World leaders get first-hand look at tsunami destruction

World leaders get first-hand look at tsunami destruction

Deutsche Presse Agentur, Banda Aceh, Indonesia/Colombo

World leaders toured countries around the Indian Ocean on Friday,
expressing their shock at the "utter destruction" wrought by
Asia's killer tsunami and vowing to provide prompt aid to ease
the suffering of the disaster's victims.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan set the tone
during a visit to Indonesia's Aceh province, which took the full
brunt of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami and suffered some of
the worst casualties and property damage.

"As we traveled along the western coast (of Sumatra island), I
have to admit I have never seen such utter destruction mile after
mile, and you wonder where are the people, what happened to
them," Annan told journalists.

Meanwhile, local media reported that outbreaks of various
diseases have occurred in the dozens of makeshift refugee camps
that have sprung up in the battered province.

On Thursday, Annan made an impassioned appeal at an emergency
summit in Jakarta for nearly US$1 billion in urgent assistance
for millions of survivors threatened by disease.

Annan was the latest international leader to visit the
devastated region of Aceh, an Indonesian province on the northern
end of the island of Sumatra.

Altogether, more than 150,000 people were believed to have
died in 12 Indian Ocean nations.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw visited some of the
worst-affected areas of southern Thailand, including the resort
island of Phuket, where thousands of European tourists were among
the dead, missing and injured.

He said 49 British people were confirmed dead throughout the
Indian Ocean region, with another 391 listed as missing.

Thousands more Europeans, particularly Swedes and other
Scandinavians, were killed or missing and presumed to have
perished while on holiday in southern Thailand.

Search and recovery efforts were winding down in many areas in
southern Thailand on Friday, with thousands of people still
missing and feared dead.

The government's official death toll stood at 5,291, with
another 3,570 listed as missing. Among the bodies that have been
counted, 2,568 were identified as Thai nationals, 2,510
foreigners and 213 unknown.

Rescue workers and forensic doctors in the hard-hit Phang Nga
province said they believed the numbers of dead and missing to be
higher than official tallies, but had no accurate way of
estimating them.

"Many local people had taken the bodies of their relatives
before we could register them, and we have no idea how many," Dr.
Porntip Rojanasunan, deputy director of the Central Institute of
Forensic Science, said in the town of Takuapa.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Sri Lanka
Friday to view firsthand the damage caused by the tsunami, which
killed at least 30,615 people and left thousands missing in
coastal areas of the country.

Powell traveled to the southern district of Galle, where U.S.
marines have been deployed for relief work. Later, he was
scheduled to meet with Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga
and opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The UN's Annan was also due to arrive in Sri Lanka later in
the day to view the devastation, as was World Bank President
James Wolfensohn.

South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan also arrived and was
due to visit tsunami-affected areas in the southern Hambantota
district on Saturday.

In addition, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General
Lee Jong-Wook was due in the country Friday, while German Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer will visit over the weekend.

The high profile visits were expected to boost Sri Lanka's
relief efforts, which are strongly backed by the international
community. More than 45 countries have already sent assistance to
help victims of the tragedy, while at least 15 countries have
sent medical personnel, relief workers and water purification
teams.

Over half-a-million people remained in refugee camps in
coastal areas battered by the tsunami, the worst-ever natural
disaster to occur in the country. The death toll from the
disaster has been slowly rising with the discovery of more bodies
from debris being cleared by relief teams.