead or injured when the Indian Ocean's coastlines were torn apart by last week's massive wall of the water

The official death toll on Indonesia's Sumatra island, just off the epicenter of the powerful deep-sea earthquake that triggered the tsunamis, rose Tuesday to 94,100, with 387,607 people listed as displaced.

But the UN's emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, warned that the total death toll from the waves that reached as far away as Kenya may never be known.

"The death toll will grow exponentially on the western coast of Sumatra," Egeland told a news briefing at the United Nations headquarters. "We may be talking tens of thousands of further deaths in this area."

Hundreds of aid workers backed by helicopters have descended on Aceh, the area of Indonesia worst hit by the disaster, but as help reached the stranded, haphazard coordination of aid groups and foreign military hampered progress.

The flow of emergency supplies of food and medical equipment suffered a temporary setback early Tuesday when a Boeing 737 cargo plane slid off the runway at the main city of Banda Aceh, now the hub for humanitarian missions.

More than 50 foreign aid agencies were trying to reach remote areas from Banda Aceh, backed by military personnel from countries including Australia, the United States, Malaysia, New Zealand and the Philippines.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) was in Thailand as he started a tour of the tsunami devastation and pledged continued financial and military support for recovery efforts.

"We are in solidarity with you as you deal with this crisis," Powell said after talks with Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

"The aftermath of the tsunami is a tragedy for the entire world," he said.

President George W. Bush (news - web sites) on Monday tapped his father, a former president, and his predecessor Bill Clinton (news - web sites) to spearhead the raising of private funds to help victims of the tragedy.

"In the short run, the need runs into the billions," Clinton said.

"And, between public and private commitments now, we're up to about three billion dollars. The American government will probably be called upon to do the most for long-term reconstruction."

In Britain, pop stars Cliff Richard and Boy George teamed up with opera singer Russell Watson to release a tsunami charity single entitled "Grief Never Grows Old."

In Hong Kong, some 70 music and movie stars were reported to have got together to record a Chinese-language version of "We Are the World", the single by US pop stars that raised money two decades ago for victims of the famine in Ethiopia -- the last tragedy to trigger such global sympathy.

Scandinavian countries, whose nationals were the hardest hit foreigners when the waves swept up beach resorts in Thailand and Sri Lanka, stepped up their aid for the crisis.

The Norwegian government said it would ask parliament to approve a further one billion kroner (121 million euros, 163 million dollars) on top of the 100 million kroner already approved.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Copenhagen raised its aid to 75 million dollars -- and claimed his country was the world's most generous on a per-capita basis.

Australia was developing a plan to take a leading role in the reconstuction of tsunami-stricken areas of Indonesia with an aid package worth more than 500 million dollars (385 million US), reports said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard was due to fly to Jakarta for the aid summit which will also be attended by Powell, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and EU leaders.

UNICEF (news - web sites) chief Carol Bellamy, who will also be in Jakarta, started a tour of the devastation in Sri Lanka and said she found it "overwhelming."

"In my 10 years as executive director I have not seen anything of this scale," she said in Colombo, referring to the number of people killed combined with the total number of countries affected.

"One of the most haunting sights I witnessed was in the southeast of the country, where I met adults who were standing vigil on the beach in the narrow hope that the bodies of their children might wash ashore," she added.

Concrete plans for rebuilding seemed a long way off however for Sri Lanka, where relief camps have spontaneously sprung up and officials are grappling with keeping track of who needs what, while the threat of deadly diseases breaking out looms large.

"Two toilets and one bathroom for 85 people -- it's not enough," Waruni Delpagodage, 18, wearing a donated red T-shirt and pale green pleated skirt and rubber thongs, said at a camp in the southern town of Galle.

Delpagodage was lucky to survive. She and her 14-year-old brother Vijantha watched as their parents were ferociously ripped away by the waves, adding to the some 30,000 Sri Lankans who died.

"A year. I think my parents will have to stay here for about a year, that's how long it's going to take to rebuild our house," she said.

In the Andaman and Nicobar islands, the ravaged Indian archipelago, the territory's lone psychiatrist braced for a deluge of post-disaster trauma patients.

"It will take a long time for these people to recoup. Some will go into post-traumatic disorder and suffer from severe anxiety, lack of sleep and appetite," doctor Sunil Kumar said.

"Right now they are in immediate shock and so small numbers are coming to me but once they start reliving their horror they will come in huge numbers."

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...=1530&ncid=2337

Asian tsunami disaster likely to have minimal economic impact, experts say

8 minutes ago Asia - AFP

SYDNEY (AFP) - The cost in human life of the Boxing Day tsunamis is appalling by any measure but the economic impact of one of the world's worst natural disasters is likely to be minimal in the longer term, according to Australian analysts.

The earthquake and giant waves that shattered coastal regions in 11 countries, killing 150,000 people and leaving millions homeless, has caused little major damage to the economic infrastructure of most of the affected countries.

Even in Thailand and Sri Lanka destruction of the tourism industries is likely to be offset in part by a reconstuction boom while financial markets in the region and beyond have been hardly affected after an initial dip.

BT Financial Group senior economist Tracey McNaughton said supply disruption may fuel inflation problem in the affected countries.

However, while the economic costs of the disaster would be substantial relative to the income of those countries affected, the overall impact would be slim, she said in a note.

"The tsunami hit relatively undeveloped areas and no major industrial or infrastructure facilities were affected," she said.

The impact even on insurance companies was likely to be limited as most of the damaged areas would not be covered by insurance.

BT said the Insurance Information Institute had estimated insured losses at anywhere from several hundred million to a few billion dollars, which compared to insured losses of some 20 billion US dollars following the four recent hurricanes in Florida.

"Reconstruction efforts may be a boon for construction and infrastructure companies," McNaughton said.

AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver said reconstruction efforts were likely to offset damage to the tourism industry even in the countries worst affected, such as Thailand and Sri Lanka.

"It's a total disaster for those involved but it's unlikely to have a major impact for the Asian region at all, or have a negative flow-on effect to Australia," AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver said.

"There may be the benefit of construction work which may be required but I can't see a major impact on exports overall."

He said Asian stock markets had been little changed since the crisis occurred, suggesting there was unlikely to be any major impact on the region.

"Most of these economies will experience a negative initial impact, say, in the March quarter," Oliver said.

"So in the first three months you might see a dip or a slowdown in gross domestic product growth because you're seeing the initial blow and then as the construction kicks in this will be largely offset."

JP Morgan economist Stephen Walters said the tsunami could be viewed as a positive for Australia in terms of exports and the boost to local tourism it would provide.

Some Australians were now cancelling their booked holidays to Asia and were taking them locally instead, he said.

"It's substantial for certain countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives because of the tourism impact, but economies like Indonesia are not tourism areas.

"Once the reconstruction kicks in, this will actually be a boost to growth."

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/01/03...c.ap/index.html

Monday, January 3, 2005 Posted: 2:05 PM EST (1905 GMT)

Many Nordics still missing in Asia

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- The names of missing parents, children, spouses and loved ones printed on Web sites and newspapers and scrolling across TV screens brought home to the Nordics the force of the south Asian tsunamis as residents pondered the fate of nearly 3,400 missing Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and Finns.

Elsewhere across Europe, the enormity of the earthquake-propelled tsunamis that destroyed popular vacation destinations for Europeans hit home as more Britons, French, Germans and others remained unaccounted for in the disaster that has claimed more than 137,000 people and could reach 150,000.

The Thai tourist resorts hit hardest by the tsunamis, such as Phuket and Khao Lak, were warm havens for tens of thousands of Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and Finns, and other Europeans escaping the winter cold.

In Britain, with 40 people reported dead, the Association of British Travel Agents has said some 10,000 UK holidaymakers were in the affected region at the time of the tsunamis. Officials have said 159 Britons remain missing.

France has lost 22 citizens in the disaster, and another 99 are missing, said Renaud Muselier, the country's secretary of state for foreign affairs.

"There are several hundred French from whom we have no news," he added.

In Germany, where 60 people have been reported killed and 1,000 are missing, the federal anti-crime agency asked relatives to bring in DNA samples and dental records to help them identify missing victims.

The government played down as speculation a newspaper report that security officials believe 3,200 German tourists are missing and stuck with its figure of "considerably more than 1,000."

"The number of reports about missing people is much higher than the actual number of missing," Deputy Foreign Minister Klaus Scharioth said. "We have a large number of reports that we have investigated and are still investigating."

