/ 26 December 2004

Thousands killed in Asian tsunami

More than 11 000 people in six countries were killed on Sunday when the most powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered huge tidal waves that hit coastlines across Asia. The death toll is almost certain to rise further as the full extent of the devastation emerges.

Tourists, fishermen, hotels, homes and cars were swept away by walls of water unleashed by the 8,9-magnitude earthquake, centred off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The countries affected were Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia and the Maldives.

Among the worst hit was the island of Sri Lanka, 1 600km west of the epicentre. The death toll stood tonight at up to 4 500, with a million people displaced by the surging wall of water, according to police and Tamil Tiger rebels. Sri Lanka’s government declared a national disaster.

In Indonesia Reuters reported that 3 000 people had been killed in the city of Banda Aceh alone, in the province of Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra Island. Communication links to several regions in Aceh were still cut off as night fell some 12 hours after the quake struck, raising fears that the death toll would rise further. Hundreds of people were still unaccounted for.

The government struggled to respond to the disaster in Aceh, which has been torn by separatist violence for 26 years.

In India, the waves swept away boats, homes and vehicles killing up to 3 000 people in the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry, officials said. Hundreds of bodies were found on beaches in Tamil Nadu, and more are expected to be washed in by the sea, officials said. At least 300 people were killed on India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, and another 700 were missing and believed dead, Press Trust of India cited the region’s police chief as saying.

In Thailand, one of Asia’s most popular holiday destinations at this time of year, at least 289 people were reported to have been killed and 3 675 injured. According to media reports and the Thai foreign ministry, the tourists missing, injured or dead include nationals of Britain, South Korea, Japan, Germany, South Africa, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and the United States.

Another 42 were confirmed dead in Malaysia and two in Bangladesh. Thousands of people were missing, many of them fishermen at sea, and rescue workers struggled against floodwaters to find and evacuate stranded victims.

The global Red Cross issued an emergency appeal for immediate aid, and President Bush offered ”all appropriate assistance to those nations most affected”. He said US relief efforts were already under way to help people in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Bush joined the Pope in sending his condolences to the people affected by the disaster.

The quake occurred at a place where several huge geological plates push against each other with massive force. The scope of the disaster became apparent only after waves as high as six metres crashed into coastal areas throughout the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea.

Throughout the day harrowing stories emerged as survivors described what they had witnessed and experienced.

Philippe Gilbert, on holiday in the southern Sri Lankan resort of Tangalle, recounted how he had gripped a tree and watched helplessly as his four-year-old granddaughter was dragged away by waves triggered by the quake. ”I was completely carried by an absolutely monstrous wave that towered over the bungalow,” Gilbert said in a telephone interview broadcast by French television station LCI. ”I lost my granddaughter in it.”

In India, P Ramanamurthy (40) a resident of Andhra Pradesh, had watched fishermen clinging on to upturned fishing boats in the heaving sea. ”I was shocked to see innumerable fishing boats flying on the shoulder of the waves, going back and forth into the sea, as if made of paper,” he said. ”Many boats were upturned, but fishermen were still holding on to them. They also were pushed into the sea. It was shocking.”

Among those killed in Andhra Pradesh state were 32 people, including 15 children, who had gone into the sea for a Hindu religious bath to mark the full moon day, police said. They said 20 000 people were evacuated in four districts.

Holidays turned to disaster in southern Thailand, which welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists to its southern beaches during the Christmas season. Simon Clark (29) a photographer from London on holiday on Ngai island with his girlfriend, Caroline Barton (25) described how a huge wave had suddenly rushed up the beach, destroying everything in its wake. ”People who were snorkelling were dragged along the coral and washed up on the beach, and people who were sunbathing got washed into the sea.”

The owner of two resorts on Phi Phi island — where the Hollywood blockbuster The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was filmed — said that 200 of his bungalows were swept out to sea, along with some of his employees and customers. ”I am afraid that there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea, and also my staff,” said Chan Marongtaechar, who was in the Thai capital of Bangkok at the time. Officials said more than 600 tourists and locals were being evacuated by air and sea from the island.

”Just out of nowhere, suddenly the streets [were] awash and people just running and screaming from the beach,” John Hyde, an Australian state official on holiday in southern Thailand, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

”People were getting swept along still on their motorbikes,” Simon Morse, another Australian tourist, told the ABC. ”There were cars that had been picked up by the storm surge and they were getting pushed down the road, taking things out as they went.”

The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw said: ”For all the huge advances in the control of our lives through science and technology an earthquake on this scale is truly humbling as well as profoundly tragic for everyone involved.” He said messages of condolence have been sent to India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives and confirmed that emergency support teams are on standby. He added: ”For the tens of thousands of British tourists in southeast Asia and their relatives and friends here this will I know be a very worrying time. ”We are doing everything we can to assist but the disruption to communication in the worst affected areas is inevitably making it difficult to confirm exactly the situation on the ground.”

The US Geological Survey’s website recorded the magnitude 8,9 earthquake off the west coast of northern Sumatra, 1&nbap;620km north-west of Jakarta. It was centred 40km below the seabed. Aftershocks struck in the magnitude seven range.

The earthquake was the world’s fifth most powerful since 1900 and the strongest since a 9,2-magnitude quake hit Alaska in 1964, US earthquake experts said.

The force of it shook unusually far afield, causing buildings to sway hundreds of miles away, from Singapore to the city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, and in Bangladesh, hours after the region’s Christian communities had finished Christmas celebrations. – Guardian Unlimited Â