From Asia to Africa, a terrible trail of death and destruction

An Indian man cries as he holds the hand of his eight-year-old son killed in a tsunami in Cuddalore near the Indian city of Madras. Picture / Reuters

The death toll from the tsunami which devastated coastal areas of South East Asia was about 23,200 today as the United Nations warned it could be the worst natural disaster of modern times.

More than two million people lost their homes and tens of thousands were injured with many more still unaccounted for after the flash floods triggered by a massive under-sea earthquake off Sumatra in Indonesia.

With huge numbers of bodies left to rot in the tropical sun, aid agencies warned of cholera and dysentery epidemics as local officials struggled to cope with scale of the disaster. Villages, towns and cities across the region held mass burials as bodies piled up on the beaches unclaimed.

Tens of thousands of tourists were trying to get out of the region as it emerged that dozens of holidaymakers, including 13 Britons, had lost their lives in the Boxing Day disaster. Most of them were killed in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned the final number of British casualties is likely to be much higher. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said there was no news about the whereabouts of a group of 50 British teachers who were on holiday in the south of Sri Lanka.

There were a further 14 aftershocks yesterday as fears mounted for the inhabitants of the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands where contact has been lost and tens of thousands are now feared dead. A $3.8 billion secret military base on the archipelago, thought to garrison up to 8,000 soldiers, was swept away when the waves struck, a senior Indian official told the Independent.

Hundreds of people also died and entire villages and towns disappeared in Somalia on the east coast of Africa - the furthest point from the epicentre. Meanwhile, governments were accused of doing too little to warn their populations of the impending waves and there were calls for an international seismic monitoring system to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.

UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Jan Egeland said the effects of the disaster would be particularly dramatic because so many of the places hit had large, poor populations, crammed into substandard housing.

"This may be the worst natural disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas ... so many vulnerable communities," he said.

The Geneva-based International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it would need $6.5m to begin emergency assistance. The United States dispatched disaster teams and prepared a $15m aid package to the Asian countries.

More than 12,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka. The figure was fuelled by the recovery of 2,000 bodies in territory controlled by Tamil rebels. Rescue workers spent the day searching for bodies there, many of which were lodged in tree tops where they had been dumped by huge waves.

More than 1.5m Sri Lankans were displaced from their homes by the 'quake. Many fled to high ground in inland areas while those that remained in the towns sought refuge in temples and schools.

In the village of Karapitiya, relatives scrambled over piles of corpses, holding shirts or handkerchiefs to their noses to ward off the stench. In the southern port town of Galle, best known for its historic fort, upturned buses blocked streets and mounds of rubbish and sewage were washed into homes.

In Banda Aceh, on the north-western tip of Sumatra and the closest land point to the epicentre of the quake, the death toll was expected to rise to as much as 10,000 - three times the initial estimate. Some 1,500 people were buried in one mass grave yesterday afternoon. The stench of rotting flesh pervaded the city.

"It smells so bad ... the human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," said marine colonel Buyung Lelana who was leading the evacuation effort. The work was being hampered by power cuts and failed telephone networks.

On the outskirts of the city, relatives searched among 500 corpses lined up under plastic tents. Volunteers laid the bodies of children in rows in their sarongs. Others were stacked in white fish crates. Even when the dead had been found, burying them according to Islamic tradition proved difficult. One man, Rajali, said he had lost his wife and two children but couldn't find dry ground in which to bury them.

To hamper efforts to restore normality still further it emerged that a police barracks in Banda Aceh had collapsed, killing at least 200 police officers and their families.

At the Cut Meutia hospital, doctors said they were running out of medicine while in the Bierun area, the local mayor warned of a shortage of coffins.

The Indonesian military deployed 15,000 troops to search for survivors and three days of national mourning was declared by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The Government said it was relaxing travel restrictions - imposed after years of rebel violence in Aceh - to allow foreign aid workers and journalists to enter the region.

The scale of the disaster in India was also worse than first feared. The hardest hit state was Tamil Nadu where more than 3,000 people were confirmed killed - nearly half of those lost in India. Local television showed images of corpses lined up in local hospitals as distraught mothers searched for their missing children.

In Madras, India's third largest city with a population of 10m, police stepped up patrols to prevent looting. In neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, some 1,300 people were still missing presumed dead. Among them were 200 Hindu pilgrims lost as they took part in a holy bathing ritual on the beach. Those that survived scattered petals on the sea and sacrificed chickens as they prayed for their safe return. It was estimated that three-quarters of the dead were the wives and children of local fisherman who were too weak to swim to safety, officials said.

Indian coastguards continued to discover the wrecks of fishing trawlers and small boats.

At southern Cuddalore mass graves were dug using an excavating machine to bury 200 bodies at a time. Survivors in the Andaman Islands, 900 miles east of the mainland, where there is little high ground to have offered sanctuary, people gathered up what possessions they could and trekked miles through jungle to government shelters.

In the neighbouring Nicobar Islands reports suggested a further 3,000 may have died on the outlying Car Nicobar Island, which has a population of 18,000. The Thai government said more than 900 people had been killed in the disaster there, nearly 40 of them foreigners. Among the dead in the region as a whole were eight Americans, 11 Italians, 10 Norwegians, and nine Japanese. Irish, Australian, New Zealand, German, South African, Swedish, Russian, Malaysian, South Korean and Mexican tourists also died.

Also killed was Poom Jensen, the Thai American grandson of King Bhumipol Adulyadej, who died while jet sking at Krabi. Phuket's Patong beach took the bulk of the damage and two-thirds of Thailand's fatalities occurred there. One of them was a six-month-old Australian baby, swept from her father's arms as he stumbled to safety.

The child's uncle said: "He thought he had the baby in his hands, but all he had was clothes."

Australia pledged $10m Ausrailan for relief efforts and Prime Minister John Howard said he would investigate what his country could do to help with an early warning system to prevent future disasters.

The United States offered Thailand military assistance from troops stationed in Japan's Okinawa. Thailand's crucial multi-billion pound tourism industry continued to suffer in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Phuket City hall was swamped by 1,000 tourists as diplomats from the British, United States and Canadian embassies set up tables to issue passports to people who had lost their documents.

And there were chaotic scenes at Phuket airport where check-in desks were overrun by holidaymakers, many of them bandaged, as they tried to board flights. Operators said they planned to use charter planes currently arriving empty, to help get people out.

- THE INDEPENDENT