Norway's national crime police, Kripos, said Monday that 16 Norwegians were killed in the December 26 tsunami, down from the government's earlier estimate of 21. Kripos also cut the number of missing to 150, including 43 children, from the earlier estimate of 462, as Norwegians on the list began to notify police that they were safe.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry has been criticized for its record keeping which at one point had Norwegians believing more than 1,400 of their countrymen were missing or dead.

Kjersti Hoeyer, 51, of Lillehammer, said she notified the ministry twice that she and six family members and friends were safe in Phuket. Nevertheless, she found her name on the list of missing persons Monday morning.

We did everything we could," she told The Associated Press by phone. "This morning, friends were calling my mother to ask about me being missing. In different parts of the country, friends thought I was dead."

In Finland, 14 Finns are known dead and 183 more missing.

In Denmark there was some relief after the number of missing Danes fell to 69, even though National Police warned that another 100 were not accounted for. Seven Danes have been confirmed dead, but government leaders warned that the death toll would rise.

A list of missing people compiled by the National Police was published on several Web sites and newspapers, and scrolled across TV screens.

Sigfrid Albertsen, 60, was atop the National Police list published Sunday.

Visiting Phuket when the tsunami struck, he arrived home on Saturday. When the police unveiled the list, six of his family members immediately phoned him.

"At first I thought it was very unpleasant to be on the list," he told the AP by telephone from his home in Stubbekoebing in central Denmark. "But now I can see why the list is a great idea because it gets rid of necessary worries."

In Sweden, where 827 people were confirmed missing and another 1,495 are believed to be missing, there is anger because no list of names has yet been published. Fifty-two Swedes are confirmed dead.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Odlander said the government fears that criminals might use such a list to strike empty homes.

Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson said he understood the criticism.

"There is nothing worse than losing a relative. If you, on top of this, know that an injured relative on the other side of the earth does not come home straight away, anger and remorse increase, as does criticism, justified and fully understandable," he said.

In recent days, more than a dozen chartered airliners, military aircraft and air ambulances with injured Nordic citizens have landed in Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/0...uake/index.html

Tuesday, January 4, 2005 Posted: 1:36 AM EST (0636 GMT)

Powell in Bangkok as U.S. ups ante

(CNN) -- America's top diplomat is visiting Thailand's devastated regions as George W. Bush enlists the help of two former presidents to urge U.S. citizens to donate cash for tsunami victims.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai in Bangkok on Tuesday, where he said the relief effort was going "exceptionally well."

Powell told the nation's leaders, "We are in solidarity with you ... The United States will certainly not turn away from those in desperate need."

Powell is due to fly to the resort island of Phuket -- where many tourists were enjoying a Christmas holiday when the massive waves hit -- before visiting Indonesia for an international conference that U.N. head Kofi Annan will also attend.

The death toll from the Indian Ocean tsunami now stands at 155,000 in at least 11 countries, and tens of thousands more remain unaccounted for as hopes of finding the missing fades.

As many as 5,000 Americans are still unaccounted for, Powell said on Monday, with many of them likely to have been in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Asking Americans to open their wallets, George W. Bush named his father, former President George H. W. Bush, along with former President Bill Clinton, to lead a fund-raising campaign for the victims.

"The devastation in the region defies comprehension," Bush said on Monday in Washington as he announced the campaign.

Appearing on CNN's Larry King, George H. W. Bush sought to counter charges the United States has been slow to respond to the disaster.

It offered only $35 million last week before raising the amount tenfold.

Other countries were quicker to commit large amounts of aid money.

Japan has pledged $500 million, and Norway about $180 million, making that the single largest per capita pledge of any nation. (Contributions by country)

So far governments around the globe have offered more than $2 billion in aid to the countries hit by the disaster.

Michael Elmquist, a deputy to the head of the U.N.'s Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "It's the greatest and biggest aid effort in the world, a scale never tried before."

Indonesian disaster

But as money pours in, relief workers are struggling to reach areas cut off by the tsunamis, triggered by a 9.0-magnitude quake off the west coast of Aceh province, Indonesia, on December 26.

"Nowhere do we have the kind of problems that we're seeing in Sumatra and Aceh," Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, said Monday.

Indonesia's health ministry has raised the toll in that nation alone to more than 94,000.

U.S. military helicopters are delivering food to remote parts of Indonesia's Aceh province, and flying out the injured, with Australian troops also on the scene delivering supplies. (Mike Chinoy on the scene)

But the damaged roads, thick rain forest and remote location of the hardest hit areas are making that task difficult, especially in getting the supplies from the east coast to the island's west.

The final toll from the disaster may never be known -- particularly in western Indonesia, where Egeland said the toll would grow "exponentially," likely reaching "tens of thousands of further deaths."

India helps neighbor

India's navy launched its largest relief operation, part of a $25 million effort to help Sri Lanka, where more than 47,062 people are dead and 16,000 others are missing.

Eleven Indian ships were dispatched to the island nation and military helicopters also ferried in relief supplies, while engineers were sent to help rebuilt the devastated economy.

Already, India has delivered six tons of supplies to the tsunami-hit areas and plans to ship in 20 tons more.

And cash aid is being used in Sri Lanka to pay residents to help in the clean-up effort, giving them money to return to shops and help restart the shattered economy.

India itself was hit hard by the tsunami, with at least 9,400 people dead, most on its east coast and in the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, closer to Thailand and Indonesia than their mother country.

Madhusree Mukerjee, an Indonesian journalist and expert on the indigenous peoples of the islands, said the Andamans -- the northernmost of the islands -- "suffered property damage but little loss of life," but the real devastation was in the Nicobar Islands.

Around 45,000 people live on the Nicobar Islands and Mukerjee said the tsunamis "washed over many of the Nicobar Islands many times."

Indian officials report more than 5,600 people missing on the islands.

No aid needed

Mukerjee said the Indian government -- which declined international aid, saying it could handle the emergency itself -- was doing as good a job as could be expected.

But she said the Andaman and Nicobar islands could have benefited from assistance from the much closer Thailand, which also declined international financial aid.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told CNN his country did not need financial help but was appreciative of expertise and equipment -- especially forensics expertise.

"We have never had anything like this," he said, "and it is getting harder to identify corpses."

Thai authorities have reported 4,993 dead and about 3,500 missing. Many of them are believed to be tourists from Western Europe, for whom the beaches of Phuket are a popular destination.

Nonetheless, Thaksin said he was pleased to see how fast the area "came back to normal activity."

Owners of hotels that survived the tsunami in Phuket, for example, are encouraging vacationers to return -- and some are. The owners say the return of the tourists is essential to their survival.

Still some 70 percent of the hotels' reservations have been cancelled, officials said.

CNN's Aneesh Raman said the juxtaposition of tourists on the beach where thousands died a week ago was odd, as was watching relatively normal beach activities while knowing hundreds of thousands elsewhere were in desperate need of aid.

--CNN Correspondents Mike Chinoy and Atika Shubert in Indonesia;Paula Hancocks in Sri Lanka; and Aneesh Raman in Phuket, Thailand,contributed to this report.

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http://www.komchadluek.net/breaking/read.p...en&newsid=34188

Official death toll from tsunamis at 5,187

Published on Jan 04 , 2005

The official death toll from last week's tsunamis disaster has reached 5,200, with over 8,000 injured and about 4,000 still listed as missing.

According to the latest figures released by the government's tsunami relief centre, about 5,187 people are confirmed as dead, while 8,457 are injured, and about 3,810 listed as missing.

Phang-nga reported the highest death toll with 4,077 deaths and 5,597 injured.

====================================

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/01/04...s_15958466.html

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH: King: Take care of orphans

Published on January 04, 2005

Royal foundation to provide education, shelter for at least 100 young survivors who lost their parents, siblings

His Majesty the King has instructed the Rajaprachanukroh Foundation under his patronage to look after more than 100 children orphaned by the tsunami that struck southern Thailand last week, the organisation’s chairman said yesterday.

Kwankaew Watcharoethai said His Majesty asked the foundation to take care of the orphans and make sure they received at least a college education.

The total number of orphans has yet to be finalised but officials say they expect more orphans to be rescued in the coming days.

Phanee Sithikarn, head of the Provincial Social Welfare Department in Phuket, said teams had been told to visit the affected areas with search vehicles to look for orphans and bring them to shelters.

The King earlier donated Bt30 million to tsunami victims through the foundation and Her Majesty the Queen took the lead in an international blood-giving drive.

As international and local rescue workers worked around the clock looking for survivors and digging up the dead, one boy was trying hard to cope with the loss that changed forever his life and his view of the sea, that he grew up to love and depend on.

“I don’t want to be here anymore. I’ve lost my whole family here,” 12-year-old Wisut Somabut said.

