ral Posted: Dec 28 2004, 11:56 PM
Fishaholic
Joined: 26-June 04
Location: Philippines
Posts: 224
Was reading this in BBC, really breaks my heart.
http
/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4129521.stm
QUOTE
Last Updated: Tuesday, 28 December, 2004, 23:40 GMT
EReporters' log: Asia disaster
As aid efforts get under way in response to the Asian quake disaster, the BBC's correspondents report from affected areas around the region.
Tuesday 28th December
Jonathan Head : Phuket, Thailand : 2209 GMT
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The tourist toll here is simply unknown. There were a whole load more who were out at sea, who were swept away and may never be found.
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Nick Bryant : Cuddalore, India : 2206 GMT
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They spent much of the last 24 hours digging up bodies, many of them young children. They simply couldn't run as fast as the adults.
In some of these wrecked buildings there are still bodies under the rubble. We know they are there because we can smell them.
Dumeetha Luthra : Galle, Sri Lanka : 1800 GMT
Loudspeakers here have been asking residents to lay bodies out for collection and burial.
The hospital is overflowing. It held a mass funeral for the victims who still hadn't been claimed by relatives, victims of a train that was derailed by the onslaught of the wave.
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Matthew Grant : Madras, India : 1735 GMT
Unicef has already received reports of outbreaks of diarrhoea amongst survivors. Disease could now spread quickly, as many are huddled together in makeshift camps. Getting clean water to them is critical.
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Chris Hogg : Phuket, Thailand : 1725 GMT
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One half-naked man hung from the twisted timbers of what was left of his room. He looked like he'd been crucified.
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Sunil Raman : Tamil Nadu, India : 1640 GMT
The people of Tharangampadi in Nagapattinam district of the southern state are still looking for their dead - fishing them out of ponds, pulling a few from tree tops and pulling some from beneath collapsed huts.
The stench of rotting bodies has filled the air and vultures hover above.
Nagapattinam district headquarters is the worst hit. Tens of thousands of huts were washed away. Dinesh, a young fisherman said, "I do not know where my boat is. I have nothing left. I am left just with the clothes on my body".
Chris Hogg : Phuket, Thailand : 1630 GMT
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We heard today that there aren't enough coffins and those that they do have are often too small for the bodies which have been bloated after sitting in the water for 48 hours.
Chris Hogg : Phuket, Thailand : 1550 GMT
Phuket's hospitals have been completely overrun.
One if the concerns that the doctors have is that, because it's more than two days since a lot of the people they are treating were injured, many have had open wounds for more than 48 hours, so a lot of people have infections.
Roland Buerke : Galle, Sri Lanka : 1450 GMT
The dead are being buried with extreme haste and little ceremony.
Outside the main hospital in Galle today there were dozens of bodies lined up in the open air, waiting to be buried.
I spoke to a tourist today who had just come in from the town of Unawatuna and he said people were being buried there as well very quickly, including tourists.
Apparently the people who are burying them are trying to make a note of where the graves are and if they find a passport they are taking a note of that too, in the hope that perhaps one day those remains might be returned to their home countries.
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Roland Buerke : Galle, Sri Lanka : 1345 GMT
To the north of Galle, yet more tragedy has been discovered.
A train was caught in the tidal wave and swept off the tracks, reports say of the sixteen hundred on board, just three hundred got out alive.
Relief is now arriving in the town, helicopters are flying continuous sorties, bringing supplies in from ships at sea.
But all along Sri Lanka's coast, perhaps a million are homeless, and they're facing another night out in the open.
Chris Hogg : Phuket, Thailand : 1300 GMT
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Most of the bodies recovered have been piled up in a temple, which has been turned into makeshift mortuary.
Rachel Harvey : Aceh, Indonesia : 1105 GMT
The further you travel along the road to Banda Aceh the worse the situation becomes.
We stopped at a local Red Cross post where rows of dead bodies had been piled up. Some were covered in orange plastic sheeting, but others were left exposed to the sun.
Officials told us up to two thousand corpses had been collected at this one point. But they're gradually being taken away in trucks to be buried in mass graves.
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Chris Hogg : Phuket, Thailand : 1055 GMT
The Thais say they expect the number of casualties to double over the next few days, as the relief teams reach more far flung islands.
Geeta Pandey : Port Blair, Andaman Islands : 0750 GMT
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The aftershocks continue to jolt an already shaken population and hundreds of people have been sleeping outside on the streets or in their cars out of fear.
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