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Massive rescue efforts as Asian tsunami toll soars near 23,000
27 December 2004 2051 hrs (SST)
COLOMBO : Massive rescue operations were scrambled along Asia's devastated coastlines as the death toll from a powerful earthquake and the giant tsunamis it unleashed rose to almost 23,000 and hopes faded for many thousands more still missing.
Horrific scenes of destruction met emergency teams as bodies piled up by the hour from Sri Lanka to India, Indonesia to Thailand, while international aid agencies rushed food and clothing to hundreds of thousands left homeless.
Hundreds of rescue ships, helicopters and planes were mobilised to evacuate tourists from wrecked resorts and airlift stricken victims to hospitals already overflowing with the wounded and corpses.
The trail of devastation came after an earthquake erupted off Indonesia on Sunday, razing buildings in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh and triggering giant tidal waves which battered the coasts of Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia.
As survivors were evacuated from stricken areas, the full horror of carnage wrought by the tidal waves emerged; babies torn from their parents' hands, children and the elderly hurled out to sea from their homes, entire buildings swept away.
The quake, the fourth largest recorded since 1900 and measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, occurred after a rupture on the Indian Ocean seabed caused by the violent grinding of two tectonic plates.
Sri Lanka and India were severely hit with respective death tolls of 10,890 and 6,289, while the number of dead in Indonesia rose to 4,725. A further 839 deaths were reported in Thailand, 51 in Malaysia, 43 in the Maldives, 30 in Myanmar and two in Bangladesh.
Huge waves swept some 7,000 kilometres as far as Africa, crashing on to the shores of Kenya and Somalia, affecting the islands of Mauritius, Reunion and the Seychelles on the way, and leaving several people missing there.
Indonesia's Aceh province bore the brunt of the temblor, hit at point-blank range and then battered by a tsunami, leaving at least 4,725 dead and many more missing.
An AFP reporter among the first to reach the province's main city Banda Aceh, which has been in blackout since the quake struck, described a scene of ruin and death, with hundreds of bodies and pulverised buildings.
Bloodied corpses covered by plastic sheets lay rotting on the ground at an Indonesian Red Cross office in Lambaro on the northern outskirts of Banda Aceh. Police said there were 500 bodies at the centre.
"People told me it was as if God had unleashed his anger on the people," said Haji Ali, a resident in Patong Labu, a small settlement close to the north Aceh town of Bireuen.
Relief efforts have been hampered by the closure of the region's main airport at Banda Aceh.
In Sri Lanka a massive humanitarian operation was launched to help 250,000 people believed to have lost their homes.
"We had no mechanism to deal with this type of disaster," said top government aide Lalith Weeratunga, as the nation appealed for international aid and President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a state of disaster.
In southern India survivors grimly buried or burnt their dead as the death toll rose to at least 6,289, with thousands more missing amid warnings of a return of killer tsunamis.
The dead included about 3,000 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, close to the temblor's epicentre. Thousands of people were fleeing the coasts of the islands after fresh tremors hit Monday and meteorologists warned aftershocks could trigger "big waves" until Tuesday afternoon.
The death toll in Thailand included scores of foreign tourists and a grandson of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, with more than 7,200 injured.
Almost 29,000 people were evacuated from the worst affected areas, which included the resort islands of Phuket and Phi Phi where thousands of European tourists had been enjoying holidays.
Hardly a building was left standing on Phi Phi island east of Phuket, where bodies were seen strewn about the island, covered in white cloths before being taken away by emergency crews or Western tourist volunteers.
"I saw bodies almost everywhere on land, and in the water too, and I think there are many more bodies trapped under the bungalow debris," said rescuer Wirat Mansa-ad, estimating 300 died on the island alone.
As Thailand mobilised its army and navy in a huge rescue operation, dazed foreigners began flying home -- still struggling to come to grips with what had happened.
Just before the first wave struck, "there was no water left in the ocean. The fish were just flapping and dying on the beach," Danish tourist Svend Falk-Roenne, 52, told AFP in Bangkok on his way home from Phuket.
"Then the wave just came towards us. I've never seen anything like it."
Melina Heppell, a six-month-old baby girl from Australia, was swept from her father's arms on Patong Beach, Phuket, when a tsunami wave hit, her uncle Simon Illingworth said on Australian television.
"They were walking along Patong Beach yesterday ... He thought he had the baby in his hands, but all he had was clothes," Illingworth said, tears streaming down his cheeks.
The United Nations rushed disaster teams to south and southeast Asia, saying hundreds of thousands of people in coastal areas were at risk, with livelihoods from fishing and farming wiped out and disease threatening to wreak more havoc.
Governments from France to Australia and Russia to the United States pledged aid and assistance, despatched aircraft, doctors and disaster relief specialists to the worst-hit areas.
"The power of this earthquake, and its huge geographical reach, are just staggering," said Carol Bellamy, executive director of UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
"Hundreds of thousands of children in coastal communities in six countries may be in serious jeopardy," she said.
A spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called the waves "catastrophic" and said Annan had been "profoundly saddened to learn of the massive loss of life and destruction."
In Geneva, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies appealed for 7.5 million Swiss francs (4.8 million euros, 6.6 million dollars) to help an estimated 500,000 survivors.
In Malaysia, 51 people, including many elderly and children, were drowned and many others were missing after tidal waves hit the resort islands of Penang and Langkawi and the northwestern coast.
On the Indian Ocean tourist paradise of the Maldives, a British tourist and 42 other people died after tidal waves lashed the archipelago, officials said.
The United States and New Zealand confirmed casulaties among the dead, while many countries including Australia and France reported nationals missing. - AFP |
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