Some facts on a tsunami, faster than the speed of sound

[Amelia]

A Boy Named Tsunami

Sat Jan 1,11:46 AM ET

By Suresh Seshadri

PORT BLAIR, India (Reuters) - Six-day-old Tsunami Roy doesn't know what all the fuss about him is, as he hungrily suckles at his mother's breast before dropping off for a contented nap

Sitting in a classroom in the capital of India's tsunami-ravaged Andaman and Nicobar islands, his 34-year-old father, Lakshmi Narain Roy, recounted Saturday the dramatic events leading to Tsunami's birth, three weeks ahead of time.

"It was early morning Sunday, when I made my pregnant wife a cup of tea and woke her up. She was just about to take a sip when we felt the first jolt of the quake. She immediately screamed for me to pick up our sleeping son and rush out."

Roy grabbed his 6-year-old older son and ran out of their home near the coastal settlement of Hut Bay on the Little Andaman island before turning back to see if his wife was following.

"She had fallen down and briefly lost consciousness. But then she heard people screaming 'the water is coming' and managed to crawl out to the street and asked me to put our son on my cycle-rickshaw."

After hoisting his injured wife and son on to the rickshaw Roy pedaled and pushed the rickshaw as fast as he could up and away from the shore toward a nearby rocky slope. There he half-carried and half-pushed his pregnant wife up the last 150 feet or so to a wooded area where many others had fled.

The Roys are among the fortunate few who survived Sunday's devastating tsunami that has killed more than 126,000 people in Asia, including more than 8,900 in India.

They spent the next few hours watching the angry water foam over their submerged homes and waiting for a mahout to come and lead away a restless elephant, that was used for logging work and had been tethered to a nearby tree.

"Soon she was complaining of pain in her abdomen and at first I told her it must be due to the fall as the baby was not due till January 15. But as the pain got worse by nightfall, I became frantic and started looking for help, and luckily found a nurse."

DELIVERED BY MOONLIGHT

The nurse, with the help of other women who had fled the waves, rigged up a makeshift curtain, laid the 26-year-old Namita down on a bed of dried leaves and grass and ordered the men to get some clean cloth, thread and a bowl of hot water.

"A few hours later the child was born. But the nurse had no instruments, she was unable to remove the placenta from inside my wife's womb and within hours she was again in pain."

Unable to find any help locally, Roy trekked nearly a mile down to the police outpost at Hut Bay Tuesday and located a doctor, who examined his wife and advised that she be taken to hospital as soon as possible.

"On Wednesday, we learned a Navy ship had come into the bay but the jetty was damaged and so with help from other locals I carried her and the baby on to a dinghy and took her out to the big ship at sea."

Reaching Port Blair after a 7-hour journey Roy's wife was rushed to the local hospital where doctors immediately cleaned up her uterus and gave her some medicines.

"It was the doctors who suggested we name the boy Tsunami and we also liked the name and decided to call him that. After all it is a name everyone will instantly notice and remember."

[Amelia]

Intense Aftershocks Registered

January 1, 2005 09:50 PM,

Laksamana.Net - Seismological agencies around the globe today noted an upturn in the intensity of aftershocks from Sunday’s killer quake.

Agencies from Indonesia, the United States, China, Hong Kong and France – to name just a few – have stressed that the series of strong quakes felt in Indonesia and India’s Nicobar and Andaman islands since Friday night (31/12/04) were not sufficiently strong to trigger a tsunami.

However, the quakes are being felt on the surface - further taumatizing surviviors of the disaster that has left an estimated 100,000 Indonesians dead and at least a further 50,000 dead in other south and southeast Asian countries.

A massive earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale struck last Sunday just 60 kilometers from the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra island sending waves of up to 15 meters roaring over its coastline and ricocheting through the Indian Ocean.

A worker with the Indonesian Red Cross in Banda Aceh told the detikcom website that the provincial capital was being shaken by slight tremors every four hours on average.

Aftershocks of more than 6.0 on the Richter scale have been registered everyday since Sunday’s disaster but most have been far beneath the surface of the earth.

Seismological agencies began noting an upturn in the intensity of the aftershocks on the surface Friday evening.

A spokesperson for the Jakarta Geophysics Bureau told AFP that three significant aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.3, 5.2, and 5.0 on the Richter scale were felt during the night in Aceh.

A strong quake was felt on Saturday (01/01/05) but international reports were initially muddled.

The US Geological Survey said a 6.5 aftershock occurred at 06.25 GMT just 10 kilometers from the surface centered 215 miles west of Banda Aceh. Aftershocks in the 4- and 5- magnitude range were also recorded.

There was some confusion when the Hong Kong Observatory also noted the 6.5 quake – but at 06.22 GMT - and the State Seismological Bureau of China said later that a quake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale took place in the area at 08.25 GMT.

French seismology experts later confirmed that an undersea earthquake occurred off the Indonesian island of Sumatra at 06.25 GMT Saturday, reported AFP.

An official said that Chinese reports of another earthquake two hours later "must be a mistake because of confusion with local time and GMT."

Bengkulu Feels Quake

An earlier quake sent residents of Bengkulu province in north-west Sumatra running from their homes seeking higher ground.

The quake that struck at 11.38 Western Indonesian Time (04.38 GMT) had its epicenter 60 kilometers from the Bengkulu coast and some 30 kilometers beneath the surface of the earth, said head of the Jakarta-based Meteorological and Geophysics Board Edison Gurning.

He said the people all along the Sumatran coast are on high alert and many are traumatized by Sunday’s disaster, reported the detikcom website.

A major quake killed 102 people in Bengkulu province on 6 June 2000.

Jayapura in West Papua at Indonesia’s extreme eastern border was also rocked by a quake measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale on Thursday although no deaths or significant damage was reported.

In November quakes also hit Nabire, West Papua, killing 32 people and another levelled Alor island in East Nusa Tenggara province killing 30.

[Amelia]

Aftershocks can trigger quake in Assam, warn US scientists

Press Trust of India

New Delhi, January 1, 2005|16:57 IST

Aftershocks of last week's killer quake off Sumatra are moving northwards and can potentially trigger a major earthquake in Assam, scientists in the United States have cautioned the Indian government.

The scientists at the Center for Earth Observing and Space Research in George Mason University in Virginia, who have been analysing the seismic data since December 26, have found the aftershocks moving towards north along 90-degree Ridge.

"If the sequence of these aftershocks moves further north then it may trigger a very big earthquake in Assam region, which is expected by the scientists since long time," Ramesh P Singh, a member of the team and Vice Chairman of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) Risk Commission said.

Singh said that the magnitude-5 earthquake on December 30 near Myanmar reported by the US Geological Survey was probably caused by the aftershocks.

Its epicentre falls on the trajectory of the aftershocks.

[Amelia]

Sri Lanka floods force mass evacuations

By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer

Published 3:17 pm PST Friday, December 31, 2004

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) - After the devastation wreaked by the seas, a deluge from the skies deepened the misery for tsunami-stricken areas Saturday, triggering flash floods in Sri Lanka that sent evacuees fleeing and increasing the threat of deadly disease as survivors shivered in relief centers. The death toll was likely to hit 150,000.

A magnitude 6.5 aftershock jolted Sumatra as the world's aid efforts shifted into high gear in ways big and small: elephant convoys working in Thailand, global assistance reaching $2 billion with a fresh pledge from Tokyo, and the U.S. military launching one of the biggest relief missions in history.

