Tsunami toll crosses 65,000

Tsunami toll crosses 65,000

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Wednesday, December 29, 2004 (Chennai/Port Blair):

Three days after the deadly tsunami sea waves struck Asia and parts of Africa, the death toll in one of the worst natural disasters ever has touched 65,000.

The United Nations has said the world's largest humanitarian relief operation is under way.

International disaster assessment teams are arriving in the affected countries and local agencies are distributing emergency aid.

But the disaster zone is now threatened with outbreaks of disease, which the UN health agency has warned could double the death toll.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka worst hit

Indonesia, which is close to the epicentre of Sunday's earthquake that measured 9 on the Richter scale, has suffered a huge human tragedy.

The Indonesian government says 32,000 people have died in their country. The province of Aceh has been the worst-affected.

In Sri Lanka, 25,000 lives have been snuffed out by the huge fast-moving sea waves that rose from the Indian Ocean after the biggest earthquake in 40 years struck near Indonesia - 2,000 km away from the island nation.

Over 10,000 people have died in India with the Andamans and states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala bearing the brunt of the deathly earthquake-induced sea waves.

Nearly 1,500 people were killed in Thailand. In Malaysia 50 people were killed and a similar number died in the Maldives.

Tsunamis killed 30 people in Myanmar and more than 100 people in Somalia, which is almost 5,000 km from the epicentre of the earthquake.

India toll

In India, where more than 10,000 people are feared dead, the worst hit is the union territory of Andaman & Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and Tamil Nadu on India's southeast coast.

Three thousand people have been killed in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands but there are fears that the death toll here could also rise dramatically as thousands are still missing.

In Tamil Nadu over 5,000 people have died in the deadly sea waves which struck south and south east Asia on the morning after Christmas.

Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu has suffered heavily. About 3,500 people have died in this coastal town.

news from ndtv.com

(With PTI inputs)