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