The confirmed death toll from the quake and tsunamis that hit a week ago Sunday passed 123,000, and the United Nations has said the estimated number was approaching 150,000. Thailand said it expects its death toll to reach 8,000.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan decided to visit Indonesia, the hardest hit nation, where the official death toll stood at more than 80,000, but officials said it could reach 100,000. Annan will attend a conference Thursday in Jakarta on organizing relief.

"We mourn, we cry and our hearts weep to witness thousands of victims sprawled everywhere," said Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, touring the damage on Sumatra island, which bore the brunt of both the quake and the waves.

A dozen American Seahawk helicopters sent from the USS Abraham Lincoln touched down in Banda Aceh and other parts of Sumatra island's devastated northwest coast, bringing relief supplies including temporary shelters. Also, a flotilla of cargo planes carrying Marines and water purifying equipment headed to Sri Lanka.

A day after President Bush upped the U.S. pledge to $350 million, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced Saturday that his country would contribute up to $500 million to relief efforts.

"The carnage is of a scale that defies comprehension," President Bush said in his weekly radio address, announcing a proclamation calling for U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff this week in honor of the dead. Secretary of State Colin Powell was also heading for the region.

But the dollar figures were an abstraction for survivors whose hearts were broken once again by water.

At one refugee camp on the grounds of the airport of Banda Aceh, hundreds of people spent a wet night under plastic sheets. Mothers nursed babies while others tried to light a fire with damp matches.

"With no help we will die," said Indra Syaputra. "We came here because we heard that we could get food, but it was nonsense. All I got was some packets of noodles."

The rains pummeling the corpse-littered city were creating the conditions for cholera and other waterborne diseases to spread. Boxes of aid at Banda Aceh's airport soaked up water, making it difficult for workers loading cartons of water, crackers and noodles onto delivery vehicles.

More amazing stories of survival emerged.

The Indonesian Red Cross in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, reportedly dug out a survivor from the ruins of a house where he had been buried since the tsunami struck. The rescuers heard Ichsan Azmil's cries for help. After he was pulled out Friday, he asked for water and was taken to a hospital for treatment of cuts and bruises.

On India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, a woman who fled the killer waves gave birth Monday in the forest that became her sanctuary. She named her son "Tsunami."

Even art became part of the folklore of resilience.

In the historic port town of Galle, Sri Lanka, several Buddha statues of cement and plaster were found unscathed amid collapsed brick walls in the center of the devastated city.

To many residents, it was a divine sign.

"The people are not living according to religious virtues," said Sumana, a Buddhist monk in an orange robe who sheltered himself from the sun under a black umbrella.

In eastern Sri Lanka, flash floods forced the evacuation of about 2,000 people already displaced by a tsunami that killed nearly 29,000 people on the tropical island.

Several roads leading to Ampara - one of the hardest hit towns - were flooded, preventing relief trucks from arriving, said Neville Wijesinghe, a senior police officer. Bureaucratic delays, fuel shortages, impassable roads and long distances also blocked supplies.

In addition to the deaths, 5 million people were homeless. The hunt for loved ones dragged on with tens of thousands still missing. Among the missing were some 3,500 Swedes and 1,000 Germans, and hundreds of others from Scandinavia, Italy and Belgium.

Aftershocks rattled the region, sending panicked Sumatrans into the streets.

Geologists said a 6.5 quake rattled Sumatra at 1:25 p.m. (1:25 a.m. EST), centered 155 miles southwest of Banda Aceh. Smaller quakes hit West Java and southern Sumatra earlier.

Seismologists said strong tremors of up to magnitude 6.1 also struck the Andaman and Nicobar islands, where the exact number of tsunami casualties was not known but feared to be in the thousands.

Hunger and disease were the biggest threats in the archipelago, which the Indian government has largely been keeping off-limits to foreign aid agencies.

"There is starvation. People haven't had food or water for at least five days. There are carcasses. There will be an epidemic," said Andaman's member of Parliament, Manoranjan Bhakta.

Island officials say at least 3,754 people were missing amid crumbled homes, downed trees and mounds of dead animals. V.V. Bhat, chief secretary of the islands, said the missing could not be presumed dead because they could have survived in coconut groves that dot the islands.

In the Thai resort of Phuket, five elephants, normally used to haul logs in forests, were being sent to pull heavy debris in areas that are too hilly or muddy for vehicles.

Thailand's official death count was 4,812, with over half of them foreigners. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has warned the figure is likely to reach 8,000. Many people have blamed the high number of casualties on bureaucratic bungling and poor communication systems. Thaksin said the government will investigate why tsunami warnings largely failed to reach officials and tourist resorts.

Western health officials headed to devastated areas across Sri Lanka after officials warned about possible disease outbreaks among the 1 million people seeking shelter in camps.

"Our biggest battle and fear now is to prevent an epidemic from breaking out," said Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva. "Clean water and sanitation is our main concern."

[Amelia]

Tourists getting most of the help, survivors report

By Alisa Tang

The Associated Press

BAN NAM KHEM, Thailand — While foreign survivors of the tsunami's onslaught were put up in an international school complete with beds, TVs and Internet connections, Thais from a devastated fishing village slept outside, many without blankets, burning wood to stay warm and keep mosquitoes away.

"No one came to help, we just helped each other out," said Yokhin Chuaynui, 65, whose home in Ban Nam Khem was destroyed. "When injured Thais went to the hospital, if they weren't about to die, they [workers] helped the Westerners first."

The contrast is sharpest in Thailand, where wealthy tourist resorts brush up against shanty fishing villages. But all around the Indian Ocean there have been reports of local people feeling ignored or insulted by the meager aid that has trickled to them since the tsunami struck Sunday morning.

Shortly after the seawater subsided from exclusive resorts and palm-fringed beaches of southern Thailand, authorities began setting up makeshift embassies, providing free phones and food to tourists. Hotels and an international school that survived relatively unscathed opened their doors to shell-shocked tourists, while foreign governments provided evacuation flights.

But Wimol Thongthae said there was no help at all the first day in Ban Nam Khem, where he said more than 2,000 people — half the village — had disappeared. Eight of his 15 family members, including his 3-year-old daughter, remain missing.

"I'm living without hope and have not received any assistance," he said.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob, overseeing the rescue effort at Ban Nam Khem, insisted the government had not ignored the locals' plight.

"We do not abandon them. Everybody has tried their best," he said as authorities pumped water out of streets. "If it is not fast enough in the villagers' eyes, it just could not be helped because the situation is so severe."

In Sri Lanka, some people complained that helicopters that could have brought supplies to devastated villages instead were used to rescue high-profile survivors.

One early Sri Lankan Air Force helicopter flight evacuated former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and six members of his entourage, who were vacationing in southern Sri Lanka.

At a makeshift relief camp for women inside a marriage hall in the southern coastal city of Nagappattinam, India, refugees grumbled about what they perceived as the condescending attitude of relief workers.

The city was hit hard by the wall of water, accounting for more than half of India's official death toll of more than 7,700 people.

"We have been insulted so much that we don't want any aid from anybody," said Lakshimi, 35, who goes by only one name. "We are prepared to die.

"They bring food for a few hundred people to a place where thousands of people are sheltered. They bring too few clothes, too little milk, which results in a melee. We have never looked for alms from anybody, now we have been reduced to beggars."

In Ban Nam Khem, fishing boats were dumped a quarter-mile inland by the waves. They are still there in the middle of town, and the stench of dead bodies inside is overpowering.

