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Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Aid pours as tsunami death toll climbs to 23T
COLOMBO—Rescuers piled up bodies yesterday along the tropical coasts of southern Asia a day after the biggest quake in four decades sent tidal waves crashing into nine countries. The death toll jumped to more than 23,000 people— more than half of them in Sri Lanka.
The six-meter-high waves smashed into seaside towns and resorts, sweeping away boats, homes, fishermen and holidaymakers, including a grandson of Thailand’s king and scores of foreigners on Christmas vacations.
The death toll from increased steadily as authorities sorted out the far-flung disaster caused by Sunday’s 9.0-magnitude earthquake under the Indian Ocean near the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Offers of aid poured in from around the globe, as troops in the region struggled to deliver urgently needed aid to afflicted areas.
Officials in Indonesia and Thailand conceded that public warnings that could have saved lives in places further from the quake site never came, or were too little, too late.
But governments insisted they couldn’t know the true nature of the threat because there was no international system in place to track tidal waves in the Indian Ocean and they can’t afford to buy sophisticated equipment to build one.
The waves sped away from the epicenter at over 800 kilometers per hour before crashing into the region’s shorelines without warning, sweeping people out to sea. Thousands were missing and millions left homeless.
In Sri Lanka, the death toll reached 12,029, according to military officials and Web sites reporting from Tamil areas outside the government’s control.
Indonesia and India also each reported thousands dead, and Thailand said hundreds were dead there. Deaths also were reported in Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and even in Somalia, 4,800 kilometers away in Africa.
Sri Lanka and Indonesia had at least a million people each driven from their homes along their coastlines, and officials feared the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera.
Signs of carnage were everywhere yesterday. Dozens of bodies still clad in swimming trunks lined beaches in Thailand. Villagers in Indonesia picked through destroyed homes amid the smell of rotting corpses, lacking any dry ground to inter the dead.
Helicopters in India rushed medicine to stricken areas, while warships in Thailand steamed to island resorts to rescue survivors.
The US Geological Survey said the quake’s 9.0 magnitude was the strongest since a 9.2 magnitude temblor in Alaska in 1964, and the fourth largest in a century.
In Thailand, where tourist season is at its peak as Europeans escape frigid winters, the government said 839 people were killed and 7,271 injured.
Among the dead was the Thai-American grandson of the King Bhumipol Adulyadej, officials said. Poom Jensen, 21, was reportedly jet skiing when the tidal wave struck.
US President George W. Bush expressed his condolences over the “terrible loss of life and suffering.” From the Vatican, Pope John Paul II led appeals for aid for victims, and the 25-nation European Union promised to quickly deliver $4 million.
Japan, China and Russia among the countries sending teams of experts to the region.
Jasmine Whitbread, international director of the aid group Oxfam, warned that without swift action, more people could die. “The flood waters will have contaminated drinking water and food will be scarce,” she said. (AP)
(December 28, 2004 issue)
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