More bodies found; tsunami toll is 125,000

NEW DELHI, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A calm and serene Indian Ocean is now sending its dead back to the shores of 11 nations hit by the killer tsunamis caused by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake off an Indonesian island.

Four days after the killer waves struck havoc in coastal cities in Indian Ocean, bodies of the victims are being washed ashore even as desperate families search for their loved ones.

The fishermen community in India believes that if the sea loves you, then it sends back your body in three to four days.

Rescue workers and international volunteers are scouting ravaged buildings and waterlogged fields and are helping locals to drag the rotting corpses from canals and rivulets.

With the recovery of more bodies, the death toll in the worst quake in 40 years has rocketed to 125,000 and thousands more are still reported missing and presumed dead.

Among the missing are hundreds of western tourists who were enjoying Christmas holidays in the luxury beach resorts in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

The death toll in the worst ever tsunami disaster is ticking faster than a clock.

Rescue workers do not need sniffer dogs anymore to locate the bodies. The unbearable stench of rotting corpses is now directing rescue workers and volunteers to the debris of ruined buildings to retrieve decaying bodies.

Four days after the disaster, hundreds of bodies still lay under the debris of ravaged buildings and some even lay scattered in waterlogged fields.

New figures reveal that as many as 125,000 people may have died in the catastrophe caused by the tsunamis, a destructive wave train created by an undersea disturbance -- in this case by Sunday's earthquake centered just off the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

Officials in Indonesia say the number killed there is now reaching 80,000 and the death toll is still expected to climb higher, the BBC reported.

Besides causing severe damage in Indonesia, the waves then traveled to coastal regions of countries such as Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Maldives and Somalia.

Even four days after the tragedy, bodies have littered the streets of several coastal regions in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The ravaged nations have run out of body bags and wood to cremate the corpses.

Bodies have been interred in mass burials and where locals dug the graves for their loved ones with bare hands.

The tiny island nation of Sri Lanka accounted for 27,000 deaths with hundreds still reported missing and India reported 13,000 dead. At least 2,400 died in Thailand, including hundreds of foreign tourists.

Besides the toll claimed by the killer waves, epidemics could still break out in the water-clogged areas where inadequate shelter and sanitation could lead to the spread of communicable diseases. The greatest danger is posed by unsanitary drinking water.

The worst fears of medical experts came true in the aftermath of tsunami disaster. Nagapattinam district in southern India has seen a spate of dangerous diarrhea, and authorities are rushing additional medical supplies and drinking water in the region to contain the epidemic. The diarrhea has spread in the coastal villages of the district.

Nagapattinam was among the worst affected districts of southern Tamil Nadu state. More than 5,000 people were killed in Nagapattinam alone.

"There are incidents of diarrhea in Eachankuppam, Akkaraipettai, Nagore, Aryanattukarai and other places. People are being rushed to hospital," Dr. V. Ramani told The Times of India.

Ramani said there was shortage of medicines and disinfectants and called for urgent supplies of bleaching powder and antiseptics.

International aid agencies and the United Nations had warned of such epidemics as a natural concomitant of putrefying bodies contaminating water and food.

Another challenge for the tsunami-hit countries is to reach millions of people who have been rendered homeless and are on the verge of starvation.

In Sri Lanka, some 1.2 million displaced people are becoming restive because of the slow pace of relief distribution in the north, east and south of this island nation.

Aid is slowly trickling in to the devastated areas as measles, dehydration and other communicable diseases have begun spreading in the refugee camps with doctors saying that they have found children suffering from measles, and if steps were not taken immediately to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children, then it could turn into an epidemic.

"We do not have enough vaccines and also medical personnel to administer these vaccines,'' a Health Ministry official told United Press International.

"The biggest hurdle is the lack of manpower. Although hundreds of foreign doctors are here to help us out, we lack the infrastructure to send them out to the affected areas."

Delivery of aid was getting delayed because roads and bridges have been washed away. The southern port city of Galle, one of the worst affected in the country, has become a nightmare for relief workers.

Desperate survivors in Indonesia are fighting over aid and relief material amid reports of aftershocks and false alerts of tsunamis striking again.