"The government gave more importance to Khao Lak and other tourist areas ... because this area is full of poor people," said provincial Sen. Wongphan Natakuathung.

Robert Eunson, 52, from Yorkshire, England, said that "the greatest need should be given the greatest care," but he acknowledged there was an element of self-interest in Thai authorities' rush to help foreigners.

"Tourism is so important to them, so it's a hierarchy," he said.

Jeanette Dombrowe, 32, a German native who has lived for years on the Thai island of Koh Payam, agreed.

"The villagers are second-class victims, but if we don't look after the Westerners the nation could lose its tourism — so the villagers have to understand," she said

[Guest]

Quote:

---

a 10-year-old British schoolgirl saved the lives of hundreds of people by warning them a wall of water was about to strike, after

learning about tsunamis in geography class

, British media reported.(AFP/Joanne Davis)

---

Way to go girl!!!!!

SEE THE RELATION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND REDUCING SUFFERING??

NFDMTTS>>>>>>>increase suffering

[Amelia]

Hope fades for 6,000 missing foreigners

Thai officials say many bodies may never be identified

By Keith B. Richburg

Updated: 12:22 p.m. ET Jan. 2, 2005

MSNBC.com

BANGKOK, Jan. 2 -- - With thousands of decomposing bodies piled up in a Buddhist temple that has been converted to a temporary morgue on Thailand's southern coast, hope was fading Saturday that any of more than 6,000 foreigners still missing after last Sunday's tsunami would be found alive.

The hardest-hit area in Thailand now appears to be Khao Lak, north of Phuket island, a popular spot for families with children, particularly Scandinavians. Another 1,600 bodies, most believed to be foreigners, were collected and brought Saturday from Khao Lak to the temple at Takua Pa. Many were so bloated and disfigured that identification would be nearly impossible, said witnesses at the scene interviewed by telephone.

Thai authorities said Saturday that 4,812 people, including 2,230 foreigners, were confirmed dead in Thailand. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said that toll could reach 10,000.

In a globalized tragedy that struck tourists as well as residents, the hardest-hit country outside the tsunami zone was Sweden. The official count of Swedes missing in Thailand stood at 3,559, mostly at Khao Lak and Ko Phi Phi, a small island that has been popular with younger people.

Only about 20 Swedes were found in hospitals, 60 others were confirmed dead and about 8,000 others were evacuated to Sweden. Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson used a New Year's message to prepare his people for the likelihood that few, if any, of the missing would be found alive.

"Khao Lak is mostly for families, so at Khao Lak there are a lot of children missing," said Jane Axelsson, 39, a Swedish volunteer helping the consulate in Phuket deal with the influx of anxious relatives searching for loved ones. At Khao Lak, many of the missing would have been swept off the beach during morning swims, she said.

"On Phi Phi, the culture is to stay awake long into the night, and sleep late in the morning," she said. There, teenagers and young people would have succumbed to the waves while still in bed, she said.

Members of the Swedish Church in Thailand have visited all the hospitals and reported that no hospitalized Swedes were left unidentified. That dashed hopes of incoming family members who clung to the belief that relatives might have been injured but were unconscious or unable to call home.

The Swedish government Saturday asked all family members missing a relative to bring identity documents of the relatives and to bring recent photographs. Final identification will likely rely on DNA testing, which officials warned could take months. "Not all of them will be identified," Axelsson said. "That is the reality we have to face today."

Thai students have arrived in the stricken areas to assist incoming relatives, mostly by helping with translation. Some of the students have been wearing large name cards showing which languages besides Thai they speak.

But at the Phuket city hall Saturday, Thai officials told foreigners flocking to the resort that it was time to give up searching for their loved ones and consider leaving, according to the Reuters news agency. A Thai Tourist Police lieutenant used a megaphone to tell relatives: "Please tell your friends not to come. . . . The bodies are no longer identifiable."

Axelsson and others have called this Sweden's biggest tragedy since World War II. Already, there is political fallout in the Scandinavian country, as newspaper columnists and some politicians accuse the government of moving too slowly in the first hours of the disaster.

Laila Freivalds, the Swedish foreign minister, visited Thailand's devastated beach resort areas and later conceded that the government had initially failed to grasp the scope of the calamity. "We ought to have taken much more forceful action on Sunday, instead of waiting," she said at a news conference. "Some of the completely wiped-out tourist resorts are those where many Swedes were staying."

Some people contend the government waited too long to order evacuation flights for the wounded and to offer assistance to family members looking for lost relatives. "I think the government realized too late that this was so big," said Axelsson, who was on a climbing trip outside the Ao Nang resort area last Sunday morning and escaped the tragedy.

Other countries facing catastrophic losses include Germany, with about 1,000 missing, Switzerland with 850 and Italy with 700. The number of Britons missing remains unclear but is believed to be in the hundreds.

To help with identification of bodies, more than a dozen countries have sent forensics teams to Thailand. They include American military experts who have dealt with the remains of missing servicemen from the Vietnam and Korean wars. Australia has sent in members of the team that assisted after the 2002 bombing of two nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia, that killed more than 200 people, many of them Australians.

While Thai victims are being buried, Prime Minister Thaksin has said no foreigners would be buried until DNA testing and identification checks were carried out.

Thai officials said they continued to have a problem with lack of refrigerated containers for the bodies. The government has appealed to private companies to provide refrigeration equipment and dry ice.

[Amelia]

Villagers mob U.S. supply helicopters

Military mounts massive relief effort in Southern Asia

The Associated Press

Updated: 10:46 p.m. ET Jan. 1, 2005

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN - Desperate, homeless villagers on the tsunami-ravaged island of Sumatra mobbed American helicopters carrying aid Saturday as the U.S. military launched its largest operation in the region since the Vietnam War, ferrying food and other emergency relief to survivors across the disaster zone.

From dawn until sunset on New Year’s Day, 12 Seahawk helicopters shuttled supplies and advance teams from offshore naval vessels while reconnaissance aircraft brought back stark images of wave-wrecked coastal landscapes and their hungry, traumatized inhabitants.

“They came from all directions, crawling under the craft, knocking on the pilot’s door, pushing to get into the cabin,” said Petty Officer First Class Brennan Zwack. “But when they saw we had no more food inside, they backed away, saying ‘Thank you, thank you.”’

“The mob decided how we distributed the food. There were so many hands outstretched I don’t think any package touched the ground,” added Zwack, of Sioux Falls, S.D.

Special delivery

The helicopters took off from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, staged in calm waters about three miles off the Indonesian province of Aceh along with four other vessels to launch the sprawling U.S. military operation.

More than a dozen other ships were en route to southern Asian waters, with the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault vessel carrying Marines, headed for Sri Lanka, which along with Indonesia was the worst-hit area. The mission involves thousands of sailors and Marines, along with some 1,000 land-based troops.

Governments and global organizations have pledged about $2 billion in tsunami disaster relief, the United Nations said Saturday. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi raised Japan’s offer to $500 million from $30 million, topping President Bush’s pledge Friday of $350 million.

Old bases spring to life

Thailand’s Vietnam War-era air base of Utapao has become the airlift hub for the region. C-130 transport planes were already conducting sorties to Jakarta and the Sumatran cities of Medan and Banda Aceh, according to a statement Saturday by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.

U.S. Navy medical staff are also on the ground in Meulaboh, a decimated fishing village where several thousand bodies have been recovered. The Navy is considering a request from Jakarta to establish a field hospital there.