Wisut now regards the sea as a treacherous friend after it swallowed up his parents, three younger siblings and their beachfront house in Phang Nga’s Takua Pa district.

After witnessing the ferocity with which the waves struck, he held out little hope of seeing this family alive again.

On December 26, Wisut was playing with his siblings on the beach when he noticed the first tidal wave raging in.

“I yelled at my siblings and parents [who were in the house] to run. I jumped on a bicycle that happened to be nearby and pedalled hard to escape death,” the boy recalled. His destination was a temple uphill where he believed he would be safe.

Wisut said he glanced back many times worried about his family and saw how the waves engulfed his village, Ban Nam Khem.

“I really wished I could have helped my family but I just couldn’t go back with the huge waves following so closely,” he said.

His voice shook when he recounted the first thing that came to his mind when he reached the temple. “I felt that my family were gone forever,” he said.

Wisut said he stayed overnight at the temple and went back to check where his house once stood the next day. It appeared that his worst fears had become reality.

No one was there. There was nothing for him.

He later followed other shaken survivors to a relief centre for some food. During the past week, he went to Tha Muang Temple every day in the hope of finding the bodies of his loved ones there.

Wisut plans to move to Surat Thani to live with his maternal grandmother once he has found the bodies of his family.

“I don’t know who I am going to stay here for. I think I should move away,” he said.

He was not alone in his heartbreaking loss. More than 100 other children also lost their parents to the deadly tsunamis. Surveys showed that 61 children were orphaned in Krabi, 29 in Phang Nga, 25 in Ranong and two others in Phuket.

The figure could climb even higher once the authorities are able to finalise how many lives were lost to the disaster.

Mesa Senasana, 9, is another orphaned survivor from Phang Nga. Like Wisut, the boy escaped death thanks to his bicycle.

“I rode to school on my bicycle. I would never have imagined that it would save my life, but it did,” Mesa said. His parents and his three-year-old brother did not survive.

Mesa cannot see what the future holds. Looking at the piles of bodies scattered around, the boy said he wanted to enter the monkhood so he could perform rituals for all the dead.

Social Development and Welfare Department Deputy Director-General Suwit Khantaroj said more than 100 social workers were working in Satun, Ranong, Trang, Phang Nga, Phuket and Krabi to help survivors cope with the deadly disaster’s aftermath.

“We are also focusing our assistance on orphaned children,” he said.

He called on people to contact relief centres if they find any child orphaned by the tsunami.

The orphans will be immediately put under the care of state-run orphanages while authorities help locate their next-of-kin or find them foster families, he said.

The Office of Basic Education Commission said the tsunami orphans would be put up at boarding schools where they would receive free meals and a free education.

-------------------------------------

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/01/04...s_15958476.html

PM refuses to halt search effort

Published on January 04, 2005

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday ordered search-and-recovery operations to continue even though it has been more than a week since deadly tidal waves hit six southern beach provinces.

Thaksin said the operations could not be called off because 3,810 people were still unaccounted for.

“It is believed that there are many more bodies trapped in mud in several areas. I understand that officials and volunteers have been working hard to retrieve and identify bodies and that they are exhausted. Nonetheless, the operation must continue,” he said.

He advised search-and-recovery teams to rotate their members in shifts often to allow everyone sufficient rest.

The official death toll yesterday stood at 5,187.

Search centres in Phuket ended their operations yesterday, while those on Phi Phi Island will close today. In Phang Nga, four out of the seven search-and-recovery centres have closed down. The remaining three continue to work at Khao Lak, Baan Nam Khe and Koh Koe Kao.

Travelling in a helicopter, the prime minister paid a visit to affected areas in Phi Phi Island and Phang Nga province. In Phang Nga, he visited the Yan Yao Temple, which doubled as a temporary morgue as well as a centre where relatives and families could check an updated list of missing persons.

Dr Khunying Pornthip Rojanasunan, the centre’s coordinator, told Thaksin that she was overworked, but that the centre’s operations were running more smoothly and effectively. Pornthip, who is deputy director of the Department of Special Investigation, said she and her staff would remain at the centre until necessary.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that foreign families and friends were ordered to stay away from tsunami-hit areas, including temporary morgues in Yan Yao temple, where they had been hoping to find the bodies of missing loved ones. The request was made so that the hundreds of forensic experts on site could get on with the job of identifying the bodies of thousands of Thais and foreigners through DNA samples.

“Friends and family members must refrain from visiting the tsunami-affected locations, temples, mosques, all operational grounds, including DNA-gathering sites and autopsy sites,” Police Lieutenant Tuaytup Dwibyunsin said in a statement. Anguished foreigners have been scouring temporary morgues in search of family members and friends, either dead or missing, since the killer waves slammed into Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast on December 26.

Porntip told Associated Press that 300 victims, Thais or other Asians, were being exhumed. “When relatives came to claim the victims’ bodies, it turned out they had been given the wrong number,” she said. “The local offices did not put tags on the bodies properly, so we are trying to re-identify them. No one understood how important it was to have the appropriate tagging and labelling. The last two days we have had the problem of digging up bodies.”

In one case, a Thai family said it had mistakenly brought the wrong body from Phuket to Bangkok. The woman’s corpse turned out to be that of a 23-year-old Philippine choreographer and ballet dance instructor.

“There were just too many casualties, or maybe because Thais and Filipinos look the same, we don’t know. But in a disaster of this magnitude confusion is bound to happen,” said Hector Cruz, a Manila-based labour official helping families locate dead, injured or missing relatives in Thailand.

Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said relatives should come to an area only after the positive identification of a body has officially been made. A British company financed by the Australian government was expected to start transporting bodies overseas soon, he said.

The remains of foreigners are kept in air-conditioned containers and Thais are temporarily buried in nearby cemeteries until relatives claim and retrieve them for cremation. Rescuers are packing some bodies in dry ice to slow down decomposition in the tropical heat.

Officials sought to increase their refrigeration capacity to store bodies, while DNA samples, fingerprints, and dental records were obtained from each corpse so that identification could be made later.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said relatives of foreign victims could send DNA samples to be matched against samples taken from bodies in Thailand.

The Nation, Agencies

PHUKET

--------------------------------

other headlines:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/01/04/headlines/

Leaders to mull early warning system

Countries in the Indian Ocean will discuss setting up an early-warning system when leaders and officials meet on Thursday in Jakarta on ways to prevent a repeat of the devastation caused by last week’s tsunami.

PM refuses to halt search effort

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday ordered search-and-recovery operations to continue even though it has been more than a week since deadly tidal waves hit six southern beach provinces.

Website for DNA data

Dead tsunami victims’ DNA information is available on the official Thai website, thaitsunami.com, to help identify them, Information and Communications Technology minister Surapong Suebwonglee said yesterday.

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http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/01/04/business/

PARADISE LOST: Full recovery could take many years

Phuket’s future as a tourism hub is now hanging in the balance

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH: Businesses plead for loan payment moratorium

Lower interest rates and other kinds of financial assistance would not help tsunami-battered businesses as much as a repayment moratorium to give them time to rebuild and get back to business, according to local entrepreneurs

Proper planning vital to cut losses

After the death and destruction wrought by the tsunami, gone are the days when city planning and other agencies can afford to be lenient in allowing construction of any property in areas prone to devastation, especially beaches.

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http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=...805877&sec=asia

Tuesday January 4, 2005

270,000 living in refugee camps

JAKARTA: The number of people living in refugee camps in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province of Aceh has risen to more than 270,000, the government said yesterday.

The Health Ministry's revised figure of 271,908, up from its previous tally of 198,906, only counts people living in established refugee camps.

Aid organisations believe the number of people made homeless in Aceh is far higher than the official refugee count, with many survivors still seeking shelter elsewhere, such as on the side of roads.

Many more are still living in isolated communities that remain cut off from relief efforts, with destroyed roads and bridges along Aceh's flattened west coast still weeks away from being rebuilt.

The ministry said yesterday that the death toll in Aceh and elsewhere on Sumatra island from the Dec 26 earthquake and tsunami had passed 94,000, a jump of more than 14,000.

The rise in the official tally was mainly due to the number of people confirmed killed in Aceh's capital of Banda Aceh climbing from 18,000 to 30,000.

The island of Simeulue off the coast of northern Aceh has the largest number of people living in refugee camps with 73,015, according to the ministry. – AFP

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some more data on tsunamis

{ prophesy's part can be simply skipped if one wants to refer only to The Scientific Perspective of TSUNAMIS }

http://www.thercg.org/trends/eavip.pdf

The Scientific Perspective of TSUNAMIS

Scientists now better understand what makes up the earth’s core, mantle, and crust. They have also learned of the mind-defying forces in dynamic motion at or near the earth’s surface. Understanding the earth’s interior has helped us to better understand earthquakes. These forces are unpredictable and carry the potential

for enormous destruction.

