Date:30/12/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/12/30/stories/2004123002121400.htm

International

Aid pours amid rush to ward off disease

BANDA ACEH (INDONESIA), DEC. 29. From Indonesia to India, workers rushed to bury corpses to ward off disease on Wednesday as cargo planes touched down with promised aid — from lentils to water purifiers — to help the region cope with its tsunami catastrophe. The death count across Asia and Africa soared to nearly 77,000 and aid officials said it was likely to surpass 100,000.

Authorities getting their first glimpse of the devastated west coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island — nearest the epicentre of the massive quake and tsunami — said the area had been virtually wiped out.

The survey highlighted the dire need for the world's largest relief effort to speed up the deployment of aid to some of the 11 countries that were hardest hit by Sunday's massive, quake-driven walls of water — probably the deadliest in history.

With tens of thousands of people still missing, Peter Ress, operations support chief for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the figure for the dead and missing would be ``absolutely enormous."

Little hope

More than 500,000 are reported injured. The Federation has so far been unable to assess the number of missing people.

``We have little hope, except for individual miracles,'' Jean-Marc Espalioux, chairman of the Accor hotel group, said of the search for thousands of tourists and locals missing from beach resorts of southern Thailand — including 2,000 Scandinavians.

Indonesian authorities said this did not include a full count from Sumatra's west coast, where more than 10,000 deaths were suspected.

Supplies that included 175 tons of rice and 100 doctors reached Sumatra's Banda Aceh. But with aid not arriving quickly enough, desperate people in towns across Sumatra stole whatever food they could find, officials said.

Widespread looting

Widespread looting also was reported in Thailand's devastated resort islands of Phuket and Phi Phi, where European and Australian tourists left valuables behind in wrecked hotels when they fled — or were swept away.

An international airlift was under way to ferry critical aid and medicine to Phuket and to take home shellshocked travelers.

Jets from France and Australia were among the first to touch down at the island's airport. Greece, Italy, Germany and Sweden planned similar flights.

— AP