Toll in Indonesia Alone May Top 100,000


BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Dec. 31) - Two U.S. Navy battle groups loaded with supplies headed for tsunami-ravaged coasts Friday and an airlift of dozens of flights brought help to this wrecked Indonesian city, as a huge world relief drive to shelter, treat and feed millions of survivors kicked in. The death toll passed 121,000 and was still climbing.


But with help streaming in, overstretched authorities were dealing with logistical nightmare of getting it to the needy. Tons of supplies were backlogged in Indonesia, with thousands of boxes filled with drinking water, crackers, blankets and other basic necessities piled high in an airplane hangar nearly 300 miles from Banda Aceh, the wrecked main city in the disaster zone.

Indonesia, the hardest hit nation, said its toll - now at 80,000 - could reach 100,000, and officials began to acknowledge that the number of dead may never be known with precision, because the towering waves that smashed into Sumatra island swept entire villages with their inhabitants out to sea.

The Bush administration on Friday increased the U.S. pledge tenfold to $350 million. Secretary of State Colin Powell is also heading to the region to see first-hand what more the United States needs to do. "Our contributions will continue to be revised as the full effects of this terrible tragedy become clearer,'' President Bush said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this epic disaster.''

On India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, survivors were desperate for food and water, with Indian relief workers struggling to get them aid six days after the disaster.

"There is nothing to eat there. There is no water. In a couple of days, people will start dying of hunger,'' said Anup Ghatak, a utilities contractor from Campbell Bay island, as he was being evacuated to Port Blair, capital of the archipelago.

Rescue workers in the archipelago believe thousands of uncounted bodies remain in the debris of crumbled homes, downed trees and mounds of dead animals on several islands. India has officially reported 7,763 dead in the tsunami disaster - most from the southern provinces of the mainland. Only around 700 dead from the archipelago were counted, but officials said Friday more than 3,700 were still missing. An official a day earlier said 10,000 could be dead in the archipelago.


Foreigners are banned from the archipelago - for security reasons because of its large air force post and for protection of its indigenous community - and India has so far refused requests by international aid groups trying to bring help to the islands.

Forensic teams in Thailand packed bodies in dry ice as the government announced its death toll had doubled to more than 4,500 people, almost half of them foreigners who had been vacationing on the country's renowed white-sand beaches.

Prayers replaced parties to mark New Year's in much of Asia, and in Europe black cloth draped the Champs Elysees, as sorrow over the death and destruction from this week's quake and tsunamis overshadowed celebration.

In the stricken areas, people were too busy counting the dead, feeding survivors and combating the spread of disease to think about anything else. Six days after the disaster struck, many were still desperately searching for missing family and friends.

"Too many people died here. I cannot celebrate New Year,'' said Rene Vander Veen, a German visitor to Thailand's hard-hit resort island of Phuket.

Sunday's 9.0 magnitude quake struck just off the coast of Sumatra, near the Indian archipelago, sending walls of water racing across the Indian Ocean and wiping out coasts in 11 nations.

After Indonesia, Sri Lanka was the next hardest hit, with about 28,500 deaths. A total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.


U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday that nations had donated $500 million toward the relief effort, but more help was needed. Militaries from around the world geared up to help.

Nine U.S military C-130 transport craft took off Friday from Utapao, the Thai base used by U.S. B-52 bombers striking targets in Indochina during the Vietnam War, to rush supplies to the stricken resorts of southern Thailand and to more distant airfields in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, said Maj. Larry J. Redmon in Bangkok.

One of the cargo jets arrived in the main airport near Banda Aceh with blankets, medicine and the first of 80,000 body bags. Other C-130s were sent by Australia and New Zealand, and the Indonesian government said 42 flights from 18 countries had reached Sumatra by Friday.

Some pilots dropped food to villagers stranded among bloating corpses. Two Navy groups of a dozen vessels - led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard - are headed for the coasts of Indonesia and Sri Lanka with supplies and, importantly, more than 40 helicopters to help ferry food and medicines into ravaged seaside communities.

But aid was stacking up, with trucks struggling to get it into Banda Aceh - the provincial capital, which officials estimate was 60 percent destroyed - or to the rest of Aceh province on Sumatra's northern tip, where many villages on the coast were wiped out.

Droves of refugees set up tents along the main road from Banda Aceh to its airport. "It's on the path of the aid trucks,'' said one refugee, Umi Sana, who still doesn't know what happened to her six children back in the fishing town of Meulaboh, which was inundated by the tsunami.

Some 280 miles to the south, thousands of boxes were piled in an airport hangar in Medan, a main transportation hub. Some of the supplies had been brought to the hangar on Monday and still hadn't made it to the disaster zones.

"Hundreds of tons, it keeps coming in,'' said Rizal Nordin, governor of Northern Sumatra province, gesturing at piles of stacked cartons. He blamed the backlog on an initial "lack of coordination'' that was slowly improving.


The United States, India, Australia, Japan and the United Nations have formed an international coalition to coordinate worldwide relief and reconstruction efforts. The Indian navy, which has already deployed 32 ships and 29 aircraft for tsunami relief and rescue work, was sending two more ships Friday to Indonesia.

Asian leaders on Friday were trying to put together a meeting next week in Jakarta that would group Asian countries with international donors and organizations.

Meanwhile, families around the Indian Ocean rim and beyond spent their sixth day of desperation trying to track down missing loved ones, including vacationers on the sunny beaches of Thailand, India and Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands were still missing, including at least 3,500 Swedes, more than 1,000 Germans and 500 each from France and Denmark.

In Sri Lanka, where more than 4,000 people were unaccounted for, television channels were devoting 10 minutes every hour to read the names and details of the missing. Often photos of the missing were shown with appeals that they should contact their families or police.

On Phuket, people scoured photos pinned to notice boards of the dead and missing. Canadian tourist Dan Kwan was still hunting for his missing parents and refused to give up hope.

"At this point we hope against hope that they are still alive somewhere,'' he said, adding that it was possible they were unconscious or unable to speak.

The search for loved ones on Sumatra was even less coordinated. One man was looking for his grandmother by checking corpse after corpse scattered over a road near her ruined home.