Asian tsunami toll mounts to over 28,000
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-28 17:02

Aid agencies struggled on Tuesday to cope with the enormity of the Asian tsunami disaster which has killed more than 28,000, with the International Red Cross saying it may have to treble its appeal for funds.

Video grab shows a tidal wave in Penang after tsunami waves hit southern Asia on Sunday in this amateur video footage taken December 26, 2004. [Reuters]

"The enormity of the disaster is unbelievable," said Bekele Geleta, head of the International Red Cross in Southeast Asia.

The Red Cross issued a flash appeal on Sunday for 7.5 million Swiss francs ($6.57 million) for survivors after the tsunami hit six Asian nations following a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake under the Indian Ocean off Indonesia's Sumatra island.

"We realize now by dispatching emergency units that there is a big gap already, so we will be revising our appeal up very soon," Geleta told Reuters. "I would not be surprised if Geneva made it three times or more."

For many desperate survivors, aid has been too slow in coming. In Indonesia's Banda Aceh, fear was mixed with anger as residents queued outside the few open shops guarded by soldiers.

"Where is the assistance? There is nothing. All the government are asleep," said Mirza, a 28-year-old resident.

"I've been standing here for an hour. There is nothing at home," said Budi, 24.

In southern Thailand, local people were using spades, hoes and hand saws. Mechanical equipment has appeared in some places and is still promised in others.

Hannala Zirath from Sweden holds her husband's hand after they were reunited December 28, 2004 following a tsunami which hit the Thai resort island of Phuket. Zirath's husband, who was injured by huge tidal waves was being airlifted to Bangkok for treatment. Nations on the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to Sri Lanka struggled on Tuesday to find and bury their dead and help the survivors of tidal waves as fears grew the final toll would far exceed the 27,700 people reported killed. [Reuters]

While national emergency groups were first on the ground, many international aid organizations said they were still formulating how best to tackle the huge demand for aid.

"They are being stretched, there is no question of that," said Geleta. "The biggest problem is co-ordination and managing facilities and resources."

NAVY DRAFTED

Several Asian nations have sent naval ships carrying emergency supplies and doctors to devastated coastal areas.

A Thai naval ship with an onboard hospital was headed to the devastated island resort of Phuket, where 203 people are known to have died and many more were injured, as doctors and nurses operated in makeshift surgeries on Thailand's west coast.

Thailand's national blood center called for urgent supplies of rhesus negative blood, more common among foreigners. Hundreds of Western tourists were killed at beach resorts in Thailand and Sri Lanka and many more injured, bones broken and cut by debris.

Relief teams in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, two of the worst affected nations, sought to prevent the spread of disease from rotting corpses and putrefied water by burying corpses in mass graves and flying in shelter and water sanitation kits.

The United Nations said hundreds of relief planes packed with emergency goods would arrive in Sri Lanka, where the death toll was over 12,000, within the next 48 hours.

The United Nations has sounded a warning that the spread of water-borne diseases and epidemics of intestinal and lung infections could affect millions across Asia.

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad said it had sent 60 1,000-liter water tanks to Trincomalee in northeast Sri Lanka and was preparing 25,000 food packs containing rice, flour, dhal, fish, sugar and cereal. It had also delivered plastic sheeting for temporary shelter for 10,000 homeless families in Sri Lanka.

Millions have been left homeless.

"This is a massive humanitarian disaster and with communications so bad in many areas, we still don't know the full scale of it," Oxfam Community Aid Abroad executive director Andrew Hewett told reporters in Australia.

The International Red Cross said it feared the death toll would rise significantly once access was gained to troubled areas such as Indonesia's Aceh and the coastal areas of Myanmar, where the military government has admitted to only 34 deaths.

And with the death toll mounting, aid groups were also calling for urgent supplies of coffins and formalin to preserve corpses as hundreds of bodies remained tangled in wreckage or buried in mud and debris.

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