Dec. 27, 2004
Fox News

Photo: The body of a foreign tourist is left on a trolly in a damaged commercial district on Phi Phi Island, Thailand.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Rescuers piled up bodies Monday along southern Asian coastlines devastated by tidal waves that obliterated seaside towns and killed more than 22,000 people in nine countries — more than half of them in Sri Lanka. The tally was expected to rise further, with thousands still missing.

Hundreds of children were buried in mass graves in India, and morgues and hospitals struggled to cope with the catastrophe. Chaos erupted at airports in Thailand as tourists, many bandaged and brought in by ambulance, tried to board flights. Hundreds of people died in Somalia, thousands of miles away.

The death toll rose sharply a day after the magnitude 9 quake struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia, unleashing tsunami waves 20 feet high. It was the most powerful earthquake in the world in four decades.

Government and aid officials suggested the death toll could increase significantly, citing unconfirmed reports of thousands more deaths on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and on India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Millions were left homeless, and the international Red Cross said it was concerned about the spread of waterborne diseases such as malaria and cholera. Offers of aid poured in from around the globe, as troops in the region struggled to deliver urgently needed aid to afflicted areas.

Photo: Dec. 27: A woman, center, grieves as her daughter who was killed by the tsunami is buried in Cuddalore, India.

Pakistan, India's nuclear-armed rival, offered relief and rescue assistance.

U.S. citizens were urged to call (888) 407-4747 to check on travel conditions, or to go to the State Department's Crisis Awareness and Preparedness Web page.

Powerful 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 torrents pulled a 6-month-old Australian baby from her father's arms in the Thai island resort of Phuket.

Officials in Indonesia and Thailand conceded that public warnings that could have saved lives in places further from the quake site were never issued or were too little, too late.

But governments insisted they could not know the true danger because there is no international system in place to track tidal waves in the Indian Ocean and they cannot afford the sophisticated equipment to build one.

The waves sped away from the epicenter at over 500 mph before crashing into the region's shorelines, sweeping people out to sea.

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, the Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and even in Somalia, 3,000 miles away in Africa.

Photo: Residents carry a body of a victim after tidal waves hit following an earthquake in Lhokseumawe, Aceh province, Indonesia, Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004. Tidal waves swamped Indonesian towns near the epicenter of Sunday's massive undersea earthquake, killing hundreds of people and leaving bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded, officials and witnesses said. (AP Photo/Str)

Sri Lanka and Indonesia had at least a million people each driven from their homes.

Signs of carnage were everywhere Monday. 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.

One man, Rajali, said his wife and two children were killed and he could not find dry ground to bury them. Islamic tradition demands that the deceased be buried as soon as possible.

"What shall I do?" said the 55-year-old man, who, like many Indonesians, goes by a single name. "I don't know where to bury my wife and children."

Helicopters in India rushed medicine to stricken areas, while warships in Thailand steamed to island resorts to rescue survivors.

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu reported thousands of deaths. Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa called the scene "an extraordinary calamity of such colossal proportions that the damage has been unprecedented."

In Cuddalore village, the bodies of more than 150 children killed were buried in a mass grave — their weeping and red-eyed parents looking on as a bulldozer filled the hole with sodden earth.

In Malaysia, officials estimated that children who were frolicking in the surf or at beachside picnics when the waves struck comprised about one-third of victims.

On the remote Car Nicobar island 150 miles northwest of Sumatra, Police Chief S.B. Deol told New Delhi Television he had reports that another 3,000 people may have died. If confirmed, that would raise India's death toll to 6,000 and the overall number to 23,900.

Photo: Residents stand on a flooded street after tidal waves hit in Lhokseumawe, Aceh province, Indonesia, Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004. Tidal waves swamped Indonesian towns near the epicenter of Sunday's massive undersea earthquake, killing at least 408 people and leaving bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded, officials and witnesses said. (AP Photo/Str)

"The Andaman and Nicobar islands have been really badly hit," said Hakan Sandbladh, senior health officer at the Geneva headquarters of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, noting that unconfirmed reports put the death toll at 13,000 on the islands.

A Somali presidential spokesman said hundreds of people died and entire villages disappeared on the African country's coastline. Yusuf Ismail said he could not yet give an exact death toll.

About 200 people were evacuated from devastated Phi Phi island, one of Thailand's most popular destinations for Westerners.

Jimmy Gorman, 30, of Manchester, England, said he saw 15 bodies on the island, including up to five children and a pregnant woman.

"Disaster. Flattened everything," Gorman said. "There's nothing left of it."

About 25,000 troops deployed in Sri Lanka dealt with a prison break of 200 inmates and looters who duped residents into leaving homes by saying more tidal waves were approaching.