As many as 100,000 people are feared dead on Sumatra, which was closest to the epicenter of last Sunday’s catastrophic quake and tsunami. Although aid has been piling up in regional airports, officials have had trouble getting it out to the areas in need and the U.S. military was expected to ease the bottleneck.

The Lincoln’s operations officer, Cmdr. Matthew J. Faletti, said the New Year’s Day effort off Sumatra was focused on ferrying emergency relief, including biscuits, energy drinks and instant noodles, to communities along the 120-mile stretch of seacoast south of the city of Banda Aceh.

Most of the 25,000 pounds of aid supplies delivered Saturday were picked up from Australian and other foreign shipments at Banda Aceh and then rushed by the helicopters to coastal town, where tens of thousands were killed by the giant wall of water.

Survivors await help on high ground

U.S. military medical and damage assessment teams were also landed with helicopters flying in heavy winds, rain and low clouds. Supplies had to be dropped from craft hovering over some water-logged areas where landing proved impossible.

“There is nothing left to speak of at these coastal areas,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Vorce, a pilot from San Diego. The tsunami left a swath of destruction as deep as two miles inland, with trees mowed down like grass and the only evidence of buildings in many communities the bare foundations, pilots said.

Many residents were camped out on high ground, either afraid to return to the seacoast or having nothing to return to.

The town of Meulaboh, where some 50,000 people had once lived, was about 80 percent destroyed, Faletti estimated.

The pilots encountered a number of foreign and Indonesian aid workers but distribution of supplies was difficult since the vital coastal road, most bridges and two small airports near Meuloboh had been washed away. “It looks like the sheer force of the water buckled the road from underneath,” Vorce said.

Officers said information was being gathered on how best American resources could be used including the skills of machinists, masons, carpenters, divers and general laborers among the more than 6,000 crew members on the giant carrier.

“Everyone is champing at the bit to go out and help,” said Vorce. “Today wasn’t about a paycheck.”

© 2004 The Associated Press

[Amelia]

Sponsor searches for missing orphanage

No sign of children in hard-hit area of Sri Lanka

Reuters

Updated: 1:33 p.m. ET Jan. 2, 2005

KARAITIVU, Sri Lanka, Jan 2 -- - Bob Uppington, a retired teacher from England, came to this tiny Sri Lankan tsunami-ravaged fishing village to find 40 children.

But visiting a local nursery school and a refugee camp on Sunday, a week after giant waves hit, he found no faces to match the snapshots of the three- to four-year-olds he had visited less than a fortnight before Sri Lanka's worst natural disaster hit.

"My stomach is churning," said Uppington, who runs a U.K.-based charity that funds the D.J. Doodle nursery school and makes periodic trips to Sri Lanka to pay the school's staff. "We just don't know how many died."

Local children were enjoying their school holiday when the tsunami battered Sri Lanka's shores, but many lived close to the badly damaged school building.

Grim-faced locals greeted Uppington as he surveyed the damage at the school in Karaitivu, in the eastern district of Ampara, the worst-hit by last Sunday's tsunami that killed nearly 30,000 in Sri Lanka and around 130,000 across Asia.

Although a stone's throw from the beachfront where the waves reduced homes to piles of rubble, the school's walls were largely intact with photographs of children still hanging up.

"A lot of children died, sir," Thangeswary Yoham, 42, told Uppington. "About 200 small children died this side," she added, waving in the direction of the sea.

D.J. Doodle, nestled among palm trees, was one of a number of schools in Sri Lanka and Nepal that Uppington's SHIVA Charity helps sponsor. It costs $115 per month to run.

He visited the school in mid-December to pay the teacher and see the children.

"I think we are going to knock it down and rebuild it," said Uppington, 60, from Bristol. "Right now it's a bit of a memorial to dead children."

After scouting around the debris-scattered beach, Uppington said he had found another crushed school with some neighbouring land where he planned to rebuild it.

Locals said several thousand people were killed in and around their village. Many women and children who could not move fast enough were caught in the deluge or crushed under buildings.

Just down the beach, one survivor rearranged large chunks of brick that once formed a home. Others walked through a large, open-air Hindu temple, the vivid red, blue and gold statues of elephant-headed god Ganesh on its facade still intact.

One woman sat with her head in her hands looking out to sea. Another moaned, slapping her arms on the sand. Just off the beachfront, a group of men gathered around a pile of rubble, covering their mouths with cloth. With so much devastation, it has been impossible to remove all the corpses.

Any bodies remaining are being burned on the spot.

Nanda Kumar, 36, said many locals would be scared to start rebuilding their lives on the beach. "But they have to. There's no other place for them, they work in the sea," he said.

Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited

[Amelia]

How scientists watch for killer waves

U.S. relies on high-tech network and detailed emergency plans to deal with tsunami threats

By Alan Boyle

Science editor

MSNBC

Updated: 6:58 p.m. ET Dec. 29, 2004

REDMOND, Wash. - Tsunamis aren't unique to Asia. Every day, scientists from Hawaii to California are on guard, watching for giant waves that could swamp U.S. shores.

The monitoring system is complex, drawing upon seismic stations, deep-ocean detectors, sea surface buoys, satellites and onshore sea-level gauges. But if a tsunami is detected, the advice is simple: Get to higher ground as fast as you can.

Tsunami waves are most often caused by seismic disturbances in the ocean, which abruptly push huge volumes of water out from the fault's center. Underwater landslides and even meteor impacts can set off tsunamis as well.

In the open ocean, a tsunami's effect may be hardly noticeable, amounting to less than 3 feet (1 meter) in sea-level change. But as the wave reaches shore, coastal waters can rise by tens of feet — as was the case in the Indian Ocean catastrophe.

Experts said the death toll in Asia might have been far lower if the authorities in the affected nations had a better warning system.

"Had they had tide gauges installed, many of these people who were farther away from the epicenter could have been saved, because they would have been able to track the waves and tell the people along the coast to move off the beach," Waverly Person, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, told NBC's "Today" show.

It was an earlier catastrophe — the Alaska earthquake of 1964, which sparked a deadly tsunami — that led the United States to establish its federal tsunami-monitoring system, managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

The heart of NOAA's system is a network of six deep-ocean monitors, or "tsunameters," stretching from Alaska's Aleutian islands to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The focus is on the Pacific, rather than other oceans, as that's where the tsunamis with the biggest impact on the West Coast originate.

Each tsunameter has a pressure recorder anchored to the seafloor, which watches for patterns that could hint at an earthquake or underwater landslide capable of generating a tsunami. The recorder's readings are beamed up to a buoy, then relayed to NOAA's network of geostationary weather satellites (known as the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, or GOES).

The real-time satellite data are analyzed at NOAA's tsunami warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska, which is in charge of issuing alerts to emergency officials and the U.S. military. But the tsunameter system is just one source of information — and not always the most important source, said Paul Whitmore, scientist in charge at the West Coast / Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

"Earthquake information travels a lot faster than the tsunami wave travels," he explained. The first alert may well be issued based on seismic data even before a tsunameter registers the wave. NOAA draws upon readings from about a dozen government agencies and universities, Whitmore said.

In the first stages of a potential tsunami alert, "we have to make decisions so fast, all we look at is earthquake magnitude and location," he said.

Scenario for a tsunami alert

Tsunami alerts are generally issued less than once a year in the United States, with the most recent one sent out in November 2003, Whitmore said. Then it's up to local authorities to get the word out. "The most critical part of the whole system is that local area response," Whitmore said. "We issue the warnings — they're the ones who act."

