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Tsunami death toll jumps over 125,000
The death toll in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster has soared above 125,000 as millions scrambled for food and fresh water and thousands more fled in panic to high ground on rumours of new waves. Aid agencies warned many more, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, could die in epidemics if shattered communications and transport hampered what may prove history's biggest relief operation. Rescue workers pressed on into isolated villages shattered by a disaster that could yet eclipse a cyclone that struck Bangladesh in 1991, killing 138,000 people. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called for an emergency meeting of the Group of Eight so that the rich nations club could discuss aid and possible debt reduction following "the worst cataclysm of the modern era". The total toll had shot up more than 50 per cent in a day with still no clear picture of conditions in some isolated islands and villages around India and Indonesia. While villagers and fishermen suffered devastation, losses among foreign tourists, essential to local economies, mounted. Prime Minister Goran Persson said more than 1,000 Swedes may have been killed in the disaster. Indonesian Health Ministry sources told Reuters just under 80,000 had died in the northern Aceh province that was close to the undersea quake, some 28,000 more than previously announced. Two sources said the toll would be officially announced soon. Posted by: God Save The World 2004-12-31 |
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