Thousands of tsunami survivors housed in temporary tents in Indonesia's worst hit Aceh province are on the verge of starvation since the humanitarian assistance has trickled in far too slowly since Sunday's nightmare began, the Jakarta Post reported.

Although a large number of local and international aid groups have already arrived in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, the few trucks and insufficient fuel supplies have hampered relief.

Survivors in Banda Aceh have had to scavenge for food. "I don't know how get the aid. Rice is nowhere to be found," one of the refugees, Yanti, said in desperation.

Incidents of looting were also reported in Banda Aceh.

International aid worth $220 million is pouring into Asia to help the survivors of the worst quake in 40 years. The airports in tsunami-affected regions are clogged with relief supplies but lack of coordination among the aid agencies and the governments is delaying the quick disbursement of the relief supplies.

Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations, said it will take another "two or three days" for the relief effort to get into full swing -- by which time it may be too late for tens of thousands of people.

"We are doing very little at the moment," he said. "I believe the frustration will be growing in the days and weeks ahead," the BBC quoted him as saying.

U.S. President George Bush Wednesday announced a core group that will coordinate relief in the tsunami hit area. The group consists of United States., India, Japan and Australia. Washington has pledged an initial grant of $35 million.

In his first public statement since the tsunami struck on Sunday, Bush Wednesday claimed that criticisms of rich nations not giving enough for disaster relief were misguided.

"I assure those leaders that this is just only the beginning of our help," he said.

Egeland had earlier charged that the Western nations had generally been "stingy."

"I felt like the person who made that statement was very misguided and ill-informed," Bush said. "In the year 2004, our government provided $2.4 billion in food and cash and humanitarian relief. That's 40 percent of all the relief aid given in the world last year."

Meanwhile, confusion prevailed in several tsunami-affected regions due to rumors of another round of killer waves.

In Indonesia, thousands of residents in Lhokseumawe in North Aceh fled the city in search of higher ground following gossip that a strong wave was imminent.

"For God's sake, please help us, the sea water is coming again," the Post quoted one of the survivors as saying.

In India, the government confused the tsunami stricken survivors with the Home Ministry issuing a warning of fresh round of killer waves and the Science Ministry saying there was nothing to fear.

Thousands of people were evacuated from the coastal regions even as the survivors of Sunday's undersea earthquake waves were trying to cope with loss of life and property and starvation.

Television pictures showed people being herded in trucks and sent away from the coastal regions. Most of the survivors had returned to their ravaged homes after spending three nights at relief camps.

"Run, run!" people shouted at each other scrambling to collect whatever they could in the hard-hit Nagapattinam district.

"Water is coming again, ... yes again," grief-stricken people were heard shouting at each other.

Similar warnings were issued in Andaman and Nicobar islands that have reported 6,000 dead and nearly 10,000 missing. News reports say that at least 15,000 people may have died in Car Nicobar Island alone. Residents of the island rushed onto high ground following the fresh alerts of tsunami strike.

Andaman and Nicobar islands have registered more than 80 aftershocks since Sunday's watery fury with some tremors as high as 6.1 on Richter scale.

"The alert is a precautionary measure. There should not be any panic," India's federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil said, soon after his administration had flashed a warning to all the tsunami-affected areas.

However, India's Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said: "I don't know who is spreading such panic. We sounded no fresh alert."

The tsunami disaster has altered the coastal map of several countries after wobbling the earth at many places. Indira Point -- India's southernmost tip -- has been washed out.

There is no trace of six international scientists or the 20-odd inhabitants of this 100-square-kilometer (39-square-mile) island on the Indian Ocean, the Times of India reported.

The tiny Indian-administered island was just 51 kilometers (32 miles) from point zero off Sumatra Island in Indonesia.

Both India and Thailand have separately OK'd plans to set up their respective tsunami warning systems since all the countries in Indian Ocean region were taken by surprise by Sunday's killer waves.

A regional summit of South Asian nations, called SAARC, slated for January in Dhaka was put off as three member countries -- Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives -- grappled with the aftermath of the killer tsunamis.

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(United Press International's Colombo correspondent Ravi R. Prasad contributed to this report.)