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Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
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"=?iso-8859-1?q?La_Bocca_Della_Verit=E0_-_D=E9j=E0_Vu_Le_Proph=E9te?=" |
| Date: |
29 Dec 2004 08:47:16 PM |
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TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL LIKELY TO SURPASS 100,000........30/12/4 |
Tsunami death toll likely to surpass 100,000
Associated Press and Canadian Press
Banda Aceh, Indonesia - As the world scrambled to the rescue,
survivors fought over packs of noodles in quake-stricken Indonesian
streets Wednesday while relief supplies piled up at the airport for
lack of cars, gas or passable roads to move them. The official death
toll across 12 countries soared to near 77,000 and the Red Cross
predicted it could pass 100,000.
Bodies were piled into mass graves to ward off disease. Paramedics in
southern India began vaccinating thousands of survivors against
cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A and dysentery, and authorities sprayed
bleaching powder on beaches where bodies have been recovered. In Sri
Lanka, reports of waterborne disease such as diarrhea caused fears of
an epidemic.
"We're facing a disaster of unprecedented proportion in nature," said
Simon Missiri, a top Red Cross official. "We're talking about a
staggering death toll."
With tens of thousands of people still missing across the entire
region, Peter Ress, Red Cross operations support chief, said the death
toll could top 100,000. More than 500,000 were reported injured.
U.S. President George W. Bush announced the United States, India,
Australia and Japan have formed an international coalition to
co-ordinate relief and reconstruction of the 5,000 kilometres of Indian
Ocean rim walloped by Sunday's earthquake and the tsunami it unleashed.
In Ottawa, Defence Minister Bill Graham said Canada will give another
$36-million for relief efforts in the region, bringing the country's
total contribution to $40 million. A 12-member reconnaissance team will
go to the area to make recommendations on additional help, he said.
Vacationing Prime Minister Paul Martin, meanwhile, issued a statement
detailing the government's initiatives.
"The shocking human toll of the terrible disaster in South and
South-east Asia has moved Canadians across the country to do what they
can to try and help. Thousands of Canadians have been touched
personally by this tragedy," he said.
"The scope of the devastation will demand that we continue to work
together to respond to the immediate and long term rescue, humanitarian
and reconstruction needs."
At least three Canadians were among the many foreigners killed, with
two in Thailand and one in Sri Lanka, Foreign Affairs Canada said. Two
others were officially listed as missing, while 12 were injured.
One of the three Canadians reported dead was identified Tuesday by
Quebec's TVA television network as Mathieu Lafond, 28, of Repentigny
near Montreal.
On hundreds of websites, the messages were brief but poignant:
"Missing: Christina Blomee in Khao Lak," or simply, "Where are you?"
All conveyed the aching desperation of people the world over whose
friends and family went off in search of holiday-season sun and sand
and haven't been heard from for four days.
But even as hope for the missing dwindled, survivors continued to turn
up Wednesday. In Sri Lanka, where more than 22,000 died, a lone
fisherman named Sini Mohammed Sarfudeen was rescued by an air force
helicopter crew after clinging to his wave-tossed boat for three days.
Indian air force planes evacuated thousands of survivors from the
remote island of Car Nicobar. Some of them had walked for days from
their destroyed villages to reach a devastated but functioning
airfield, where they were shuttled out 80 to 90 at a time.
Journalists were not allowed to leave the base to verify reports that
some 8,000 people were dead there, but at the base alone, 67 officers
and their families were missing and feared dead.
India's death toll rose to nearly 7,000, while Indonesia's stood at
45,268, but authorities said this did not include a full count from
Sumatra's west coast, where more than 10,000 deaths were suspected in
one town alone.
In Sumatra, close to the epicentre of the quake, the view from the air
was of whole villages ripped apart, covered in mud and seawater. In one
of the few signs of life, a handful of desperate people scavenged a
beach for food. On the streets of Banda Aceh, the main town of
Sumatra's Aceh province, the military managed to drop supplies from
vehicles and fights broke out over packs of instant noodles.
Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya, military commander of Aceh province, said
after flying over the stricken region that 75 per cent of the west
coast of Sumatra was destroyed.
Footage shot by an Associated Press Television News cameraman on the
military helicopter showed town after town covered in mud and sea
water. Homes had their roofs ripped off or were flattened.
A solitary mosque and green treetops were all that broke the line of
water in one town.
Without clean water, respiratory and waterborne diseases could break
out within days, putting millions at "grave risk," the United Nations
children's agency said. "Standing water can be just as deadly as moving
water," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. "The floods have
contaminated the water systems, leaving people with little choice but
to use unclean surface water."
Near Banda Aceh, trucks dumped more than 1,000 bloated, unidentified
bodies into pits. There was no choice, given the danger of disease and
the difficulty of identifying any of the dead, said military Col.
Achmad Yani Basuki.
Thailand said it had more than 1,800 dead and a total of more than 300
were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia,
Tanzania and Kenya.
In Sri Lanka, four planes arrived in the capital bringing a mobile
hospital from Finland, a water purification plant from Germany, doctors
and medicine from Japan and aid workers from Britain, the Red Cross
said.
Supplies that included tons of rice and 100 doctors reached Banda Aceh
but officials said they were having difficulty moving it out.
Widespread looting 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 underway to ferry critical aid and
medicine to Phuket and to take home shell-shocked travellers, some with
nothing but the clothes they were wearing.
The world's biggest re-insurer, Germany's Munich Re, estimated the
damage to buildings and foundations in the affected regions would be at
least $16.5-billion.
Relief donations came in from all parts of the globe, from governments
and from ordinary people who gave blood, money - even frequent flier
miles - to help.
Taxi drivers in Singapore put donation cans in their cars. In Thailand,
volunteers used trucks with loudspeakers to solicit donations of food
and clothing, and there were long lines to donate blood at the Red
Cross.
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