January 1, 2005
Tsunami Toll, Feared at 150,000, Dims New Year
Reuters

A legion of ships and planes delivered aid to millions of Asian tsunami survivors on Saturday as New Year celebrations around the world paused to mourn victims of one of the worst disasters in living memory.

By Tomi Soetjipto and Dean Yates

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - A legion of ships and planes delivered aid to millions of Asian tsunami survivors on Saturday as New Year celebrations around the world paused to mourn victims of one of the worst disasters in living memory. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) called for a major logistical operation to help a half-dozen countries shattered by Sunday's tsunami, which by the latest count had killed 124,622.

The U.N. emergency relief operations coordinator said the death toll was approaching 150,000 and Sweden's foreign minister said it could go as high as 200,000 with a third or more of them believed to be children.

"We mourn, we cry, and our hearts weep witnessing thousands of those killed left rigid in the streets," Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a New Year's Eve address.

Rescue teams say aid has started to reach stricken areas, six days after the monster waves obliterated beach towns and sucked tourists out to sea in a torrent of mud and debris.

They were racing against time with an estimated 5 million people in the disaster areas facing grave difficulty getting food and clean water. Health authorities warned of a second wave of deaths from contagious diseases.

Washington on Friday raised its aid tenfold to $350 million, bringing global emergency relief pledges to $1.36 billion.

Helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier ferried relief supplies on Saturday to Sumatra, an Indonesian island the size of Florida, where aid workers have encountered unimaginable scenes of devastation.

With more than 80,000 confirmed deaths, Indonesia was the hardest hit after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake less than 150 km (95 miles) off the northern tip of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that ripped across the Indian Ocean to Africa.

Officials said the Indonesian figure may soar past 100,000. Sri Lanka has reported more than 28,500 deaths, while India says more than 10,000 have died.

"The true figure will probably never be known because people are burying the corpses where they find them," said Anjali Kwatra, leader of Sri Lanka's Christian Aid emergency team.

CANDLES AND WHITE ROSES

People held candles and white roses on Thailand's tsunami-hit island of Phuket at midnight on New Year's Eve, tearfully embracing as they grieved.

Party-goers and bar girls stopped their celebrations and lit incense sticks. The mournful Elton John song "Candle in the Wind" echoed through the resort.

Australia led the world in a global minute of silence, parties were canceled and trees on Paris's grand Champs Elysees were shrouded in black on Friday.

"This gives an opportunity for mums and dads to help to explain what happened to their children," a spokesman for Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.

European tourists who fled a dark winter for the sunshine and sands of Asia make up most of more than 2,200 foreigners killed in the disaster. More than 7,400 were missing.

Relatives and friends flying to Asia in the hope that loved ones were alive scoured gruesome mosaics of photographs of distorted faces pinned on bulletin boards alongside personal possessions that someone might recognize.

Hundreds of thousands of homeless now live in makeshift tent camps around the Indian Ocean. Thirteen countries were hit by the tsunami.

"These are clothes given to us by rich people. They came last night," said Zulkifli, a 65-year-old plantation worker wearing a sarong as he gleefully tried on a coat at a refugee center in Banda Aceh.

Much of Banda Aceh, a town of 400,000 people, was leveled. Quake aftershocks have become a daily event since Sunday and they rattled homes and shelters overnight on Friday, sending many people scurrying outside into early morning rain.

AIRPORT LOGJAMS

A multinational force of aid workers, military aircraft and ships descended on Asia. But lack of fuel for trucks, impassable roads and downed bridges are hindering deliveries from airports and harbors to disaster areas.

"The aircraft going in and going out are just taxing the capacity to the very limit," Michael Elmquist, head of the U.N. disaster relief operation in Indonesia, told Reuters on Saturday.

In Sri Lanka, the worst-hit nation after Indonesia, aid officials said Colombo airport was also being swamped by aid. Another U.S. naval group built around the Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship, was on its way to Sri Lanka.

In Thailand, teams of forensic experts were trying to identify thousands of rotting corpses stacked in Buddhist temples, many of them foreigners. One aid group alone was sending 1,000 body bags.

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) will tour devastated areas next week.

"The need is great and not just for immediate relief but for long-term reconstruction, rehabilitation, family support, economic support that's going to be needed for these countries to get back on their feet," Powell told reporters in New York.

Amid all the heartache were tales of miraculous survival.

A woman from an endangered tribe in Andaman and Nicobar islands survived for three days after the tsunami hit by clinging on to a tree and eating its leaves, The Times of India reported on Saturday.

"One by one, my uncles, aunts, all the children, went past me. I was hanging from one branch, like a bat, and the tree was rocking," said Brendina, a 28-year-old Jarawa tribal woman from badly-devastated Car Nicobar island where thousands are thought to have died. (For more news on emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http:/www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com; +44 20 7542 2432)

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