| Topic: |
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 08:19:20 PM |
| Object: |
*TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL NOW OVER 85,000* |
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http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20041229-123330-5516r
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Epidemic threatens as tsunami toll hits 85,000
By Harbaksh Singh Nanda
United Press International
Published 12/29/2004 1:57 PM
NEW DELHI, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- With the death toll soaring to nearly
85,000 in the tsunami havoc, the World Health Organization Wednesday
warned that disease in the aftermath of the disaster could kill as many
people as the deadly waves caused by an undersea earthquake.
The toll shot up after the rescue workers found the remains of entire
villages in Indonesia, the worst hit nation that accounted for more
than 40,000 deaths in Sunday's watery fury.
Sri Lanka has reported 28,000 dead, while India accounted for 12,500
deaths, and Thailand reported 1,500 dead. Thousands of people are
reported missing, including hundreds of Western tourists who had
thronged to luxury tourist resorts in Thailand and Sri Lanka to
celebrate New Year holidays.
Millions were rendered homeless by the tsunamis that lashed the coastal
regions of 11 nations, causing severe damage in at least seven
countries following a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra in
Indonesia.
The international Red Cross said that it believes the death toll could
rise to more than 100,000, with one official calling it "a disaster of
unprecedented proportion."
UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said that children could
account for up to a third of the dead.
An Indonesia official said that three-fourths of the western coastline
of Sumatra was washed away. Most of the deaths in Indonesia were in the
northwestern province of Aceh at the tip of Sumatra. Rescue crews and
international volunteers were still trying to reach cut-off areas even
as separatist rebels announced a truce to allow people to search for
missing people.
The unbearable stench of decomposing corpses spread over the provincial
capital, Banda Aceh, where fresh water, food and fuel were in short
supply. Hundreds of bodies lay scattered in the streets.
Aid workers and volunteers from across the world have joined the locals
in Indonesia and Sri Lanka to retrieve the rotting corpses from canals,
building ruins and waterlogged fields.
Authorities in the tsunami-stricken South Asian nations lack medicines
and relief supplies to cope up with the worst natural calamity in 40
years.
The wild waves, as high as 10-meters, smashed into the coastal
districts of several countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Sri
Lanka, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Malaysia. Tsunami, which means a
harbor wave in Japanese, can travel up to 500 miles an hour.
Despite the mass cremation and burial of thousands of bodies, corpses
still float in canals, lay strewn on the beaches or even hang in the
trees across the devastated south Asian nations as the rescue workers
and relief volunteers reach the remote locations.
With thousands of bodies rotting and infrastructures in tatters,
authorities and medical relief workers fear an epidemic. David Nabarro,
head of crisis operations for the World Health Organization, said the
main threat to life now is communicable diseases associated with a lack
of clean water and sanitation.
"There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from
communicable diseases as from the tsunami," Nabarro told a news
conference in Geneva.
Nabarro said local hospitals and health services in affected regions
were already overwhelmed by the initial impact.
The Times of India reported that the largest relief operation in human
history is woefully short of medicines, food and other relief supplies
as thousands crowd into temporary shelters.
The situation is feared to be even worse in India's Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, where rescue teams headed Wednesday and found some of the
survivors. India's toll of nearly 12,500 included at least 7,000 on the
islands closer to Myanmar and Indonesia than to the Indian mainland.
On one island, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population.
"One in every five inhabitants in the entire Nicobar group of islands
is either dead, injured or missing," a police official told The Times
of India.
The risk of communicable diseases or an epidemic of cholera or other
waterborne diseases looms large in the affected regions. Rescuers have
been told to hold their breath while using their bare hands, axes or
shovels to dig through piles of wrecked buildings and debris to
retrieve bodies.
"People should be buried, and the animals should be destroyed and
disposed off before they infect the drinking water. It's a massive
operation," U.N. disaster relief coordinator Jan Egeland said.
"Drinking water for millions has been polluted. ... It can cause
diseases. ... Also, acute respiratory disease always comes in the wake
of disasters," Egeland said.
Many of the bodies were already decomposing in the heat, underlining
the growing health risk.
Officials in India have begun extensive distribution of water-purifying
chlorine tablets and oral dehydration solution to prevent deaths. Also
safety masks are being distributed to people in the affected areas.