The distance from the center of the earth—the core—to the surface is approximately 4,000 miles. The core consists of superheated dense metallic

compounds. The inner core is believed to be solid. The outer core is molten.

Beyond the outer core lies the mantle, which is 1,800 miles thick and consists

of semi-molten and semi-solid rock.

Because of the soft consistency of the mantle, some refer to it as the “hot

plastic layer” upon which the tectonic plates float. Tectonic plates are the large semirigid slabs that form most of the earth’s crust. These plates may be

thousands of miles wide, but only 3 to 45 miles thick. Consider this analogy:

If the earth were the size of an apple, the thickness of the crust would be less

than the thickness of the apple’s skin.

Tectonic plates also make up the earth’s surface. The visible surfaces of

these plates are the landmasses known as continents. For most continents,

such as Africa and the Americas, the boundary of the plate upon which they

rest coincides with their own boundary or shoreline. At the edge of a tectonic

plate, where it borders another plate, is an area of geologic activity. A visible

fault line that gives evidence of the past geologic turbulence identifies

these boundaries.

Africa is bordered by a fault system that travels along the Red Sea and

Suez Canal in the northeast. This fault system continues within the main continental plate in eastern Africa. The western border of the African plate is

located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is called the Mid-Atlantic

Ridge. This ridge also marks the border of the South American plate to the

west of the African plate. The ridge extends on to the North Pole, dividing

the North American and the Eurasian plates, as well.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge has formed because, as the plates separate,

molten magma pushes up to the surface and “repairs the breach.” (This is

one example of how the earth is self-sustaining.) The entire Mid-Atlantic

Ridge extends 12,000 miles, from Antarctica to the North Pole.

When the movement of tectonic plates becomes restrained by irregular surfaces or friction, energy is stored, as the masses try to continue moving.

Earthquakes occur when this tension exceeds the strength of the

impeding rock masses at the edge of the affected plates. Some plates may

move only an inch or so in a given year. Periods of no movement are

interpreted as danger signals. When impeding formations block further

movement, energy is being stored up for a powerful quake.

A worldwide network of seismographs (instruments that detect tremors) detects about a million small earthquakes per year. Major earthquakes occur every few

years. Moderate earthquakes, such as the January 1994 quake of Northridge,

California, that registered 6.8 on the Richter scale, and the 1995 quake in

Kobe, Japan, that registered 6.9, occur about 20 times per year.

In the past 500 years, quakes of all sizes have claimed several million

lives worldwide. The danger is now greater than ever, since the population

has dramatically increased during the last two centuries. Some of the world’s

most earthquake-prone regions are also the most densely populated.

The Pacific Rim has been the most volatile region for earthquakes. It accounts for 80% of released earthquake energy. Several thousand small to moderate quakes occur each year around the west coast of North and South America, at the eastern flank of the Pacific Rim. The southeastern Asian countries and many island

nations in the region are also experiencing heightened seismic activity.

Each year, Japan alone is shaken by more than 1,000 tremors of magnitudes

greater than 3.5 (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2000).

The formation of the Andes Mountain range in South America has resulted from the ocean plate wedging beneath the continental plate and pushing the continental plate upward, forming the higher elevations.

Catastrophic volcanoes formed some of the mountain formations of this range, adding more landmass. By contrast, the trough beyond the shoreline is one of the deepest in the world (4,400 feet), due to the sunken Pacific plate!

Volatile Earthquakes

Near the Pacific coast in Chile, high in the Andes, a terrible series of earthquakes

began on May 21, 1960. On the following day, a quake registered 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale (explained later)—the highest reading ever recorded. The effects of these quakes were enormous. New volcanoes and several older volcanoes were suddenly activated. Islands disappeared off the coast.

During this quake, an entire 25 mile-long strip of the coastal mountains (about 2 to 3 miles wide) suddenly dropped 1,000 feet, finally wedging between the two giant plates, now partially submerged in the sea.

Casualties from these quakes reached nearly 5,000, as several mountain and

coastal villages were severely hit.

These quakes generated seismic waves that sped across the Pacific at about 500 miles per hour. In some areas, these waves exceeded 150 feet. They proved to be destructive wherever they hit. The warning of this tsunami (another term for seismic waves) was not heeded in Japan, although it took 22 hours to reach the islands, and would have allowed time for evacuation.

Since a tsunami had never before originated as far away as South America, the warning was ignored. When it hit the coastal villages, mass destruction occurred,

and 138 were reported killed or missing. Fortunately, hundreds managed to evacuate various shore areas.

In 1771, a tsunami generated by an earthquake hit Japan with a 260-foot wave.

The destruction was enormous, with 11,000 killed or missing.

In 1883, a 120- foot, volcano-generated tsunami between Java and Sumatra erased all life from many islands. In Java and Sumatra alone, 36,000 died.

Another earthquake-generated tsunami hit the Philippines in 1976, killing over 5,000. Tsunamis are erroneously called tidal waves, but tidal forces do not cause them. They result mainly from underwater earthquakes or volcanoes.

The strongest earthquake recorded in North America was centered near

Anchorage, Alaska, in March 1964. It registered 8.5 on the Richter scale and 9.2 on the moment scale. It caused approximately 12,000 square miles of land southeast of Anchorage to rise about 7.5 feet. About 35,000 square miles to the northwest dropped about 5 feet. The damage from this quake was enormous, yet only 131 died, since most damage occurred in sparsely populated areas.

BEHIND EARTHQUAKES

Earthquakes occur because, within the earth’s asthenosphere, stress causes the semiplastic rocks to move very slowly. This builds up strain within the more

brittle rocks of the lithosphere above. Eventually, the brittle rocks break and the stress is released as shock waves. Earthquakes can take place at the depths of 450 miles (720 km). Those that have effects on the surface usually occur no deeper than 45 miles (70 km).

In 1976, there was a tremendous loss of life from earthquakes. In Guatemala, 23,000 died and a million were left homeless. However, in China, the Tang Shan quake, near Peking, claimed an unbelievable 655,000 lives!

In 1974, another quake of similar proportions could have been as lethal, but local farmers recognized that a normal well began yielding artesian water (water under sudden pressure).

Past experience had revealed this as one of the indicators of an imminent

quake. The local populace sounded the warning and an evacuation took place

in Haich’eng, China, saving many thousands of lives (Powers of Nature,

Tom Melham, 1978, p. 46).

Measurement of Earthquakes

Dr. Charles Richter, seismologist at Cal Tech, first developed the Richter scale in 1935. While not a precise measure of earthquake energy, the Richter scale provides a rough comparison of earthquakes. The scale is open-ended in that very small earthquakes may register as minus numbers, and no maximum limit exists. So far, no earthquakes have registered above 9, although the 1960 Chilean

quake came close.

The Richter scale is logarithmic.

This means that, for each unit jump (such as from 6.0 to 7.0 on the

scale), the seismic wave amplitude increases 10 times over, and the energy

of the quake actually increases 30 times. This same comparison would apply from

a 7.0 to an 8.0 on the scale—a 10-fold increase in seismic wave amplitude and a 30-fold increase in energy level. But, from 6.0 to 8.0 there would be a 100-fold increase in seismic amplitude and a 900-fold increase in energy level.

In a 1978 interview, Dr. Richter explained the scale, expressing his surprise that it worked as well as it did. He indicated that it was based on an assumption that could not possibly be true—that one could compare earthquakes merely by multiplying some arithmetical factor. He emphasized that every quake was unique

and that two magnitude 6.5 tremors could release appreciably different

amounts of energy (Ibid., p. 19). Seismologists today generally use an improved and updated scale along with the Richter scale. The newer scale is called the moment magnitude scale. The moment magnitude is determined by the area of the fissure of the quake and the amount of displacement of the relative plates.

The moment magnitude of the 1906 San Francisco quake would be 7.6; the Alaskan quake of 1964 would be 9.2; the 1995 Kobe, Japan quake would be 7.0.

The three quakes listed would have registered on the Richter scale as 8.3, 8.5, and 6.9, respectively. Often, publications differ with each other on the magnitude of the same earthquake. Sometimes these contradictions derive from confusion

as to which scale was used to report the quake.