Over the years, state and local authorities have drawn up their own tsunami emergency plans, including signs pointing to evacuation routes. Some counties have even set up high-tech tsunami warning sirens on Pacific beaches. But experts emphasize that you shouldn't wait for the sirens to go off.

"If you feel a big earthquake and live on the coast, just head 100 feet above sea level — or even if you can't get above 100 feet, get a mile inland," Whitmore said.

Another option involves what George Crawford, who deals with tsunami preparedness at Washington state's Emergency Management Division, calls "vertical evacuation." Some people survived the Indian Ocean tsunami because they took shelter in the upper floors of tall buildings.

Tsunami waves can roll in and out for up to 12 hours, so experts emphasize that coastal residents shouldn't go back home right after the initial flood.

"Once they've evacuated to higher ground, they should tune in to the media and make sure they don't go back until they hear the all-clear," said Mark Clemens, a spokesman for Washington's Emergency Management Division.

Once a tsunami strikes, NOAA draws upon a network of about 100 coastal sea-level monitoring stations to keep track of how serious the flooding gets and how long it lasts.

Waiting for the Big One?

Since the 1964 earthquake, only a handful of tsunami-related deaths have been recorded in the United States — most recently in 1994, when an underwater landslide touched off high waves in Alaska's Skagway Harbor, killing a worker who was repairing a dock.

But emergency officials note that the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an area of the Pacific floor off the coast of Washington and Oregon, is capable of generating a magnitude-9.0 seaquake like the one that sparked last weekend's tsunami. Last year, geologists reported evidence that such a Cascadia quake was behind a killer tsunami that rolled all the way to Japan in 1700.

Today, such a disturbance would trigger giant waves on the coast of Washington, Oregon and northern California. "If there was going to be a major tsunami, that's the most likely scenario," Whitmore said.

That's why Crawford is putting so much work into Washington state's warning system, as well as plans to mitigate the effects of a tsunami if it hits. He expects the Federal Emergency Management Agency to issue guidelines for tsunami preparedness in the next year or two.

Such guidelines could recommend constructing "safe havens" to survive interaction with a tsunami wave, equipping port facilities with automatic shutoff valves to minimize fuel leaks and even landscaping the coastline to counter a tsunami's force.

Crawford said some coastal residents actually add to their tsunami risk by removing sand dunes to improve their ocean view. "What you've just done is, you've taken down a perfect natural barrier against tsunami," he said.

NOAA spends about $3 million annually to operate the two tsunami warning centers and $4.5 million on the tsunami mitigation programs, said Jeff LaDouce, director of the Pacific region for NOAA's National Weather Service.

"That's the key to all of this," LaDouce said of the mitigation efforts. "The hardest part is getting the information to somebody who can do something, and having people who know what to do."

What about the Atlantic?

Because tsunamis are closely linked to volcanic activity around the Pacific "Ring of Fire," NOAA focuses on the potential threat to the West Coast rather than the East Coast. That's not to say tsunamis don't happen in the East, however: In 1929, for example, a magnitude-7.2 earthquake and submarine landslide off the coast of Newfoundland set off a giant wave that killed 29 people in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

Four years ago, scientists reported evidence that cracks in the continental shelf off the Carolina coast could give way, setting off a tsunami wave that could endanger the Carolinas as well as Virginia and Washington, D.C.

And just this year, geophysicist Bill McGuire of the London-based Benfield Hazard Research Center warned that the collapse of a volcano in the Canary Islands could set off a "mega-tsunami" threatening America's East Coast.

Other scientists said such an event was highly unlikely. Nevertheless, they agreed that more monitoring stations were needed — not only in the Canary Islands, but in the Indian Ocean and other potential seismic hotspots as well.

© 2004 MSNBC Interactive

[Amelia]

Search for tsunami survivors ending

Toll passes 123,000; world dramatically steps up relief efforts

The Associated Press

Updated: 2:09 p.m. ET Jan. 2, 2005

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - With many thousands still missing, rescuers in the part of Southeast Asia that suffered most from last weekend’s earthquake and tsunami prepared to call off their search for survivors. U.S. forces began one of their biggest relief missions ever.

Overall, the death toll surpassed 123,000 and was climbing. U.N. officials said they expected the tally to surpass 150,000, though the final total may never be known. Five million people were homeless.

Hungry Indonesians welcomed a dozen American Seahawk helicopters as they delivered biscuits, energy drinks and instant noodles to devastated villages on the west coast of Sumatra, closest to the epicenter of the largest earthquake in four decades and the first place hit by the walls of water it sent surging across the Indian Ocean.

More than 80,000 were killed on Indonesia, and officials say that number could climb past 100,000. Until Sunday, no survivor had been found for three days.

One bright note amid misery

There was one bright spot amid the misery. An Indonesian fisherman was found Sunday trapped under his boat and severely dehydrated, a week after the earthquake and tsunami, officials said.

The 24-year-old man, identified as Tengku Sofyan, was rushed to a hospital in Banda Aceh, where doctors gave him intravenous fluids. He could barely speak and had cuts on his body, doctors said.

Officials were otherwise pessimistic. “There is very little chance of finding survivors after seven days,” said Lamsar Sipahutar, the head of Indonesia’s search team. “We are about to stop the search-and-rescue operations. If you survived the earthquake, you probably were killed by tsunami.”

Relatives of the missing gave agonizing descriptions of their loved ones on television Sunday, clinging to hopes they hadn’t been fatally crushed by rubble or taken by the sea.

Huge operation

Elephants were brought in to help remove debris in the ruined provincial capital of Banda Aceh and in southern Thailand, where resorts were destroyed and thousands killed along a world-famous tourist strip near Phuket island.

Around the devastated Indian Ocean rim, $2 billion in promised international aid began to reach survivors.

The American military was mounting its largest operation in southern Asian since the Vietnam War, delivering supplies from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln stationed off Sumatra and sending a flotilla of Marines and water purifying equipment to Sri Lanka.

In the wiped-out coastal village of Kuede Teunom, where 8,000 of the population of 18,000 were killed in the disaster, haggard survivors caught bottles of drinking water tossed from a U.S. Navy helicopter. “The need is desperate. There is nothing left to speak of,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Vorce.

Four Indonesian navy frigates loaded with supplies arrived off the coast of the fishing village of Meulaboh, one of Aceh’s worst-hit spots. About half the town of 40,000 was destroyed. An Associated Press reporter who visited could see fewer than 100 residents scrounging for food among destroyed homes.

In India’s devastated Andaman and Nicobar Islands, some villagers said they had still not received any help from outside, despite government claims that aid was reaching all affected sites. Officials said most of the island’s jetties had been destroyed, making it difficult for boats to dock.

On Bambooflat island, a short ferry ride from the islands’ capital Port Blair, about 2,000 families desperate for food and shelter were waiting for help, and some were growing angry.

“There is no food, no kerosene, no matches, no rice,” said rice farmer J.L. Tak. “Everything is gone and we got nothing from the government.”

Search continues in India

S.K. Swami, director of India’s National Disaster Management, said in New Delhi that the country’s search for survivors was continuing, focused on the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, where nearly 4,000 were missing.

India was insisting there was still hope for survivors, though the search was essentially over in Tamil Nadu state, which bore the brunt of the country’s sea surge.