"When the residents are gone, they go on a looting spree," said Brig. Daya Ratnayake, a military spokesman.

The U.S. 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.

The quake unleashed tsunamis that pummeled southern Thailand an hour later. In 21⁄2 hours, the torrents traveled some 1,000 miles to slam into India and Sri Lanka.

An international network warns of the potentially killer waves among Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America — but no such system exists for the Indian Ocean.

Scientists said this week's death toll would have been reduced if the region had one.

Sri Lanka's government declared a national disaster, as did the neighboring Maldives, a low-lying string of coral atolls where 43 people were killed.

In Sri Lanka, about 25,000 troops were deployed to crack down on sporadic, small-scale looting and to help in rescue efforts. About 200 inmates took advantage of the chaos, escaping from a prison in coastal Matara.

In Bandah Aceh, Indonesia, 150 miles from the quake's epicenter, dozens of bloated bodies littered the streets as soldiers and desperate relatives searched for survivors. Some 500 bodies collected by emergency workers lay under plastic tents, rotting in the tropical heat.

The Health Ministry said at least 4,991 people were killed in Indonesia, but Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the figure could be as high as 10,000 as he declared a national disaster. A reporter for The Associated Press saw bodies wedged into trees in one village, apparently left there by receding waters.

"We have ordered 15,000 troops into the field to search for survivors," Indonesian military spokesman Edy Sulistiadi said. "They are mostly retrieving corpses."

Refugees in nearby Lhokseumawe, many of whom had spent the night sleeping outside on open ground, complained that little or no aid had reached them. The city's hospital said it was running out of medicine.

In India, the waves swept away boats, homes and vehicles, killing 4,000 people, officials said. At least 20,000 people were evacuated.

In Thailand, where tourist season is at its peak as Europeans escape frigid winters, the government said 866 people were killed and more than 7,000 injured.

Among the dead was the Thai-American grandson of King Bhumipol Adulyadej, officials said. Poom Jensen, 21, was reportedly jet skiing when the tidal wave struck.

Witnesses in Thailand described seeing waters disappearing away from the beaches in the minutes before the waves struck. Scientists say the effect is caused by tidal waves sucking shallow coastal waters out to sea before returning them as a massive wall of water.

"The water went back, back, back, so far away, and everyone wondered what it was — a full moon or what? Then we saw the wave come, and we ran," said Katri Seppanen, who was Phuket Island's Patong beach with her family when the wave washed over their heads and separated them. They found each other two hours later.

Six-month-old Melina Heppell of Western Australia state was swept from her father's arms on the same beach, a relative told Australia's Channel Nine news. Canberra confirmed a baby of that age was killed on the island.

Thailand reported 50 foreigners among its dead, and Sri Lanka reported 72.

Eleven Italians and 11 Britons died in the tsunami, their governments said Monday. The United States, France and Denmark reported three deaths; Australia, Belgium, South Africa and Sweden each confirmed two deaths and New Zealand one. Japanese media reported that 15 bodies in Sri Lanka appeared to be of Japanese.

Also among the missing, injured or dead were nationals of South Korea, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Chile, Thai media reported.

In Malaysia, at least 52 people, including foreign tourists, were killed on Penang island, officials said. Thirty were reported killed in Myanmar, and two in Bangladesh.

U.S. 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 EU3 million (US$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.

Yvette Stevens, an emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations, said the widespread nature of the damage made it challenging for relief agencies to respond.

"This is unprecedented," she said. "We have not had this before."

The United Nations said it was concentrating its aid on the countries least likely to be able to help themselves, such as Sri Lanka and Maldives.

In Thailand, Gen. Chaisit Shinawatra, the army chief, said the United States has offered to send troops stationed on Japan's Okinawa island. Thailand was considering the offer.

Tsunamis as large as Sunday's happen only a few times a century. A tsunami is a series of traveling ocean waves generated by geological disturbances near the ocean floor. With nothing to stop them, the waves can race across the ocean like the crack of a bullwhip, gaining momentum over thousands of miles.

An international tsunami warning system was started in 1965, after the Alaska quake, to advise coastal communities of a potentially killer wave.

Member states include the major Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America. But because tsunamis are rare in the Indian Ocean, no system exists there. Scientists said deaths would have been reduced if one had.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's magnitude was 9.0 — the strongest since a 9.2-magnitude temblor in Alaska in 1964 and the fourth-largest in a century.

The quake occurred more than 6 miles deep and was followed by a half-dozen powerful aftershocks. A 620-mile section of a geological plate shifted, triggering tsunamis.

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