Three types of shock waves:

Primary (P) waves:

Waves compress and expand rock, causing back and forth movement in the same

direction as the waves

Secondary (S) waves:

Waves cause rock to shake back and forth at the right angles

Surface waves:

Involves rolling motion causing two kinds of waves that reach the surface

Measuring the intensity of an earthquake:

....................... [from 3.0 om RICHTER SCALE to 8.0 are skipped; quoted here is only last one - about 9.0 ]

Catastrophic

Shock waves visible

in the ground

(total destruction).

Secondary Effects

Just as energy levels of earthquakes can vary, so can the after-effects. On

May 31, 1970, a minor earthquake (about 4 or less on the Richter scale) in

Peru triggered avalanches and mudflows. The mudflows buried the town

of Yungay, killing over 18,000. The overall death toll in Peru from major

quakes that struck that same day was 66,000.

The same was true for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. As devastating

as it was, more were killed in the resulting fires than by the quake

itself. Since death and destruction can be an indirect result of a quake, neither

the Richter scale nor the moment magnitude scale can factor in all the secondary

destruction.

Another indirect effect of the 1906 quake (and most quakes) is that watersaturated

sandy soil becomes like quicksand and foundations of homes and buildings give way, leading to the damage or collapse of many structures.

Earthquakes do not produce volcanoes. But in regions where volcanoes exist, they are indications of imminent volcanic activity. Volcanic eruptions can cause earthquakes. As the fluid magma rises to the surface in a volcano eruption, the magma fractures rock masses and causes continuous tremors for hours or days at a time. Volcanoinduced quakes were responsible for the disappearance of the massive face of Mount St. Helen in the 1980 eruption. When touring Japan to learn of earthquake preparation techniques employed by the Japanese, a writer for National Geographic magazine gave an account of his experience in an

earthquake simulator.

The simulator would begin with low to moderate tremors. In demonstrating more intense tremors, the motion would be vertical and lateral. At the most intense setting, not only was the writer unable to stand, he was immediately thrown against the wall. (Emergency personnel have traditionally warned about flying glass fragments during an earthquake—another reason to take refuge under desks and strong tables away from windows and mirrors.)

As the writer emerged from the simulator, he was informed that he had

failed the experiment. He failed to turn off the stove in the simulator and

quickly grab the fire extinguisher, as instructed to do while he could still

stand. He was told that, in a real earthquake, that mistake could have cost

him his life in a blazing inferno (Ibid.,p. 37).

The Tokyo quake of 1923 (8.3 on the Richter scale) shows the destructiveness

of fire during an earthquake. This quake ripped through the city just as thousands of stoves were being lit to prepare the noon meal. Many of the wooden buildings collapsed at once. Strong winds mushroomed the uncontrolled fires that swept through the city for nearly two days. Some 40,000 victims crowded into a vacant

17-acre lot, finding themselves trapped between Tokyo’s Sumida River and the advancing wall of fire. About 38,000 drowned or were burned there; another 20,000 died throughout Tokyo; 41,000 more died in Yokohama and other Japanese cities (Ibid.).

The Coming Quake

The San Andreas fault line extends from the gulf of Baja California, across

much of southern and central California, where it again follows the coastline. This fault line is the boundary of the huge Pacific and North American plates. Much detailed study of this fault system by geologists and seismologists has contributed greatly to understanding earthquakes. Scientists can study the geologic

history of such fault lines and determine the normal rate of slippage between tectonic plates and establish somewhat of a behavior pattern across hundreds of years. They can determine when a quake is due in a given area by the lack of recent slippage of the plates.

Scientists can identify seismic gaps, which are areas of the fault line that sustain the greatest strain. Scientists pay close attention to precursors like seismic silence—an absence of slippage. They also examine any recent absence of a major

quake within a past span, where major quakes had historically followed a regular

pattern. Such key precursors help scientists predict (with reasonable accuracy)

the probability of a quake in a specific region. However, unlike weather forecasting, no specific date can be given —only the probability within a broad time frame of a decade or so. Much research and time has been invested in the study of known and unknown precursors of earthquakes, but without consistent results. Yet, the inevitability of a major earthquake with massive destruction in

populated areas of California is not science fiction, but a scientific fact.

The idea that most of the southern California coastline could disappear into the ocean is more fiction than fact. But the probability of a major destructive earthquake along the San Andreas fault in the near future is extremely high!

The moderate earthquake of October 17, 1989, in the San Francisco Bay Area (causing the partial collapse of the upper deck of the massive Oakland Bay Bridge), registered 7.1 on the Richter scale. Suppose this quake had been 8.1—10 times the seismic amplitude and 30 times the energy— how much more destruction

would have occurred? Would the death toll have been 10 times the 61 that actually perished in this quake? Or would it have been 100 times, or perhaps 1,000 times? The projected statistics of a major quake in population centers are not pleasant to contemplate. The quake of January 17, 1994, was another “moderate” quake, with

the epicenter in Northridge, just north of Los Angeles. The freeway bridges and overpasses—built according to some of the highest standards in the world—buckled like toys. Here, the death toll was also relatively low— only 62—resulting mainly from collapsed apartment dwellings.

This quake registered 6.8 on the Richter scale. Suppose this quake had resulted from a 200-mile fissure in the San Andreas fault shifting more than thirty feet, producing a Richter magnitude of 8.8. That would be 100 times the seismic amplitude of the Northridge quake and 900 times the energy. This does not consider the area affected by the shock, which would be many hundreds of times greater! This type of quake may occur in the near future.

The Coming Quake: Science and Trembling on the California Earthquake Frontier, written by T.A. Heppenheimer, is not science fiction. Rather, Dr. Heppenheimer projects what could result if a major quake caused the fault line directly beneath downtown Los Angeles to break open. He estimates that 33,000 of the 700,000 buildings in the city would be destroyed. Another 22,000 would need

major repair. Concerning the impact of a future major quake upon metro Los Angeles, he writes, “While damage to homes will rank as the most serious threat to

personal safety, the general collapse of the freeway system will stand as the

next major problem.” The collapse of bridges and overpasses of the freeways,

as well as railroads will complete “the near-isolation of Los Angeles [from] the rest of the country” (pp. 197-198, 200).

Heppenheimer stresses, “Water systems will present overwhelming problems. These may take the most deadly form imaginable: the failure of a major dam…If you drive north on Interstate 5…an immense flattopped embankment of earth can be seen…This is Castaic Dam. It holds 350,000 acre-feet of water, enough to

flood fifty square miles to a depth of ten feet…Now proceed farther along I-5…to…Pyramid Dam, nearly four hundred feet tall…179,000 acre-feet of water…And still farther back in the hills…Bouquet Canyon, the site of another major dam…” (pp. 200-201). “Across vast areas, then, people will be left without lights. There will

be no radio or television, except for battery-operated portables. There will be cold, as well as dark; most homeheating systems rely on electricity… Refrigerators will be out as well as kitchen ranges…And on top of all these hardships, there will be major fire hazards” (p. 205).

Heppenheimer then summarizes the disaster: “The Big One, in short, will overwhelm existing abilities to cope with disaster. There will be not one, but a combination of large-scale losses, any of which by itself could cripple the region: breakdown of the freeways, blockage of the railroads, overload of the phone system, widespread damage to the sewer system, disruption of the water supply, severe shortages of electric power, and substantial fire hazards from petroleum

and natural-gas pipelines. All these together will strain the region’s emergency

services well beyond the point of breakdown. It will be several days, at least, before the main aftershocks cease to rumble, the freeways are cleared, and a semblance of power is restored, and the people who need help can begin to see the assurance that it is at hand” (p. 206).

All the while, as California awaits the “Big One,” earthquakes continue to occur around the world in various places. Some take a heavy toll, like the one in western Turkey in August 1999, which claimed over 17,000 lives, or the one in India in January 2001, which killed about 20,000. For an extensive listing of some of the major earthquakes of recent years, you may wish to consult The World

Almanac 2002. Also, websites such as the one sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey (earthquake.usgs. gov) provide much information about earthquakes, including the most recent quakes of the last 30 days—worldwide.

[following Parts 2 and 3 - prophesies parts - skipped here]

Edited January 4, 2005 by aaaaaa

[Tornado]

getting sick of these types of posts ! no one reads a post that long.

Now lets get back to finding the boy who might be being raped right at this moment.

[aaaaaa]

getting sick of these types of posts ! no one reads a post that long.

if you get sick of long posts - don't read then!

nobody forces you to waste your valuable time on reading this. everyone him-/ herself chooses what to read .

