Update on death toll from December quake and tsunami

[yoda]

:( ABC World News just stated that about 1/3 of the victims were children.

That is very sad.

[Brent]

An official in Indonesia says there aren't enough people left on Sumatra Island to bury the dead.

[Windswept]

My sister in law ( to be ) is from Thailand. She and my brother were originally planning to visit her family over the holidays to officially announce their engagement to her family. Thank God, they rescheduled the trip to March!!! ( For once, I am thankful for my brother's tendency to procrastinate and his inability to get his passport in a timely fashion !!!) All her family is accounted for with the exception of one cousin who worked at a seaside resort.

[Brent]

Brian Williams just said the Earth's rotation was thrown off by the quake by a few microseconds making Saturday a little shorter than it should have been.

[Wnghs2007]

Brian Williams just said the Earth's rotation was thrown off by the quake by a few seconds making Saturday a little shorter than it should have been.

Try 3 Microseconds.

[Brent]

Brian Williams just said the Earth's rotation was thrown off by the quake by a few seconds making Saturday a little shorter than it should have been.

Try 3 Microseconds.

Fixed.

Still freaky...

[Gorky]

:( ABC World News just stated that about 1/3 of the victims were children.

That isn't particularly surprising since in that area about 1/3rd of the population are children due to the high birth rates. (I believe it is 32% or so in India and Sri Lanka)

[Skywatch_NC]

Prayers and thoughts for all the scores and scores of peeps affected.

Gave me chills tonight watching the evening news and the bodies as some folks walked around them while holding their hands to their mouths and noses because of the stench!!! Also the threat of disease now like cholera, malaria, etc!

My folks and I have a friend from Malaysia who lives where we used to live in Roanoke Rapids, NC...we called her the other night inquiring about her family members over in Malaysia...found out thankfully they don't live anywhere near a coastal region. They really appreciated our calling them up!

Eric

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY FOXFAN CENTRAL
Sri Lanka Toll Tops 21,700
Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Tsunami Death Toll Tops 55,000
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Rescue workers reported another 3,009 deaths from earthquake-triggered tsunamis (search), taking Sri Lanka's (search) toll to 21,715 on Wednesday, an official said.

Nimal Wanigasuriya, a government social service officer, said 8,600 people also have been injured in the island nation.

More than 55,000 people have been killed across south and southeast Asia following a massive earthquake (search) close to Indonesia on Sunday, which triggered devastating tsunamis.

[breeze]

This was the topic of our "staff meeting", at lunch,
today. Doc is from southern India. He said that it
took four hours to fly from the quake's epicenter
to southern India - the sunami made it in half the time.

I don't make it home in time to watch the world news,
but, my Mama told me about how they were talking
that it threw the Earth's axis off "for a few seconds"
(her understanding)...that is truly spooky, indeed!

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1273476.htm

"And for the first time today the government sent helicopters with one of the government ministers down to scout Meulaboh, and the reports back were as dire as people had feared from a place where there had been no reports at all so far. Suggestions are that the waves there surged two kilometres inland, and the reports back from that helicopter scouting trip was that 80 per cent of the town of Meulaboh has been completely destroyed by those waves."

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Here is a report out of one of the islands!

The area around Aceh in Sumatra is now a saltwater swamp.
Hundreds of villages and towns were simply swallowed by the ocean, leaving them levelled. I fear that the death toll in Indonesia alone will be over 65,000, when the epidemics begin

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Race to Bury Asia's Dead as Toll Hits 63,000

28 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters


By David Fox

GALLE, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Stricken countries on the Indian Ocean worked swiftly on Wednesday to bury thousands of bodies as experts warned disease could kill as many people as the 63,000 already dead from the violent crush of Sunday's tsunami.

While rescuers ventured into outlying areas cut off for three days since what was possibly the deadliest tsunami in more than 200 years, the United Nations (news - web sites) mobilized what it called the biggest relief operation in its history.


The ocean surge was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, spreading in an arc of death across the Indian Ocean and striking nations from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, and beyond across to Africa.


U.S. scientists said the quake that set off the killer wall of water permanently moved tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 98 feet, slightly shifting islands near Sumatra.


Survivors told harrowing tales of the moment the tsunami, up to 33 feet high, struck towns and resorts, sucking holidaymakers off beaches into the ocean, smashing people and debris through buildings, leaving more than 63,000 dead and thousands more missing and injured.


UNICEF (news - web sites) executive director Carol Bellamy said children could account for up to a third of the dead.


One of the worst-hit areas of southern Thailand was Khao Lak, a resort beach on the mainland north of Phuket island, where hundreds of bodies have already been discovered and hundreds more are still missing.


"Rescuers are holding their breath while using their bare hands, axes, or shovels to dig through piles of wrecked buildings and debris at Khao Lak," said senior Thai provincial official Chailert Piyorattanachote.