A WHO spokesperson in New Delhi said the possibility of waterborne
diseases is quite high in the region. "We have to look out for ways of
providing safe drinking water to the displaced and provide them proper
sanitation," she said.
The worst affected was Sri Lanka, where more than 28,000 people are
confirmed dead and thousands still missing. At least 800 people were
killed when a train was flung off the rail track by the killer waves.
The country has requested that WHO supply "emergency health kits" that
can cater to 10,000 people for three months.
"The biggest health challenges we are facing are the spread of
waterborne diseases, particularly malaria and diarrhea, as well as
respiratory tract infections," Hakan Sandbladh, spokesman for
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
The situation is similar in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand, where
relief agencies are distributing preventive medicines to counter an
epidemic.
International relief agencies are supplying clean drinking water in the
affected regions and also setting up mobile latrines for the survivors.
Hundreds of planeloads of medicines and relief material are on the way
to tsunami-stricken South Asian nations. The armies, air force and
naval units of affected countries are working to provide succor to the
survivors of worst quake in 40 years.
Indonesia and Sri Lanka together accounted for nearly 65,000 deaths,
and news reports pouring in from the affected regions suggest that the
death toll is expected to rise by the tens of thousands.
Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from the sea, pushing the death
toll to a staggering 85,000.
While authorities ran out of body bags in Indonesia's Aceh region,
there was not enough wood to cremate thousands of victims in southern
India.
The estimated death toll in Thailand doubled after 700 bodies were
found in the wreckage of hotels on one stretch of beach on the mainland
north of Phuket Island.
Khao Lak beach, in Phang Nga Province, is now thought to be the site of
the most casualties. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the
final toll in his nation would cross the 2,000 mark.
More than 20 countries have pledged emergency aid worth more than $80
million, and several Asian nations have sent naval ships carrying
supplies and doctors to devastated areas.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, rejecting comments from a top
U.N. official that rich countries were being "stingy," said the
international community would need to give billions of dollars in aid.
Washington doubled its pledge to $35 million. Australia increased its
aid to $27 million.
"A lot of the economies, or sectors of the economies, of the affected
countries have been close to destroyed, and it is going to require a
great deal of rebuilding and a great deal investment," Australian
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.
More than 5 million people have been rendered homeless across South
Asia by the killer waves. Many of the displaced people were staying in
shrines, schools or temporary relief camps. International aid agencies
are building temporary shelters for the homeless, providing them with
drinking water and setting up latrines.
Not many people in the affected countries had heard about tsunamis
until the ocean unleashed havoc on Sunday.
Indian officials say they failed to recognize or sound an alert in the
two hours it took the killer waves to hit Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
"In the absence of instrumentation, we could not have known that the
earthquake in Sumatra would lead to tsunami on our coasts," India's
Minister of State for Science and Technology and Ocean Development
Kapil Sibal told reporters.
"It is not a phenomenon that has occurred in this part of the world,"
he said. "If we had had any inkling, we could have reacted faster."
"Once we came to know of the magnitude of the earthquake near Sumatra,
we should have reacted," V.S. Ramamurthy, secretary in the Department
of Science and Technology said.
"We lost 2? hours. That was the first mistake we made as the earthquake
was on the wrong side of Sumatra to impact the Pacific Rim countries,"
he said.
Sibal said around 80 percent of tsunamis occur in Pacific Rim
countries, and the data provided by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
would not have had much relevance for India.
Sibal announced India would install its own tsunami warning system.
In India, saris killed several women bathing in the sea when the
gigantic tsunami waves hit the southeast coast. The women, caught in
the surging waters, could not escape after their saris got entangled in
seaweed and bushes washed in by the sea. Even those who ran for safety
were trapped after bushes and debris caught hold of their saris, the
Deccan Chronicle reported.
"I tried hard to pull out a woman from the waves, but her legs got
entangled in her sari," one of the witnesses recalled. "Despite trying
many times, I could not free her legs. Then my hands also got entangled
in the sari. Somehow I managed to free myself, and she was washed
away."
The last major quake in the region was in 2001, killing 25,000 people
in western state of Gujarat, India.
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