 THE death toll in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster rose to more than 220,000 yesterday when the Indonesian Government declared that 70,000 people previously listed as missing were now regarded as among the dead. Three weeks after the Boxing Day earthquake some 3,500 bodies are still being recovered each day from the debris of towns and villages in the province of Aceh, the region worst hit by the disaster. It is a task that, along with distributing emergency relief aid, is becoming more difficult with the hazard of flooding caused by the monsoon. The Indonesian Health Ministry said the number of dead in Aceh was now 166,080, with another 240 dead in northern Sumatra. It reached the figure by cross-checking numbers at the government task force centre in Banda Aceh and the Home Affairs Department. The United Nations listed the number of dead at 165,493. |