In a further threat to the region, disease could kill as many people as those killed by the wall of water, a top World Health Organization (news - web sites) (WHO) official said.


"There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," the WHO's Dr David Nabarro told a news conference.


Gerhard Berz, a top risk researcher at Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, estimated the economic cost of the devastation at more than $13 billion.


Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), rejecting comments from a top U.N. official that rich countries were being "stingy," said the international community may have to give billions of dollars in aid.


The United States more than doubled its pledge to $35 million.


PARADISE TURNED TO HELL


Of the overall death toll so far, Indonesia has suffered the biggest number of victims, with 27,174 known to be dead.


Nearly all the deaths in Indonesia were in the northwestern province of Aceh at the tip of Sumatra. Rescue crews were still trying to reach cut-off areas. Separatist rebels announced a truce while people search for loved ones.


The stench of decomposing corpses spread over the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, where fresh water, food and fuel were in short supply. Bodies lay scattered in the streets.





One of the worst hit cities was Meulaboh, about 90 miles from the quake's epicenter. The mayor, Tengku Zulkarnaen, said three-quarters of his city had been washed away.

In Sri Lanka, where nearly 22,000 were dead, hundreds of people were killed when a wave crashed into a train traveling to Galle from Colombo, wrecking carriages and uprooting the track it was traveling on. The train was called "Sea Queen."

Rescue teams headed out to the last of India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands that have been cut off since Sunday.

India's toll of nearly 12,500 included at least 7,000 on the islands which are closer to Myanmar and Indonesia than to the Indian mainland. On one island, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population.

"One in every five inhabitants in the entire Nicobar group of islands is either dead, injured or missing," a police official said.

In Thailand, where thousands of tourists were enjoying a Christmas break to escape the northern winter, many of the country's paradise resorts were turned into graveyards.

In a French-run hotel at Khao Lak, up to half the 415 guests were believed killed. A reporter from France's Europe 1 radio said many bodies had been found in their rooms.

Some 136 foreign nationals and tourists were confirmed dead and 2,689 were still missing. Some 1,500 Swedes and 800 Norwegians were still unaccounted for. Thailand's official toll was 1,538 dead.

Hundreds of people were killed in the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia. The arc of water struck as far away as Somalia and Kenya. Fishing villages, ports and resorts were devastated, power and communications cut and homes destroyed.

HOSPITAL LISTS

The tremor, the biggest in 40 years, ripped a chasm in the sea bed which set off the tsunami, perhaps the deadliest for hundreds of years.

A tsunami at Krakatoa, off southern Sumatra, in 1883 killed 36,000 and one in the South China Sea in 1782 killed 40,000, according to the U.S. National Geophysical Data Center.

On Thailand's Phuket island, foreign tourists pored over names on hospital lists and peered at scores of hospital photos of swollen, unidentified bodies.

Relief teams and rescuers flew into the region from around the globe. More than 20 countries have pledged emergency aid worth more than $60 million. (For more news about emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com; +44 207 542 24 32

[Wnghs2007]

Here is a report out of one of the islands!

The area around Aceh in Sumatra is now a saltwater swamp.
Hundreds of villages and towns were simply swallowed by the ocean, leaving them levelled. I fear that the death toll in Indonesia alone will be over 65,000, when the epidemics begin

I dont want to sound like a wacko or anything. But isnt there something in the bible that says in the end days there will be a great epidemic and there will be waves of destruction and stuff like that. Im just wondering.

Not suggesting this is even relativley related but just curious.

[JQ Public]

Things like these have happened before and they will continue to happen and people will continue to call them a sign that the world is coming to an end, but I highly doubt it. Its another sad tragedy and its just easier to hear about these events in this modern world. The world didn't end during the eruption of mt. etna or Krakatoa.

As for the guy from the UN he didn't say t he US but the western world. But he speaks some truth. Only after his statement did the money really begin pouring in.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Warning not for children a real pick....Here is a pick of a beach with dead people how sad.



http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,420803,00.jpg

[Gorky]

BBc just showed a few pictures from the town of Meulaboh in Sumatra, the town closest to the epicentre of the earthquake, and there was barely a building standing. There are rports that up to 50% of the population of the town may have diedout of a total population of almost 100,000 If this sort of thing is repeated with the other towns and villages on the west coast of Sumatra, the death toll in Sumatra alone would be well over 100,000. What has caused so much damage here, is the earthquake itself brought down most of the structures, but whereas in most cases, there would be many people who would survive and be able to extricate themselves from the rubble of the buildings ( ebing relatively light structures), they were swamped by the tsunami only minutes after the first quake whilst most people were still trapped.

[Anonymous]

Yeaugh and all those hurricanes last summer in Florida are absolutely NOTHING compared to this event ! People think last summer was so bad - think again ! You can't even compare it............

All hurricanes that have struck the US in the last 30 years pale compare to this ! And this might just be the beginning of additonal natural disasters.

