Thousands of additional bodies were found in Indonesia yesterday, raising the death toll from the killer Asian tsunamis to about 68,000, as health officials warned that an equal number could perish from diseases like cholera and malaria.
“There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases” caused by a lack of clean water and sanitation, said Dr. David Nabarro of the World Health Organization.
“The initial terror associated with the tsunamis and the earthquake itself may be dwarfed by the longer-term suffering of the affected communities.”
A quake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale struck off the north Indonesian island of Sumatra Sunday. It triggered 30-foot-high tsunamis that crashed into coastal areas in 10 other countries, traveling at speeds of 500 mph.
Among the staggering statistics:
* Indonesia’s Health Ministry said that more than 32,500 people were killed on Sumatra.
Ten thousand people were found dead in just one town, Meulaboh – in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra – and another 9,000 died in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, where the stench of decaying bodies filled the air.
But the ministry has not yet counted deaths along the flooded and inaccessible towns of Sumatra’s western coast. Indonesia’s vice president estimated that up to 40,000 could be dead there, bringing the country’s death toll to 65,000.
Refugees fleeing the western coast described surviving for days on little more than coconuts.
“The sea was full of bodies,” said Sukardi Kasdi, who reached Banda Aceh from his town of Surang.
With aid not arriving quickly, residents in Meulaboh and other Aceh towns began looting.
“People are looting, but not because they are evil, but they are hungry,” said Red Cross official Irman Rachmat.
* In Sri Lanka, the toll rose to 21,700.
Workers pulled 802 bodies from trains that were flung off their tracks when the waves struck a tiny fishing village.
Two hundred of the bodies – unclaimed by relatives – were buried in a mass grave next to the tracks, which had been lifted and twisted like a roller coaster by the raging water.
“Is this the fate that we had planned for? My darling, you were the only hope for me,” cried one man for his dead girlfriend, his college sweetheart.
* More than 4,400 died in India and more than 1,500 in Thailand – and the numbers were expected to rise.
A police official said 8,000 people were missing and possibly dead in India’s remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, just north of Sumatra.
* Scores were also killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The giant waves raced nearly 3,000 miles to east Africa, causing deaths in Somalia, Tanzania and the Seychelles.
Meanwhile, the State Department announced that the U.S. Agency for International Development is adding $20 million to an initial $15 million contribution for quake relief.
The announcement came as Secretary of State Colin Powell bristled at a United Nations official’s suggestion that the West has been “stingy.”
Confirming the new aid, Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli also said that seven Americans had perished in Sri Lanka and five in Thailand.
He said a large number of missing Americans had been found safe and sound, but hundreds of others remained unaccounted for.
President Bush will make a statement about the disaster today at his Texas ranch, after being briefed by aides on the relief effort.
The first international deliveries of food were being delivered as humanitarian agencies tried to organize to help on an unprecedented geographic scale.
A dozen trucks, loaded with more than 160 tons of rice, lentils and sugar left from Colombo for Sri Lanka’s southern and eastern coasts.
In Tamil Nadu, India’s hardest-hit state, health officials said it was crucial to clean up quickly, particularly in getting the dead buried.
“There is a very high risk of epidemics breaking out in all these places,” said microbiologist Dr. Sathish Amarnath. “Decaying bodies are bacteria factories. The bodies must be quickly disposed of.”
With Post Wire Services