Forum's moderator Darknight has told me to post full articles with credits to authours etc. after editing few original posts where I was giving only URL links. he said that people get confused by clicking to too many links.... that's the only reason I've started paste long texts.... I must comply with moderators rules - not your's - sorry, pal !

regards

Edited January 4, 2005 by aaaaaa

[jackr]

Some pretty spot-on coverage there, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa; keep it up!

[aaaaaa]

getting sick of these types of posts ! no one reads a post that long.

Now lets get back to finding the boy who might be being raped right at this moment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

by the way - as I've suspected, this was all the fuss about this boy , which is confirmed by some posts in this forum:

Boy 'not Kidnapped' In Thailand

as well as as Thai (see pasted by George article in that thread) and international media, URL to article provided by the member Waverider who started that thread :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4148599.stm

Boy 'not kidnapped' in Thailand

A young Swedish boy missing after the recent tsunami has not been kidnapped from hospital despite speculation to the contrary, Thai police say.

and I rather consider such your remark qouted above : "Now lets get back to finding the boy who might be being raped right at this moment." as a part of that histerical and perhaps obsessive paranoia which another member The_Moog in that thread talks about, very well said BTW :

The root of this story is a UK paranoia of paedophiles. Journalists know they can get a story if they try to raise the possibility of paedophile involvement.

in fact I consider your comment here as irresponsible! sort of trying to inflame unnecessarily unconfimred info, which appeared to be practically rumours rather than real fact !

not to speak that it is completely our of topic here.

and last : I wonder, people like you who like fuss, - do they even ever bother to follow up the news about such a fact which they consider much more important? and then - do they bother to make some sort of, well, admitions that "I was wrong to fuss about it?" I doubt it very much !

[aaaaaa]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/0...nami/index.html

Friday, January 7, 2005 Posted: 1:33 AM EST (0633 GMT)

Toll jumps by 7,000, Annan in Aceh

Donor nations agree to set up tsunami warning system

(CNN) -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has arrived in the devastated province of Aceh as Indonesia's death toll rose dramatically to over 100,000.

The number of missing in Indonesia from the tsunami disaster has nearly doubled to more than 10,000.

Annan is touring the area to see first hand the magnitude of the disaster.

Nearly 163,000 people are now confirmed dead from the earthquake and tsunamis that hit twelve nations.

The U.N. head has also called for the international community to stop the threat of a second wave of death from preventable diseases.

World leaders have pledged to work together on relief and reconstruction and establish a warning system to help avoid a similar disaster in the Indian Ocean.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday in Jakarta that the United Nations will take over coordination of the relief effort from a core group of nations.

Powell had convened the core group -- the United States, Australia, Japan, India, Canada and the Netherlands -- at U.S. President George W. Bush's request following criticism his administration had not responded aggressively enough to the crisis.

The group will disband and blend its role into the broader U.N. effort, Powell said. (Full story)

Annan told a donor conference in the Indonesian capital that Indian Ocean countries would need $977 million in cash assistance over the next six months to recover. (Full story)

World leaders also agreed to quickly set up a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean, similar to the one in place in the Pacific.

But they gave no specifics on funding or logistics for such a system.

Scientists in Australia, however, have said they could build the system within a year for about $20 million, but that cost does not include the communications links needed to warn people in coastal communities to flee before the giant waves arrive, The Associated Press reported.

Japan plans to offer technical expertise to set up the warning system, AP said.

Japan has one of the world's most advanced networks of fiber-optic sensors, which can warn of deadly tsunami within two minutes of a quake, the agency reported.

"No longer must we leave ourselves so vulnerable and so exposed," Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathaim said.

"It is well-proven that 10 minutes advance warning can save hundreds of lives."

Tens of thousands of people are still missing, and the final death toll may never be known as many people were swept out to sea or buried under mud and rubble.

More than 500,000 people have been injured, more than one million have been displaced and more than two million are in need of food, Annan said Thursday.

The massive waves devastated coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand and killed people as far away as east Africa.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the conference's host, called it "the most destructive disaster in living memory."

Hundreds of thousands of survivors across the region face a shortage of clean drinking water, food and medicine.

While no outbreaks of disease have been reported, World Health Organization General-Director Lee Jong-wook said the organization was "extremely concerned about the ongoing lack of access to basic needs."

The WHO has said that 150,000 people are at extreme risk if a major disease outbreak occurs, and the agency estimates it needs $60 million to help head off the prospect of epidemics in the stricken areas.

The international community has stepped forward with pledges of nearly $4 billion for countries devastated by the tsunamis, with new cash promises on the eve of the summit.( Country-by-country pledges)

Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Wednesday said his country will donate an additional billion Australian dollars ($764.5 million) to a partnership with Indonesia for rehabilitation. (Full story)

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder also came up with more cash, announcing his government was rising its pledge to 500 million euros ($660 million). (Full story)

The U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland says he is pleased to see what he calls "competitive compassion."

But despite the growing pledges, most of that cash is not in hand to begin the work for the largest humanitarian operation in U.N. history.

Both Indonesia's Sumatra Island and the eastern and southern coasts of Sri Lanka are facing rain in the coming days.

In Thailand, the United States has sent experts in forensic identification to help identify the dead. Around 5,000 people have died there, many of them tourists spending the holidays at coastal resorts.

U.S. cargo planes and helicopters from American warships in the Indian Ocean continue to deliver aid to some of the worst-hit areas, while Australian soldiers share humanitarian duty with their Indonesian counterparts.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. official said Secretary Powell was growing frustrated with the slow process of whittling down the list of unaccounted-for Americans and has told his aides he wants faster progress.

Powell said there was a need to get dental records and DNA samples from relatives of those still unaccounted for.

The bodies now being recovered are decomposed and bloated, making them hard to identify. (Full story)

Other developments

Indonesian authorities have taken steps to protect displaced or orphaned children from traffickers after the disaster, barring people from leaving the country with children under 16 from its hard-hit Aceh province. (Full story)

Myanmar's rocky shoreline and the angle of the coast prevented the damage that killed more than 5,000 in Thailand and thousands more on India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are about 200 miles (320 km) off the coast, a Red Cross official told CNN. (Full story)

CNN Correspondents Mike Chinoy in Aceh, Satinder Bindra in Sri Lanka, and Aneesh Raman contributed to this report.

[aaaaaa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4153741.stm

Friday, 7 January, 2005, 08:26 GMT

440 Britons feared dead in quake

Around 440 Britons are either dead or missing in the Asian tsunami disaster, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said.

Mr Straw told a news conference in Thailand 49 Britons had been confirmed dead and 391 remained unaccounted for.

He said the confirmed dead included 36 Britons in Thailand, 10 in Sri Lanka and three in the Maldives.

The Foreign Secretary said the anxiety of relatives of the missing would be prolonged because of the scale of the task to identify bodies.

He said experts from more than 30 countries were involved in one of the biggest international forensic operations ever mounted to identify victims.

'Long uncertainty'

"The agony of long uncertainty for many families and the scale of the effort still required is totally daunting, " he said.

"There are many hundreds of dead in the mortuary areas. It is impossible to tell the country of origin of most of those poor people."

Mr Straw added that many unidentified victims are still being found.

"In the past two days more than 500 victims of currently unknown nationality have arrived for examination, " he said.

Mr Straw has been meeting the families of Britons who were killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami on the island of Phuket.

He also spoke to British Embassy officials in Thailand who have been helping British survivors of the disaster.

Most of the Britons feared dead as a result of the tsunami were in Thailand when the wave hit.

Mr Straw also visited the clean-up operations on Phi Phi island and Patong beach and is expected to meet members of the Metropolitan Police teams working in Thailand on victim identification.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan are travelling to Sri Lanka to witness the impact of the disaster there.

Earlier on Friday, Mr Annan visited Aceh and said the devastation in the Indonesian province was the worst he has ever seen.

EU talks

In Brussels, European foreign ministers are to meet to discuss how the £1bn in aid pledged by the EU should be spent.

Europe Minister Denis MacShane and Junior Development Minister Gareth Thomas will represent Britain at the talks.

The meeting, which also includes EU aid and health ministers, will focus on planning long-term reconstruction for the affected countries.

Most of the emergency aid provided so far by the European Union and European Commission has been spent on food and water, clothing and shelter to survivors.

European Development Commissioner Louis Michel will report to the meeting after a week-long visit to the stricken region.

Some of the proposals understood to be under consideration include debt relief for affected countries and a "rapid response" humanitarian team to be sent to the scenes of future catastrophes.

UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy and the WHO's head of humanitarian crisis response David Nabarro will also attend the talks.

More than 140,000 people are now known to have died in the Asian tsunami disaster, and hundreds of thousands more are homeless.