“About 500 to 600 people are on our missing list, but in due course we will be declaring them dead,” said Veera Shanmuga Moni, a top administrator of Tamil Nadu’s Nagappattinam district.

India’s official death toll topped 9,000 on Saturday.

U.N. officials said they expected the overall tally of death to surpass 150,000, though the final total may never be known.

In Sri Lanka, where almost 30,000 died, flood waters that had added to survivors’ misery receded. About 2,000 people were evacuated from refugee camps near the island nation’s devastated eastern coast Saturday after days of steady rain triggered flash floods.

They returned to government-run centers, and there were no reports of casualties, police said. Hundreds of thousands were living in unsanitary camps, but those whose homes escaped serious damage were returning to them.

Disease fears

Health officials said no medical crisis has yet emerged, though getting clean water and sanitation to hard-hit areas was an urgent priority to prevent outbreaks of disease.

“We need water. Our children are sick, they need food and medicine,” said Riswan Ali, a resident acting as aid coordinator in the village of Bireun, 60 miles east of Banda Aceh. “Please, help us.”

He said the 18,000 refugees there had gotten only one aid delivery.

Washed out roads, collapsed bridges and fuel shortages have made distribution difficult in Sumatra. Several improvements came Saturday, including the partial opening of Meulaboh’s airstrip, and the clearing of some debris-strewn roads, said John Budd, a UNICEF spokesman in Indonesia.

“I don’t think there’s an issue of starvation,” Budd said. “But there’s a risk of diseases if we can’t resolve water and sanitation issues.”

A visit to Phuket

In Thailand, where the death toll approached 5,000, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra visited tsunami-ravaged Phuket island, hoping to prop up a tourism industry that is critical to the country’s economy. He pledged to set up a tsunami early-warning system that scientists say could have saved many lives had it been in place a week ago.

Experts were also concerned about survivors’ emotional health. Thousands were grappling with horrific images of the death and destruction. Health professionals said some survivors can’t sleep or eat, or are afraid of the dark, the water or being alone.

“People are here with their loved ones on holiday ... it’s just the day after Christmas and the next minute their loved ones are gone,” said Jason Young, a British psychotherapist who set up a makeshift clinic at Phuket City Hall.

In Sri Lanka, a World Food Program spokeswoman said she had heard reports of food shortages among survivors due to poor distribution — but not starvation.

Half a dozen aftershocks, the biggest a magnitude 5.9, jolted the islands Sunday.

U.S. opens information line

The U.S. State Department established a toll-free telephone number for inquiries about U.S. citizens affected by the Asian earthquake and tsunamis.

The public may call toll free at 888-407-4747. Overseas, people may call 317-472-2328.

Those seeking information also can contact the department’s Office of American Citizens Services and Crisis Management, 202-647-5225.

General information about disaster relief, preparation and emergency services to U.S. citizens abroad can be found at the State Department Web page http://travel.state.gov/travel/crisismg.html.

© 2004 The Associated Press.

[Amelia]

‘Open Water’ filmmakers escape tsunami

Kentis says approaching wave was like something from a movie

The Associated Press

Updated: 2:26 p.m. ET Jan. 1, 2005

LOS ANGELES - Married filmmakers Chris Kentis and Laura Lau escaped being pulled into a real-life version of their thriller “Open Water” when the resort island of Phuket in Thailand was struck by last weekend’s tsunami.

“I heard people yelling, ‘Run, run!”’ said Kentis, who wrote and directed the 2003 sleeper hit about two scuba divers stranded in shark-infested waters. “I looked behind me and I thought, ‘This is what happens in a movie when there’s a tidal wave.’ You could hear the rumbling and this wave was coming right at us.”

Kentis, 41, told The Associated Press by phone Thursday from Singapore that he fled to his upper-story hotel room, where he found his sister-in-law and other relatives.

But at that moment, his wife and 7-year-old daughter, Sabrina, were in a second-floor Internet cafe, trapped by a phone booth lodged in the stairwell. The power went out and electric lines popped all around them.

“I saw the wave come over the street. It just washed away absolutely everything in its path. I just couldn’t believe my eyes,” said Lau.

Lau, 41, said she pulled about a half-dozen Swedish tourists to safety using a bamboo ladder before using it herself to escape from the cafe’s balcony with Sabrina on her back. They reached Kentis by hiking in waist-deep water back to the hotel.

The couple then hiked several miles into the mountains with their luggage. They took two minicabs to Phuket’s east coast, which Kentis said seemed almost unaffected by the tsunami.

“When we got there, it was all people on yachts having a good time. It was just surreal,” Kentis said. “Two hours later, our kids were swimming in this beautiful hotel pool and we’re ordering food.”

“Open Water” was released Tuesday on DVD, but Kentis said that was the last thing on his mind.

“In the wake of all this, it’s meaningless to me,” he said. “If we’d done anything differently, who knows if we would have come out alive or not?”

© 2004 The Associated Press.

[Amelia]

Endangered tribes in path of tsunami

Fate of isolated, primitive groups in the balance

By Kari Huus

Reporter

MSNBC staff and news service reports

Updated: 7:24 p.m. ET Dec. 29, 2004

In the wake of the tsunami, there was abundant amateur video of the disaster coming from tourist hotspots, like Phuket, Thailand.

But some of the villages and islands in the path of the devastating wave are home to primitive tribes and indigenous groups so isolated that contact was only being made on Wednesday, days after the disaster. Anthropologists worry that the tsunami could be the final blow to some cultures that were already thought to be endangered.

“My suspicion is that we may be seeing … perhaps as many as three or four different nations (specific indigenous populations) that would be completely wiped out,” says Dr. Rudolph Ryser, chairman of the U.S.-based Center for World Indigenous Studies.

He notes that tiny islands that dot the west coast of Sumatra and the east coast of India are so close to the epicenter of the earthquake that they would have been hit within minutes. Many have no high ground to provide refuge.

“One question that I’m asking is whether those islands are even there now,” says Ryser.

“The entire geography of some parts of these islands has changed,” said territory police chief S.B. Deol. “Where there was one island before, we now see two. In one place, a tree stands alone in the middle of the ocean.”

Among the places where the toll was especially high was the Andaman and Nicobar island chains. All of the islands in the chain have yet to be visited by rescuers. The territory, stretching north from the earthquake epicenter, is ruled by India, but populated by a variety of distinct tribes.

Among them are the Sentinelese, a hunter-gatherer society that has lived in almost complete isolation from modern society on the tiny North Sentinel Island due west of Port Blair, the chain’s capital. Even before the disaster, the population of this Stone-Age tribe, which some anthropologists have called the last undiscovered people, was estimated at only 100-200. They have remained hostile to outside interference, so very little is known about their culture.

The Sentinelese are one of the Andaman’s lingering Negrito tribes — peoples who appear more African than Indian and have already dwindled to the edge of extinction. Other shrinking tribes such as the Nicobarese and the Shompens derive from Mongoloid stock, and live primarily in the Nicobar chain.

Surviving on coconuts

On the island of Car Nicobar, dazed Nicobarese tribespeople emerged from the trees as the army pushed into the interior.

Andaman and Nicobar administration relief chief Puneel Goel said 6,000 of the 30,000 people living on the island of Car Nicobar, also the site of the air force base, were feared dead.

Staring blankly, drawn, exhausted and barely speaking, they show little emotion or relief at the arrival of the first help after three days of living mainly on coconuts and camping on the tiny island’s only high ground.

