M A I N   N E W S

Over 7,700 killed in Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand

People walk through the debris of their houses destroyed in tidal waves on the coastal areas in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Sunday. — AP/PTI photo

Colombo, December 26
Sri Lanka’s worst tsunami in living memory killed at least 3,225 people and affected over one million more, or around 5 per cent of the Indian Ocean island’s population, the government said today.

“The death toll has risen to 3,225. Over one million people are affected,’’ a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s office told Reuters.

The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, which sent waves up to 15 feet (5 m) high crashing onto Sri Lanka’s eastern and southern shores, flooding towns and villages and sweeping people and cars away.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga has declared a national disaster and appealed for international emergency aid.

Witnesses in small fishing town of Payagala, 60 km south of Colombo, said giant waves unexpectedly crashed ashore today morning, sending a deluge of seawater into towns and villages.

“A wave up to 10 ft (3 m) in height hit this area and everything was swept away, including my three-wheeler taxi,” said 40-year-old fisherman Piyasoma, readying his family to stay with a relative several miles away.

A Reuters correspondent saw a second ocean swell flood into the town and said the local railway station on the main north south rail line had been destroyed. Tracks were broken and concrete station pavillions had collapsed.

Hundreds of locals were leaving the town to head inland, while dozens of foreign tourists waited by this side of the road, trying to get a lift back to Colombo.

BBC reporter Roland Buerk was in the Sri Lankan tourist resort of Unawatuna, near the southern town of Galle, when the tsunami struck.

“We were swept along for a few hundred metres, trying to dodge the motor cycles and the refrigerators and the cars that were coming with us,” he said.

“Most people have gone up onto higher ground, fearful of another tidal wave. Rumours are that another one might be coming and people are trying to get up onto the hills,” he added.

Doctors evacuated pregnant mothers from maternity wards near Galle, as others fled houses submerged under several metres (many feet) of muddy water.

Witnesses saw corpses floating in floodwaters, while thousands fled their homes in the hard-hit eastern port of Trincomalee as cars floated out to sea.

N.D. Hettiarachchi, director of the National Disaster Management Centre, said,

“I think this is the worst ever natural disaster in Sri Lanka,” he added.

JAKARTA: A powerful tsunami that crashed into parts of Indonesia today killed 4,185 people, the Health Ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry said the worst affected area was in and around Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra island, where 1,400 people had been killed.

“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,” Bustami, a resident in the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe, told Reuters by telephone.

Sadli, an official at the hospital, said many of the dead in the city were children under the age of 10.

Officials said hundreds of houses had been swept away by the force of 5-m waves across Aceh, which lies on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

On Nias island off North Sumatra province, directly south of Aceh, officials said 75 people had died. Nias is popular with foreign surfers, although officials said they had yet to hear reports of any foreigners being killed.

BANGKOK: An unprecedented tsunami created chaos in Thailand’s southern tourist playground today, tossing cars around and sweeping into luxury hotels on Phuket, flattening ‘’The Beach’’ movie island and killing 310 people.

Witnesses spoke of a wave three-storey high, which destroyed small hotels on the mainland and injured more than 2,000 people.

The government ordered evacuation of the stricken areas, which included the main beaches of Phuket, which are popular with Western and Asian tourists and at the height of their season.

Helicopters were sent out to assess the damage in a region of exotically shaped limestone islands scattered in the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea and popular with the snorkellers and recreational divers among Thailand’s annual 12 million tourists.

It was not immediately clear how many of the dead were foreigners, but at least one tourist was killed on Phuket and one foreigner was known to be among the dead in Krabi.

KUALA LUMPUR: At least 29 people were drowned and many were missing after tidal waves, sparked by a huge earthquake in Indonesia, hit two Malaysian resort islands and a series of coastal villages today, officials said.

The worst-hit island was the popular north-western holiday resort of Penang, where 21 people — including at least two foreigners — were killed and up to 30 fishing boats were missing, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and local officials said.

YANGON: The tsunami which drove through the Andaman Sea today destroyed a bridge in southeast Myanmar and killed 10 people and a number of fishing trawlers were missing at sea, a fishing operator said.

The six men and four women were killed in the coastal town of Kawthaung when the huge wave caused by an earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra struck. — Reuters and AFP