[aaaaaa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4151705.stm

Thursday, 6 January, 2005, 14:18 GMT

Damage to India 'more than $1bn'

Tamil Nadu - $613m

Kerala - $305m

Andhra Pradesh - $162m

Pondicherry - $115m

Andamans - still being assessed

(Source: Indian government)

The financial cost to the Indian mainland from December's devastating tsunami is more than $1bn, the government says.

Costs to the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands are still being assessed.

The southern state of Tamil Nadu on the mainland has suffered the worst damage, incurring losses at some $580m, officials say.

The government has defended its relief efforts. It says its response to the disaster was "extremely prompt".

"We are confident that we have the capabilities and resources to overcome it," Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said.

The official death toll for all of India stands at 9,691, with thousands still missing.

Unlike neighbouring Sri Lanka, the government has rejected offers of help from foreign governments, although it is accepting aid from foreign aid agencies.

'Costs immense'

As well as Tamil Nadu, the other badly hit areas of the mainland were the states of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and the territory of Pondicherry.

The BBC's Daniel Lak in Tamil Nadu says the main expense there will be rebuilding homes and buildings along the coast, most of which were completely destroyed or made uninhabitable.

"The cost of repairing or replacing about 15,000 fishing boats is bound to be immense," he says.

The Indian government says getting the fishing communities earning a living again is a top priority, so no expense will be spared.

Officials hope to get Tamil Nadu's fishing fleets fully operation again within six months.

Our correspondent says it is generally thought that restoring livelihoods as quickly as possibly is better and less costly than maintaining an area on long-term relief.

India has said it does not want foreign aid, but the country usually does accept loans at low interest rates.

Our correspondent says the aid operation in Tamil Nadu seems to be going well enough, with enough resources to meet people's immediate needs.

Long-term rebuilding may be a different story, with costs more difficult to estimate and a lot of unforeseen expenses.

[aaaaaa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4152319.stm

Thursday, 6 January, 2005, 16:29 GMT

Disease outbreaks 'still a fear'

No serious disease outbreaks have been seen in the area hit by the tsunami, health experts say. But they warn it is too soon to say they will not occur.

Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) say luck has played a part in ensuring outbreaks have not happened.

The fact most people forced out of their homes have lived in relatively small groups has also restricted the spread of disease, they say.

However, the WHO warns outbreaks could still be seen in the days ahead.

Clean water success

Experts from the WHO and other health organisations are now working to ensure there are systems in place in the affected areas to pick up early warnings of outbreaks of disease such as cholera, typhoid, malaria and dengue fever.

What health workers are currently dealing with are isolated cases of diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases.

Some people have developed respiratory problems simply by being in contact with others who are affected. Others have been affected by taking in large amount of sea water into their lungs.

Experts say the extent of diarrhoeal diseases has been limited in some areas by speedy work to ensure people have access to clean water.

The WHO says that in Sri Lanka, 60% of wells contaminated by sea water have now been cleaned and chlorinated.

Clean water has been highlighted as a priority by aid agencies ever since work began to help the areas affected by the tsunami. They say it remains an "immediate priority".

Thousands of water storage tanks, water purification powder and rehydration tablets have been sent to the affected countries.

Managing the disposal of human waste is also a key priority, say experts. But health experts stress the accumulation of dead bodies is not as great a risk as many believe, as it is the living who pollute the water.

So far, over £3 billion has been pledged to the UN to pay for aid to the region.

Patients 'on the floor'

Iain Simpson, a spokesman for the WHO, told the BBC News Website incidence of diarrhoea was being monitored so that any cases which could be tyhoid or cholera could be tested to ensure the disease did not spread.

He said there were a number of reasons to explain why serious disease outbreaks had not yet been seen.

"Part of it is timescale. And in Aceh, and some other areas, displaced people have generally been living in small, sparsely populated camps.

"If they were living in larger, more densely populated camps, disease would be more likely to spread."

He added: "So far we haven't seen any major outbreaks of disease. But sadly I think it's too soon to say that we won't."

The head of the WHO, Dr Jong-wook Lee, visited Aceh in Indonesia - one of the worst hit areas on Thursday.

At the Zainul Abidin General hospital in Aceh, at least half of the staff have been directly affected by the tsunami. However, medical workers from other provinces are stepping in to help, and enable the hospital to re-open to emergencies.

At another hospital, patients are being treated on mats on a mud-stained floor by medical staff who only have basic equipment, the WHO reported. WHO staff are already in Aceh, helping local health workers to set up an early warning system to identify disease outbreaks.

The organisation's second priority is to bring in laboratory staff who can help identify the cause of any outbreaks.

Dr Lee said: "Homes and communities have been destroyed even several kilometres from the coastline.

"There are still body bags and bodies for all to see. But people are now beginning to clear out debris, clean out houses and hospitals and salvage what they can of their normal lives."

[aaaaaa]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...n_re_as/tsunami

Tsunami Death Toll Up to Nearly 145,000

17 minutes ago World - AP Asia

By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) described the devastation on Indonesia's tsunami-battered Sumatra island Friday as the worst he's ever seen, while authorities there pulled 4,000 new bodies from the rubble, bringing the confirmed overall death toll to nearly 145,000.

Twelve days after the tsunami hit, Annan and World Bank (news - web sites) President James Wolfensohn flew over the island's west coast and then drove to the shattered port of the main town of Banda Aceh, where families picked through piles of rubble six feet high.

"I have never seen such utter destruction mile after mile," a shaken Annan told reporters afterward. "You wonder where are the people? What has happened to them?"

With tens of thousands and still missing and threatened by disease from the Dec. 26 earthquake and killer waves that hit 11 nations, the United Nations (news - web sites) said the death toll would keep climbing.

"I think we have to be aware that very, very many of the victims have been swept away and many, many will not reappear," U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said in New York. "The 150,000 dead figure is a very low figure. It will be much bigger."

Hardest hit was Sumatra, which was closest to the 9.0 magnitude quake, and where officials on Friday said they'd uncovered an additional 4,289 bodies — mostly in the coastal town of Meulaboh, which had been cut off by washed-out roads — raising Indonesia's toll to 98,489. Officials had briefly raised the toll to 113,306 on Friday but scaled it back later, blaming the inaccuracy on poor radio links with remote officials.

Annan's visit came after he attended a summit of world leaders in Jakarta on Thursday on how to turn one of history's largest-ever aid packages — nearly $4 billion in pledges — into food for the hungry and shelter for the homeless. The U.N. chief urged nations to come up immediately with their promised aid, and to break with past practices of pledging much and delivering little.

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) arrived in Sri Lanka, where more than 30,000 people died, to inspect tsunami-devastated areas in the south and hold talks on relief efforts.

"I had a chance to witness the destruction firsthand, and only by seeing it on the ground can you really appreciate what it must have been like on that terrible day," he said. "But I am impressed to see people cleaning up, helping their neighbors."

While some areas in Thailand remained scenes of total devastation, other Thai resorts were looking to the future. Cleanup on several beaches is almost complete and tour operators were eager to get back to business.

"It's amazing how fast things have gone back to normal. The Thais have done a brilliant job of organizing disaster efforts and getting things cleaned up," said Peter Elsey, 48, an English tourist who lives in Singapore and owns a house in Phuket.

In Indonesia, some aid officials were reviewing their security precautions after the arrival of some 80 members of a radical Islamic group. The group, Laskar Mujahidin, accused of taking part in Muslim-Christian fighting in another part of Indonesia between 1999 and 2001, has set up a relief camp — but said it was only there to help.

[ see another story : Concern over radical relief group ]

"We are not here to fight, we've come to help. We've got no problem with the foreigners as long as they have no hidden agenda," said group leader Salman Alfarizi.

Indonesian military spokesman Ahmad Yani Basuki said the group was not seen as a threat. "There is no need to keep a special eye on them," he said.

While armed guards have been posted at a U.N. compound in Banda Aceh, officials said they were part of normal security for such a relief operation. But a U.S. official in Aceh said American forces helping the relief effort were aware of Laskar Mujahidin's presence and were keeping a close eye on it.

Analysts said Islamic terrorists known to operate in Indonesia would be foolish to attack anyone helping the tsunami victims, because it could result in aid groups pulling out and sour the militants' chances of building popular support.

Muslims in Banda Aceh performed Friday prayers at the main mosque for the first time since it was used as a morgue in the aftermath of the tsunami, sitting cross-logged on its marble floor as the preacher said the disaster may have been punishment from Allah for "forgetting him and his teachings."