“Everything is gone. We have nothing left, not even a slipper,” said Nathan, a 56-year-old father of eight.

“One in every five inhabitants in the entire Nicobar group of islands is either dead, injured or missing,” said territory police chief S.B. Deol. At least 50,000 people live in the Nicobars, at the southern end of the chain.

“The situation in some of the islands we managed to establish contact with is indeed very, very grim. People have been living on coconuts ... and the coconuts are not going to last forever. We need to reach food urgently to these people.”

On the Andaman and Nicobar island of Chowra on Tuesday, rescuers found 500 survivors out of 1,500 residents, the territory’s deputy police chief, C. Vasudeva Rao, told Reuters.

“We thought the entire island was washed away. But we found 500 survivors,” he said.

No contact has yet been made with two neighboring isles, home to a combined population of 7,000.

“We are fearing the worst in these islands. We have heard nothing from them,” Rao said. “We have no information.”

Little high ground

Most of the Andaman and Nicobar islands are uninhabited, but many of the roughly three dozen have no high ground to escape a tsunami. They are also several days’ sailing from help.

The tsunami, triggered by a massive undersea earthquake off nearby Indonesia, has killed tens of thousands of people.

“I would not be at all surprised that we will be on 100,000 (deaths) when we know what has happened on the Andaman and Nicobar islands,” Peter Rees of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in Geneva.

Dozens of aftershocks continue to hit the islands. Residents terrified the tremors could trigger more giant waves are living on high ground or sleeping on mattresses in the streets of the capital, Port Blair.

Reuters contributed to this article.

[Amelia]

Elephants saved tourists from tsunami

MONDAY , 03 JANUARY 2005

KHAO LAK: Agitated elephants felt the tsunami coming, and their sensitivity saved about a dozen foreign tourists from the fate of thousands killed by the giant waves.

"I was surprised because the elephants had never cried before," mahout Dang Salangam said on Sunday on Khao Lak beach of the eight-elephant business offering rides to tourists.

The elephants started trumpeting - in a way Dang, 36, and his wife Kulada, 24, said could only be described as crying - at first light, about the time an earthquake measured at a magnitude of 9.0 cracked open the sea bed off Indonesia's Sumatra island.

The elephants soon calmed down. But they started wailing again about an hour later and this time they could not be comforted despite attempts at reassurance.

"The elephants didn't believe the mahouts. They just kept running for the hill," said Wit Aniwat, 24, who takes the money from tourists and helps them on to the back of elephants from a sturdy wooden platform.

Those with tourists aboard headed for the jungle-clad hill behind the resort beach where at least 3800 people, more than half of them foreigners, would soon be killed. The elephants that were not working broke their hefty chains.

"Then we saw the big wave coming and we started running," Wit said.

Around a dozen tourists were also running towards the hill from the Khao Lak Merlin Resort, one of a line of hotels strung along the 10km beach especially popular with Scandinavians and Germans.

"The mahouts managed to turn the elephants to lift the tourists onto their backs," Kulada said.

She used her hands to describe how the huge beasts used their trunks to pluck the foreigners from the ground and deposit them on their backs.

The elephants charged up the hill through the jungle, then stopped.

The tsunami drove up to 1km inshore from the gently sloping beach which had been so safe for children it made Khao Lak an ideal place for a family holiday. But it stopped short of where the elephants stood.

On Sunday, the elephants were back at work giving rides to the tourists on whom the area depends.

German Ewald Heeg, who said he came from a small town near Frankfurt, said his charter company had offered his family - wife, two daughters and one of their boyfriends - the chance to go straight home, but he had turned it down.

"Our family is OK so we stay here to make our holiday," he said.

"Today, we make a safari. We go by elephants at first, then we make a boat trip.

[Amelia]

Sri Lankans Stop Eating Fish

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Jan. 2, 2005

CBSNews.com

Seafood prices plunged in Sri Lanka on Sunday because of fears that fish may have fed on thousands of human corpses washed into the sea by the region's tsunami.

Fish stalls usually buzzing with customers were deserted, supermarkets reduced the number of fish counters by half and restaurants took seafood off their menus.

"Our sales have been reduced by 90 percent," said Lakshman Rajapakse, who has been selling fish at St. John's Fish Market for 36 years.

Prawns normally selling for $3 a pound found no buyers at $1, he said, sounding desperate.

Crabs, prawns and groupa lay on wooden boxes. Water was sprinkled on them to try keep them fresh — but a powerful odor testified to the lack of success.

By late afternoon, none of the morning's supply had been sold.

"Normally this place is swarming with people," said W.S. Dharmawardene, chief of the market, looking at the bare ceramic-tiled shelves and empty stalls.

"We have been victimized twice over," lamented A.P. Padmasiri, who brought in a truckload of fish but was forced to send it back to cold storage.

"I have lost all my boats, and when I come here no one wants any fish," he said.

Many people feared that the fish had fed on human flesh and would be contaminated and lead to disease, but health officials said that was untrue.

"Scientifically, there's nothing to prove that fish caught after the tsunami cannot be consumed," Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told The Associated Press. "It's only a psychological myth that I'm sure will pass with time."

"Naturally, the fish would have attacked some of the corpses," said Thilak Ranaviraja, head of the Disaster Management Center. "But people shouldn't worry. It's like eating pork. Pigs eat all the rubbish. But we eat pork, don't we?"

But consumers remained doubtful.

"Since Dec. 26 there have been no customers," Padmasiri said. "People are afraid."

Fish is a staple for most Sri Lankans, and scores of seafood restaurants dot Colombo's coastline.

"We are serving a few cuttlefish dishes and prawns brought in before the tsunami," said Nalin Rodrigo, manager at the Selfish Restaurant. "We don't plan to order any fresh stocks because guests are not ordering seafood dishes."

Chicken replaced most of the seafood at Cargill supermarket, pushing up poultry sales 30 percent, manager Fowzi Ismail said.

The tsunami struck two-thirds of Sri Lanka's coast. It killed nearly 30,000 people in the country and destroyed the livelihood of many fishermen who lost their boats and nets, along with their homes.

[Amelia]

Elephants Help Clear Debris in Thailand

05:03 PM EST - January 02, 2005

The Associated Press

BANG NIENG, Thailand

A year ago, they were filming battle scenes for the movie "Alexander." Now six elephants are pitching in to help with the massive cleanup from the tsunami that devastated many of Thailand's prime tourist destinations.

The massive waves, which killed 5,000 and left nearly 4,000 missing in Thailand, dumped debris more than a mile from the popular beaches of Phuket island and Phang Nga province a week ago. While heavy machinery works on the tangled wreckage that used to be posh seafront resorts, some areas are too muddy or hilly for anything other than 4 foot drive.

So the Wang Chang elephant farm in the 17th-century Thai capital of Ayuddhaya offered to send in its best pachyderms. They arrived by truck Sunday in Phang Nga and got to work immediately - after a quick shower to cool off in the tropical heat.

"The six were chosen because they are smart and can act on command," said Romthongsai Meephan, one of the elephant farm's owners.

The elephants, all males, were cast with Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie in "Alexander," recreating their ancient roles as battle tanks. Today, they mostly entertain tourists and give them tours around Ayuddhaya, but they also are experienced at dragging logs through forests.

"They will be assigned to work in towing heavy objects and pulling out debris," said Siriphong Leeprasit, a district official in Phang Nga. "Elephants could work better in pulling out the remains of collapsed buildings and houses, especially in areas flooded with mud or hilly areas."

