5m displaced by tsunami, death toll hits 118,000
5m displaced by tsunami, death toll hits 118,000
Up to five million people were displaced by tsunamis that killed more than 118,000 people in Asia, officials said Thursday, as aftershocks rocked traumatized survivors.
"We estimate that up to five million people have been displaced and are at risk across the region," Harsaran Pandey, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization in South Asia, told AFP.
The global health body said between one and three million of those affected were in Indonesia, with another one million in Sri Lanka. The rest were spread between India, the Maldives and other nations.
Meanwhile, the confirmed death toll in the massive earthquake and tsunamis climbed to more than 118,000 on Thursday.
Indonesia has borne the brunt of Sunday's catastrophe, with a health ministry official putting the country's toll at 79,940 with entire coastal villages disappearing under the wall of water.
In Sri Lanka 24,743 were confirmed killed by the tidal waves, while 4,916 people were still missing, the president's office said.
The death toll in India hit 10,850 with many thousands still missing, officials said.
In southern Thailand nearly 2,400 people, among them more than 700 foreign tourists, were killed, the interior ministry said, adding that 6,130 people were still missing, most of whom were feared dead.
In Myanmar at least 90 people were killed, according to the UN, but the real toll was expected to be far higher.
At least 75 people were killed and another 42 were confirmed missing in the tourist paradise of the Maldives, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom said.
Sixty-six people were dead in Malaysia, most of them in Penang, police said.
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 132 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. -- AFP
Death toll Indonesia: 79,940 Sri Lanka: 24,743 India: 10,850 Thailand: 2,394 Myanmar: 90 Maldives: 75 Malaysia: 66 Bangladesh: 2 Somalia 132 Tanzania 10 Kenya 1
Total: 118,303