Death toll in Asian quake disaster passes 55,000 mark
Death toll in Asian quake disaster passes 55,000 mark
Agencies, Jakarta/Galle, Sri Lanka
The confirmed death toll from the massive earthquake and tidal waves that devastated much of Asia's coastline passed 55,000 on Tuesday, with officials warning the figure was likely to rise steeply.
In Indonesia, the government's disaster relief center said at least 27,174 were killed after the country took the full force of the huge earthquake and tidal waves that swallowed entire coastal villages.
In Sri Lanka more than 17,600 people, including at least 70 foreigners, were killed in Sunday's disaster.
More than 8,500 people were reported killed in India with many more victims expected, officials said.
Among them were about 4,000 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, close to the epicenter of the quake, where thousands were missing after five villages were swept away, an official said.
More than 1,500 people were killed, among them more than 700 foreign tourists, in southern Thailand, officials said.
In Myanmar at least 90 people were killed, according to the UN, while in Malaysia 65 people, including many elderly and children, were dead, officials said.
At least 55 people including two British holidaymakers were killed in the tourist paradise of Maldives while another 69 were missing, officials said.
In Bangladesh a father and child were killed after a tourist boat capsized from large waves, local officials said.
Fatalities also occurred on the east coast of Africa where 100 fishermen were declared dead in Somalia and 10 in Tanzania.
The scale of the destruction caused by Sunday's monster tsunami left governments helpless and groping for succour. On coastline after coastline, the sea disgorged the dead and rescuers fought through a morass of wreckage, mud and body parts.
The United Nations said the disaster was unique in encompassing such a large area and so many countries.
Aid agencies struggled to cope with the enormity of the disaster. The International Red Cross said it may have to treble its appeal for funds.
"The enormity of the disaster is unbelievable," said Bekele Geleta, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Southeast Asia.
The United Nations said hundreds of relief planes packed with emergency goods would arrive in the region from about two dozen countries within the next 48 hours.
Authorities waited in trepidation for the outbreak of diseases caused by polluted drinking water and the sheer scale of thousands of putrefying bodies.
As rotting bodies stack up and contaminate water supplies across Asia, fears grew on Tuesday that sickness will pile more misery on a region reeling two days on from its worst disaster in living memory.
With infrastructure, including latrines and water wells, in the worst hit areas in tatters, international organizations urged that the thousands of bloated corpses littering beaches, streets and makeshift morgues be disposed of quickly to stem the threat of disease.
"The people should be buried and the animals should be destroyed and disposed of before they infect the drinking water. It's a massive operation," said UN disaster relief coordinator Jan Egeland.
Experts said that though the risk of epidemics varied from country to country according to their standards of hygiene, hot temperatures, poor to nonexistent sewerage and spoiled food provided breeding grounds for germs.
In particular, the decomposing bodies contaminating water would provide ideal conditions for water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and malaria.
"The biggest health challenges we are facing are the spread of waterborne diseases, particularly malaria and diarrhea, as well as respiratory tract infections," said International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies health official Hakan Sandbladh.
Many of the dead were children, and television screens and newspapers were full of images of grief-stricken parents.
The U.S. 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: 27,174 Sri Lanka: 17,640 India: 8,523 Thailand: 1,516 Myanmar: 90 Malaysia: 65 Maldives: 55 Bangladesh: 2
Somalia 100 Tanzania 10
Total: 55,175