Ken

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Race to Bury Asia's Dead as Toll Hits 68,000


Email this Story

Dec 28, 10:07 PM (ET)


By David Fox

GALLE, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Stricken countries on the Indian Ocean worked swiftly on Wednesday to bury thousands of bodies as experts warned disease could kill as many people as the 68,000 already dead from the violent crush of Sunday's tsunami.

While rescuers ventured into outlying areas cut off for three days since what was possibly the deadliest tsunami in more than 200 years, the United Nations mobilized what it called the biggest relief operation in its history.

The ocean surge was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, spreading in an arc of death across the Indian Ocean and striking nations from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, and beyond to Africa.

U.S. scientists said the quake that set off the killer wall of water permanently moved tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 98 feet, slightly shifting islands near Sumatra.

Survivors told harrowing tales of the moment the tsunami, up to 33 feet high, struck towns and resorts, sucking holidaymakers off beaches into the ocean, smashing people and debris through buildings, leaving more than 68,400 dead and thousands more missing and injured.

UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said children could account for up to a third of the dead.

One of the worst-hit areas of southern Thailand was Khao Lak, a resort beach on the mainland north of Phuket island, where hundreds of bodies have been discovered and hundreds more are missing.

"Rescuers are holding their breath while using their bare hands, axes, or shovels to dig through piles of wrecked buildings and debris at Khao Lak," said senior Thai provincial official Chailert Piyorattanachote.

ECONOMIC COST AT $13 BILLION

Disease could kill as many people as those killed by the wall of water, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official said.

"There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," the WHO's Dr David Nabarro told a news conference.

Gerhard Berz, a top risk researcher at Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, estimated the economic cost of the devastation at more than $13 billion.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, rejecting comments from a top U.N. official that rich countries were being "stingy," said the international community may have to give billions of dollars in aid.

The United States more than doubled its pledge to $35 million. Australia increased its aid to $27 million and said it, the United States, Japan and India were considering setting up a core group to coordinate help.

"A lot of the economies, or sectors of the economies, of the affected countries have been close to destroyed and it is going to require a great deal of rebuilding and a great deal investment," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

Indonesia has suffered the biggest number of victims, with 32,502 known to be dead.

Nearly all the deaths in Indonesia were in the northwestern province of Aceh at the tip of Sumatra. Rescue crews were still trying to reach cut-off areas. Separatist rebels announced a truce while people search for loved ones.

The stench of decomposing corpses spread over the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, where fresh water, food and fuel were in short supply. Bodies lay scattered in the streets.

One of the worst hit cities was Meulaboh, about 90 miles from the quake's epicenter. The mayor, Tengku Zulkarnaen, said three-quarters of his city had been washed away.

SURVIVING ON COCONUTS

In Sri Lanka, where nearly 22,000 died, hundreds of people were killed when a wave crashed into a train traveling to Galle from Colombo, wrecking carriages and uprooting the track it was traveling on. The train was called "Sea Queen."

Rescue teams headed out to the last of India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands that have been cut off since Sunday and where people on some of the isles have been surviving on just coconuts.

India's toll of nearly 12,500 included at least 7,000 on the islands which are closer to Myanmar and Indonesia than to the Indian mainland. On one island, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population.

"One in every five inhabitants in the entire Nicobar group of islands is either dead, injured or missing," a police official said.

In Thailand, where thousands of tourists were enjoying a Christmas break to escape the northern winter, many of the country's paradise resorts were turned into graveyards.

In a French-run hotel at Khao Lak, up to half the 415 guests were believed killed. A reporter from France's Europe 1 radio said many bodies had been found in their rooms.

Some 136 foreign nationals and tourists were confirmed dead and 2,689 were still missing. Some 1,500 Swedes and 800 Norwegians were still unaccounted for.

On Thailand's Phuket island, foreign tourists pored over names on hospital lists and peered at scores of hospital photos of swollen, unidentified bodies.

Thailand's official toll was 1,538 dead.

Hundreds of people were killed in the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia. The arc of water struck as far away as Somalia and Kenya. Fishing villages, ports and resorts were devastated, power and communications cut and homes destroyed.

The tremor, the biggest in 40 years, may have caused the Earth to wobble on its axis, permanently accelerating its rotation and shortening days by a fraction of a second, U.S. scientists said.

The quake ripped a chasm in the sea bed which set off the tsunami, perhaps the deadliest for hundreds of years.

A tsunami in 1883 at Krakatoa, off southern Sumatra, killed 36,000 and one in the South China Sea in 1782 killed 40,000, according to the U.S. National Geophysical Data Center.

Relief teams and rescuers flew into the region from around the globe. More than 20 countries have pledged emergency aid worth more than $60 million. (For more news about emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http:/www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com; +44 207 542 24 32)

[Brent]

This is a satellite picture from Sri Lanka as the Tsunami was hitting.