In Indonesia, another 11 elephants - native to badly hit Sumatra island - have been pressed into similar duty because there were few trucks and other heavy equipment to do the job there. A TV report showed them pulling a sport utility vehicle from a collapsed building.

Cranes and backhoes have been used to open routes to areas cut off in Thailand, but many local residents have complained that assistance has been slow to arrive and some areas have still not been accessed, particularly near Khao Lak beach, another hard-hit tourist zone about 50 miles north of Phuket.

So two of the elephants headed into a rough forested road that was blocked by uprooted palm trees, cement utility poles, cars, motorbikes and TV sets. A gray police patrol boat had washed up on a hill, more than a mile from the beach. The receding waters left behind two murky saltwater lakes.

The beasts were watered down by their trainers, called mahouts, then began using their trunks and tusks to clear the road. One mahout clambered aboard each elephant, with two others on the ground leading them.

The animals made quick work of huge muddy clumps of plant material and didn't need much more time to handle the heavy utility pylons. Then, after a little lunch, they were ready to start the next task.

By RICHARD VOGEL Associated Press Writer

[Amelia]

Tsunami Traps Rare Dolphins in Lagoon

Updated 9:10 PM ET January 3, 2005

By MIRANDA LEITSINGER

KHAO LAK, Thailand (AP) - Men recovering the bodies of tsunami victims in Thailand were working Monday to keep two special survivors alive: a humpback dolphin and her calf swept into a small lagoon by powerful waves.

The animals, believed to be an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin and her roughly 3-year-old offspring, were spotted Monday by a man searching for his wife more than a mile from the coast. The larger dolphin, about 7 feet long, appeared to have a back injury.

"I reckon ... they came in with the initial wave, and when the water retreated, they couldn't get back again," said Edwin Wiek, a Dutchman who is director of the Wildlife Friends of Thailand Rescue Center. He said the two might survive only a few days without live fish to feed on.

"We need to get them out," he said.

With the search for survivors on Thailand's devastated southwestern coast basically turning into recovery of bodies, the discovery of the dolphins energized workers.

"That's why we hope we get them out. That would be the only survivor story," Wiek said. "We need one."

About two dozen Greek divers tried to corner the dolphins Monday in what used to be a small valley before the tsunami swept in and left a lagoon about 16 feet deep. The goal was to get the mammals into black and green nets so they could be put into carriers and hauled to the sea.

But after a failed attempt, a marine biologist told them the nets were too small. A radio broadcast went out asking fishermen to bring larger nets to the area.

While the rescue attempt went on, volunteers spotted the bodies of several people in the nearby vegetation, and one body in the lake.

The divers quit Monday because of darkness, but planned to try again early Tuesday using a larger net. They also were seeking the help of a dolphin expert.

Wiek said there are about 500-600 Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins in the seas around Thailand, and that they migrate between the Indian and Pacific oceans.

[Amelia]

Tourist Die-Hards Linger in Sri Lanka

ABCNews.com

Updated 2:17 PM ET January 4, 2005

Marijuana smoke wafted through the Blue Fox restaurant on a seaside strip of low-budget hotels and surf shops, a reminder that a few foreign tourists were still around after all the devastation wrought by the tsunami a week ago.

"There are those die-hards who never left Hikkaduwa," said Suraj Perera, manager of the Coral Gardens hotel in this southern town, the cradle of Sri Lankan beach tourism in the 1960s. "They're getting their fair share of the sun."

One of them was Evert Jan Van Hoek, a 35-year-old Dutchman with a stud in his tongue and a ring in his lip who, with the help of a few other European travelers, has organized a mini-relief effort. Van Hoek said he uses the Blue Fox, a hodge-podge of chairs and tables with a balcony overlooking the town's main street, as his "office," sending e-mails about the plight of Sri Lanka to his friends in his hometown of The Hague.

His group collects clothes and cash from friends for distribution to families left homeless or without loved ones in the tsunami that struck the island nation and other parts of southern Asia, killing nearly 30,000 in Sri Lanka and an estimated 150,000 throughout the region. He said they have raised about $1,360.

Most foreign tourists fled beach resorts in Sri Lanka when tsunami devastated coastal areas a week ago, but some never left Hikkaduwa even though the waves battered many lodges, forcing them to close down. On Sunday, about two dozen foreigners sat in open-air restaurants, walked or bicycled down the smoggy main road, or lazed in the debris-strewn beach sand. A few surfed.

Hikkaduwa is a backpackers' haven jammed with signboards advertising Loretta's Bar and Grill, Casalanka Beach Resort and other haunts. It was once famous for the stunning coral reef in a clump of rocks just offshore. Underwater scenes in one of Sri Lanka's first color movies, a treasure hunt tale called Ranmuthuduwa, or Gold Pearl Island, were filmed there.

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark, who lives in Sri Lanka, sometimes visited and opened a branch of his diving operation, Underwater Safaris Ltd., in the town. But most of the coral withered over the years, and a professor from the Department of Zoology at Colombo University in Sri Lanka's capital has launched a replanting effort.

Hikkaduwa, which lies 12 miles northwest of Galle, a southern town that was ravaged by the massive tidal waves, appeared to suffer less devastation and death, possibly because many of the seafront hotels are sturdy, and many local residents live further inland.

Jason Dodds, an Australian tourist, said he slept through the tsunami and woke up at noon because he had stayed up late celebrating Christmas the night before. His hotel, set inland, suffered little damage.

"I went back in the water after five days, I thought the dead bodies would have come up by then," said Dodds, sitting on a virtually empty beach. Nearby, a foreigner in a tie-dyed T-shirt wandered around in the sand, collecting debris in a green bucket.

Van Hoek, who collected T-shirts and shorts from evacuating tourists and distributed them to Sri Lankan families, said his band of foreign benefactors had dwindled from 20 to 10 because many were shocked by the disturbing scenes.

"Some people, they couldn't cope with the things they saw, the dead bodies and the boats going down the street. They didn't sleep anymore," said Van Hoek, who arrived in Sri Lanka two months prior to the tsunami disaster and worked as a disc jockey at a Hikkaduwa bar called Top Secret.

Pereja, whose 154-room hotel is the biggest and priciest in town, hopes to reopen in two months despite the flood damage in the basement and ground floor. He recalled how tourism slowed down after communal riots involving the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic groups in 1983.

"Sri Lankan tourism has had its ups and downs, due to bombs and other manmade reasons," he said. "If it recovered from manmade catastrophes, it can recover from this."

[Amelia]

Tribe shoots arrows at aid flight

By Jonathan Charles

BBC News, Andaman Islands

An Indian helicopter dropping food and water over the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been attacked by tribesmen using bows and arrows.

There were fears that the endangered tribal groups had been wiped out when massive waves struck their islands.

But the authorities say the attack is a sign that they have survived.

More than 6,000 people there are confirmed as either dead or missing, but thousands of others are still unaccounted for.

The Indian coastguard helicopter was flying low over Sentinel Island to drop aid when it came under attack.

A senior police officer said the crew were not hurt and the authorities are taking it as a sign that the tribes have not been wiped out by the earthquake and sea surges as many had feared.

The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is home to several tribes, some extremely isolated.

Officials believe they survived the devastation by using age-old early warning systems.

They might have run to high ground for safety after noticing changes in the behaviour of birds and marine wildlife.

Scientists are examining the possibility to see whether it can be used to predict earth tremors in future.

[cricket]

**bump**