Asian Tsunami killed up to 14,425
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Soldiers searched for bodies in treetops, families wept over the dead lined up on beaches and rescuers scoured coral isles for missing tourists as Asia counted the cost on Monday of a tsunami that killed up to 14,425.
Idyllic palm-fringed beaches across southern Asia were transformed into scenes of death and devastation by the waves unleashed by the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra early on Sunday.
"Death came from the sea," Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry, India, told Reuters. "The waves just kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?"
The wall of water up to 10 meters (30 feet) tall flattened houses, hurled fishing boats onto coastal roads, sent cars spinning through swirling waters into hotel lobbies and sucked sunbathers and fishermen off beaches and out to sea.
Worst affected were Sri Lanka where 4,890 were killed, the southeast coast of India where officials reported as many as 4,600 could be dead, northern Indonesia with up to 4,500 drowned and the southern tourist isles of Thailand where as many as 400 were feared dead.
"We are not well equipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude because we have never known a disaster like this," Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who declared a national disaster and appealed for donor aid, said from holiday in Britain.
It was the worst natural disaster to hit Sri Lanka in recorded history. Officials the death toll could rise substantially as troops recovered bodies dragged out to sea or smashed on golden beaches.
Indonesian soldiers searched for bodies in tree tops and in the wreckage of homes smashed by the tsunami, triggered by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of northern Sumatra island killing at least 4,448 people there.
"It smells so bad, fishy. The human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," said marine colonel Buyung Lelana, head of an evacuation team in Lhokseumawe in Sumatra's Aceh province.
"There are still a lot of bodies under the wreckage of collapsed houses and in rivers and swamps that we have not yet evacuated. Most of them are children and their mothers," he said.
International aid agencies rushed staff, equipment and money to the region, warning that bodies rotting in the water were already beginning to threaten the water supply for survivors.
The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking 7.5 million Swiss francs ($6.5 million) for emergency aid funding.
BATTERED BY ROCKS
"Many of the dead bodies were found in houses. Their heads were cracked, probably battered by rocks," said Mustofa, mayor of Bireuen regency on the north coast of Sumatra.
The head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Los Angeles said U.S. officials who detected the undersea quake tried frantically to get a warning out about the tsunami.
But there was no official alert system in the region, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu.
"It took an hour and a half for the wave to get from the earthquake to Sri Lanka and an hour for it to get ... to the west coast of Thailand and Malaysia," he said.
"We tried to do what we could. We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world," he said.
The earthquake was the world's biggest since 1964 and the fourth-largest since 1900.
Hundreds of thousands left homeless in Sri Lanka and fearing another devastating wave sheltered in temples and schools. The southern coastal town of Galle, a major industrial hub famed for its historic fort, had been submerged by a 9-meter (30-ft) wave.
Wailing relatives scrambled over hundreds of bodies piled in a hospital in nearby Karapitiya, searching for loved ones.
Residents milled in streets outside the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital, shirts or handkerchiefs clutched over their noses against the overpowering stench of decaying bodies.
"We have got hundreds of dead that we have dealt with," said a hospital official. "I don't know what to do."
Corpses of hundreds of those drowned lay bloated and disfigured in the lobby and corridors. A stream of cars, ambulances and trucks arrived, bringing more dead.
The body of a pregnant woman lay in the lobby. Nearby, a woman collapsed as she identified a relative. Many of the dead were children. A nurse wept as she picked up the body of a baby.
Officials said 800,000 people had been forced from their homes.
On India's southeast coast, thousands of villagers huddled inside emergency shelters, too scared to sleep in case of another tsunami.
"I could see dead bodies all around and the devastation is of colossal proportions," Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa said after touring the worst hit areas of her state.
"I have been waiting for my husband and brother since yesterday," wept 38-year-old Narasamma as she stood on a beach near Mypadu, a fishing hamlet 600 km (375 miles) south of Hyderabad, capital of southern Andhra Pradesh state.
"I am not sure they will come back," she said. On the horizon, the wreckage of wooden fishing boats dotted the sea.
TOURIST ISLE DEVASTATED
The tourist islands and beaches of southern Thailand lay in the path of the wave that had killed up to 400. On the Patong tourist beach in Phuket, hotels and restaurants were wrecked and speed boats were rammed into buildings. "I was sitting on the first floor of a bar, not far from the beach, watching cricket," said Australian tourist, Stephen Dicks, 42. "And suddenly all these people came screaming from the beach.
"I looked around and saw a massive wall of water rushing down the street. It completely wiped out the ground floor of my bar ... It happened very fast, in a matter of minutes."
The tsunami was so powerful it smashed boats and flooded areas along the east African coast, 6,000 km (3,728 miles) away. In the Maldives, where thousands of foreign visitors were vacationing in the beach paradise, damage appeared to be limited.
With communications cut to remote areas, it was impossible to assess the full scale of the disaster, aid agencies said.
The Indian air force was trying to reach the remote Nicobar and Andaman archipelagos near the heart of the quake where officials said as many as 2,000 were feared dead.
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That was the clip of e-mail I got early today. What is it that we've done so wrong to deserve it? It's not the question, really. But what can we do to help, what can we do to contribute to these people?
Dear God, please have mercy on us all.