The smell of rotting corpses, thousands of which lie uncollected, wafted through the five-domed Baituraman mosque, which was originally built in 1614. Thousands of troops and volunteers from around Indonesia have been working the past week to clear the rubbish from the grounds.

"We Muslims are gathered here today to show the country and the world that we still exist," preacher Din Syamsuddin told around 2,000 worshippers at the mosque in the city, the capital of Aceh province. "We are sad and we are in mourning, but Allah tells us to be optimistic."

Many of the mosques that are still standing in the staunchly Islamic province on the northern tip of Sumatra Island now function as refugee camps and emergency health clinics. They were the first places many people ran to when the quake hit and monster waves began breaking on nearby beaches.

Elsewhere, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who toured the Thai holiday destination of Phuket on Friday, said 49 Britons were confirmed dead and that 391 were missing and likely dead. He called the effort to identify thousands of bodies one of the biggest international forensic operations in history.

____

Associated Press Writers Emma Ross in Jakarta, Lely T. Djuhari and Denis Gray in Banda Aceh, Dilip Ganguly in Sri Lanka, and Leyla Linton at the United Nations contributed to this report.

[aaaaaa]

seems like different news agencies always give different figures....

CNN says 163000, AP Asia - 145000

here Asia - AFP give 165000 figure

=================================================

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ke_050107083634

1 hour, 38 minutes ago

UN chief visits tsunami devastation as death toll leaps to 165,000

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) - United Nations (news - web sites) Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) Friday toured the devastation from Asia's tsunamis as the world body took charge of the relief operation for the disaster which left over 165,000 dead.

A day after making an impassioned plea for almost a billion dollars in immediate aid, Annan flew into the Indonesian province of Aceh for a tour of the region which was the worst hit by last week's killer waves.

His visit comes two days after a stop here by US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), who told a crisis summit Wednesday in Jakarta that Washington had disbanded a five-nation "coalition", criticized as a challenge to UN authority.

The United Nations is mounting its largest ever relief operation to help tsunami victims but warned its efforts faced major obstacles as transport links and communications in Aceh had "essentially collapsed" in the disaster.

Indonesia, and especially Aceh, should receive about 371 million dollars of the 977 million dollar overall appeal by Annan, the UN's humanitarian coordination agency said.

"As many as two million people there are in need and one million of them require immediate assistance," Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator Yvette Stevens told journalists in Geneva.

The confirmed death toll from the catastrophe soared to over 165,000 Friday as over 19,000 more deaths were confirmed. Indonesia's health ministry said the death toll in the country had risen to 113,306.

But the United Nations has warned that tens of thousands more dead may be as yet unaccounted for in Indonesia.

World attention was also focused on the desperate plight of many survivors living in camps with limited drinking water and poor sanitation in Sri Lanka, where 30,615 people have been confirmed killed.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also headed Friday to Sri Lanka after saying he was awestruck by the devastation in Indonesia.

The United Nations said some 167 million dollars from the emergency relief money would head to Sri Lanka.

"We are hungry, people are searching for food," says Pakeela Ummah, a 48-year-old mother of three crammed into one of the makeshift camps in Kattankundy on Sri Lanka's battered eastern coast.

Survivors in the camp said they had only enough to make one meal a day of rice and lentils, with little powdered milk for babies and just two litres of drinking water per family with an average of six children.

"The main problem is we don't have food. The government is still sending more refugees but there is no assistance from the government," says K. M. Muhad, who was appointed by the community to take charge of the camp.

In India, the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF (news - web sites) said it was counselling more than 100,000 children who were traumatised by the death of relatives in the tsunami-hit southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Fifty-two countries have reported dead or missing in the tsunami disaster, leading to the unprecedented level of pledges to help survivors.

In Thailand British Foreign Minister Jack Straw says 49 Britons were killed and a further 391 are missing and considered "very likely" to be victims of the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean.

"It's impossible to tell the country of origin" for many of the victims, Straw told a press conference after touring the devastation on the island of Phuket in Thailand.

"Given the enormity of this natural disaster, it is clear that for many families, a period of prolonged agony lies ahead," he said.

"Some victims may never be identified, and my heart goes out to all those who face this terrible and I fear continuing ordeal."

Accompanied by Thai officials, Straw walked along Patong beach on Phuket island which was badly hit by the December 26 tsunami.

He also met with British victims of the tragedy at the Phuket International Hospital.

Straw later met with Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula to discuss the recovery efforts and moves to identify victims' bodies.

Straw arrived here after attending a global emergency aid summit in Jakarta. He was to head to the Thai capital Bangkok later Friday.

In Thailand, at least 2,510 foreigners were killed when they were swept away from the country's touristy coastlines the day after Christmas.

Thailand's government insisted Friday that no foreign victims of the tsunami have been buried in mass graves or cremated, amid concerns in Western countries about the remains of their nationals.

But despite the outpouring of generosity, there were also growing concerns about how aid money will be spent.

Annan told the conference of 26 nations on Thursday that 977 million dollars was required now. In previous disasters, much of the aid pledged in the emotional immediate aftermath never materialized after the crisis passed out of the spotlight.

"Many of the pledges have come to us in cash and in kind. We need the rest of the pledges to be converted into cash quickly," Annan told the summit.

"We also need more people and more material to get the aid to those who are most in need, often in remote areas."

Foreign ministers and health and aid ministers of the European Union (news - web sites) were due to hold hastily arranged talks Friday in Brussels on further ways to help the tsunami-hit countries.

Proposals being considered include debt relief for the afflicted countries, support for a tsunami alert system for the Indian Ocean region, and a "rapid response" humanitarian force for future catastrophes.

The EU's presidency says the main aim is to coordinate ideas ahead of a UN-hosted donors' conference in Geneva next week.

Louis Michel, the European Union commissioner for humanitarian action, warned of the danger of making inflated aid pledges that may not be honored.

"I am interested in pledges which are really spent," he said.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said his government, which has pledged 50 million pounds (94 million dollars) would not engage in a bidding war with other countries to see which could offer the most.

The easy part is pledging money, "the much more difficult part is to ensure that the money pledged is first paid and secondly is then spent wisely and in a coordinated way," said Straw, who was visiting southern Thailand disaster zones on Friday.

In Berlin, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said he would seek to ensure, during a visit to the region later this week, that Germany's 500-million-euro (668-million-dollar) aid pledge is spent effectively.

Fischer said he was concerned that aid could be sidetracked for political reasons or because of civil conflicts in the area.

Japan has promised 500 million dollars in grant direct aid, with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowing at the Jakarta conference that Tokyo would disburse it immediately.

The Australian government has pledged one billion dollars in tsunami aid grants and interest free loans, the world's largest package, while the Australian public has donated more than 120 million dollars.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ll_050107091754

1 hour, 9 minutes ago

South Asia - AFP

Death toll in Asian quake disaster passes 165,000

JAKARTA (AFP) - The number of people killed when an earthquake and tsunamis devastated Indian Ocean coastlines on December 26 shot up past 165,000 as Indonesia confirmed nearly 20,000 more death

The death toll in Indonesia, which bore the brunt of the disaster, climbed to 113,306, the social affairs ministry's relief coordination center told AFP on Friday. This was up from the previous day's tally of 94,200.

The United Nations (news - web sites) has warned that tens of thousands more dead may be as yet unaccounted for in Indonesia.

In Sri Lanka, 30,615 were confirmed killed, the government said. Another 4,356 people were still missing.

In neighbouring India, the official toll stood at 9,995 people confirmed dead, with the number of missing at 5,689, most of them presumed dead.

Interior ministry figures for Thailand put the death toll at 5,288 -- 2,510 of them foreign holidaymakers.

The number of people listed as missing fell sharply to 3,716, from nearly 4,500, as some people were found to have made reports of missing people at several centres, an official said.

Myanmar's Prime Minister Soe Win said Thursday 59 people were killed in the tsunamis and more than 3,200 left homeless. This was down from the UN's estimated 90.

At least 82 people were killed and another 26 were missing in the Maldives, a government spokesman said.

Sixty-eight people were dead in Malaysia, most of them in Penang, according to police, while in Bangladesh a father and child were killed after a tourist boat capsized in large waves, officials said.

Fatalities also occurred on the east coast of Africa where 298 people were declared dead in Somalia, 10 in Tanzania and one in Kenya.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra measured 9.0 on the Richter scale -- making it the largest quake worldwide in four decades.

Death toll

Indonesia 113,306

Sri Lanka 30,615

India 15,684

Thailand 5,288

Myanmar 59

Maldives 82

Malaysia 68

Bangladesh 2

Somalia 298

Tanzania 10

Kenya 1

Total 165,413