FT:

The death toll from a series of tidal waves that radiated cross South Asia following the strongest earthquake in 40 years continued to rise dramatically Monday as an international relief effort got underway.

According to governments across the region about 14,000 people were killed in coastal areas from Sri Lanka to Thailand as a result of the giant waves caused by Sunday’s 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

But authorities said they expected the toll to continue to rise as more bodies were discovered.

“Our hunch is we are probably going to hear more bad news in terms of the toll,” said Dino Djalal, a spokesman for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono who declared three days of national mourning. “We hope for the best. But the numbers keep rising.”

Markets in south-east Asia reacted cautiously to the disaster, with the stock exchanges in Indonesia and Thailand recording mild losses in morning trade while the dollar gained against Asian currencies, topping Y104 in morning trade.

Hit hardest were airline stocks with shares in Singapore Airlines and Malaysian budget carrier Air Asia recording losses on fears that the disaster would hit the region’s tourism industry and their bottom lines. Among the areas devastated by the tidal waves were Thailand’s southern beach resorts including the island of Phuket where some tourists on Monday were being told to leave their hotels.

The biggest death tolls were reported in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India but the series of tidal waves of up to 5m in height wreaked havoc on coastal areas of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and Bangladesh as well.

In Indonesia authorities put the death toll in the conflict-torn province of Aceh, which sits at the northern tip of Sumatra, at more than 4,400. But a number of key population centres had yet to be reached and the toll was expected to rise.

In Sri Lanka, officials said more than 4,800 had died while in India more than 3,600 fatalities were reported. But those numbers too were expected to rise. In the tiny Andaman and Nicobar islands alone more than 2,000 people may have been killed, Indian officials said.

“It cannot be less than 1,000,” Andaman and Nicobar Lieutenant Governor Ram Kapse told India’s Aaj Tak television, according to Reuters. “But it can also be more than double that.”

The countries struck by the quake appealed for international help as they struggled to cope with the magnitude of the disaster.

“We are not well equipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude because we have never known a disaster like this,” said President Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka who declared a national disaster and appealed for aid while holidaying in Britain.

Offers of aid were pouring in from around the world with institutions like the International Monetary Fund pledging to do all within their capacity to help the affected nations.

But officials on the ground in some countries said they were still assessing the situation and how best to get aid into the affected areas.

In Jakarta, for example, UN agencies met Monday to discuss the situation but it remained unclear if they would be allowed to deliver aid on the ground in Aceh. Access to the province by international aid agencies and journalists has been heavily restricted in recent years as a result of a military crackdown on separatist rebels there.

Kendartanti Subroto, a spokeswoman for UNICEF in Jakarta, said UN agencies were still “trying to get some clarification” from the government as to what its policy would be.

A military spokesman said he was not sure if international agencies would be allowed to deliver aid in Aceh. “It depends on the government,” said Colonel Achmad Yani Basuki. But he added: “In this situation we need as much help as possible from many parties.”

While the earthquake and subsequent tidal waves devastated coastal Aceh, officials said neither had disrupted exports of liquefied natural gas from the province where ExxonMobile operates a gas field in conjunction with the Indonesian government.

“The port condition is normal at the moment. We will load LNG into two tankers. There is no delivery delay,” Irwandar, an official at the Arun LNG plant in the town of Lhokseumawe told Reuters.

The fate of a cement plant operated by French giant Lafarge near the capital of Banda Aceh was less clear, however. An employee in Jakarta of the joint venture which operates the plant, Semen Andalas Indonesia, said they had not been able to reach employees at the Aceh plant, which is located near a beach on the outskirts of Banda Aceh.

More than 3,000 people were killed in and around Banda Aceh by the earthquake and the subsequent tidal waves.

VBA

Times, London

BRITISH EMBASSY officials travelled to Phuket last night to set up an emergency base for tourists stranded on Thailand’s west coast in resorts that have been devastated at the height of the tourist season.
At least 130 people were killed in Phuket, including one British woman, while the toll for the whole of Thailand reached almost 400. British Embassy officials feared that more Britons might have died in the disaster.

The tsunami hit the coast of Thailand shortly after 8am yesterday. Waves 5m high ploughed ashore, smashing into the popular resort of Patong, and the beach areas of Kamala, Kata, Karon and Naiharn. In the Andaman Sea off Phuket, two resorts on Phi Phi Island were dragged back into the sea, claiming an estimated 60 lives.

Chan Marongtaechar, owner of PP Princess and PP Charlie resorts, said: “I am afraid there will be a high figure of foreigners and staff missing.”

Two people died on Maya Beach, on the nearby island of Phi Phi Ley, which featured in The Beach, the film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The victims were Thais who guarded caves used by rare birds whose nests are used to make soup.

Tourists helped to carry the injured — some still wearing only their swimming costumes — to helicopters. Other injured holidaymakers, lying on sunbeds being used as makeshift stretchers, comforted each other while they waited for help.

In addition to the 130 confirmed dead in Phuket, the Interior Ministry said that Phang Nga province was worst hit with 181 reported dead, 45 died in Krabi and 25 were killed in Ranong. Seven were killed in Satun province and four in Trang province.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the Thai Prime Minister who flew to Phuket, told reporters that he was shocked and sorry at the devastation. “We have never had such a disaster before, thus we were a bit unprepared,” he said. He stayed overnight in Phuket to direct the rescue.

The Narenthorn Centre of the Public Health Ministry reported that people had been swept out to sea by tidal waves while others were stuck at sea in boats. Thousands on Phuket island were moved to higher ground.

Two lorries, each loaded with about 30 corpses, were seen driving through Patong, described by officials as the worst-hit area of Phuket island. Most of the victims on Patong were believed to be Thai residents who went out to fish at low tide just before the waves came.

VBA

Sadli, an official at Lhokseumawe’s Cut Meutia hospital, said that many of the dead were children under 10: “Maybe they were being carried by their parents but they fell over in the water and could not hold on to their children. All the child victims drowned.”

VBA

Mustofa Gelanggang, the head of Bireuen district in Aceh province, said: “According to villagers I talked to, the waves were up to 10m in height. The wave swept all settlements on the coast, and most houses — on stilts and made of wood — were either swept away or destroyed. Some areas were under between two and three metres of water for about two hours.”

VBA

Bustami, a resident in the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe, said: “The weather was fine with no clouds, there was no warning and suddenly the sea water just hit the city. In some parts the water was up to chest level. People are panicking now. Some of us are walking by foot and others are on military trucks going to higher ground.”

VBA

Marine Colonel Buyung Lelana, of Kuala Langka village in northern Aceh, said people were curious when they saw the waves and failed to flee: “People saw the rising water and didn’t run to high ground, moreover they kept watching it. Several of my personnel are missing.”

VBA

I am so relieved to learn that you were not there. You've an angel on your shoulder this Yule season. I grieve with you for any friends that you may have lost. However, at the same time I cannot contain my joy that you are safe. Amon Cara

Mab

Mabs,

I'm fine, thanks for worrying, it looks like getting even worse over the next few days with the death toll looking closer to 50,000 by the time everything is reckoned.

There's no way I can get in touch with many of the native people that I came to know, they have no phones or anything. I'm worried for one of my friends wife's family, where I atttended their wedding in Penang last August, friends in Phuket, including my Laos girlfriend - it's horrible not knowing what's happened to them and realising that except for backctracking I may never know what's happened to them. It's so frustrating and numbing at the same time....

yechydda

John,
I, too, am relieved to find that you are out of harm's way...I've been thinking of you for days now, and have no words to assuage the pain and anxiety you must be feeling, wondering about the fates of the kind folks whom you met and have become part of you, during your travels...

I hope you will receive good news about them all soon, and please remember that they are in my prayers. A tragedy of this scope goes beyond human understanding, and words are never enough...

Warm blessings,
Kathryn

Kathryn Quint [druidf451@juno.com]

Kathryn,

Thanks for this, and it is those that I left behind, the villagers and the smiling, waving children that run to greet you and the families that I knew that worry me most. Travelling like this is a fluid journey, you meet people that have been to where you're going, and people that are heading to where you've been. And it is the latter that I worry for.

yechydda,