 27 Dec 2004 @ 05:26, by Salama Shaquana
Total devastation has befallen many countries in Asia as a result of a Tsunami triggered by an Earthquake in the Pacific.
The worst hit being Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India and Thailand although deaths have also been reported in by beloved Malaysia..
Please say a prayer for those who have survived and who will face homelessness, food shortages and the inevitable disease which will follow.
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Tsunami leaves 12,600 dead
15:53 AEDT Mon Dec 27 2004
Soldiers searched for bodies in treetops, families wept over the dead lined up on beaches and rescuers scoured coral isles for missing tourists as Asia counted the cost of tsunami waves that killed at least 12,600.
Worst hit were Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India and Thailand.
An international aid efforts was being mounted as thousands of people fled the catastrophe, among the evacuees were thousands of Australian tourists.
The death toll is expected to rise.
.........Idyllic palm-fringed beaches across southern Asia were transformed into scenes of death and devastation by the waves unleashed by the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
One seismologist likened the power of the massive 9 quake to a million atomic bombs the size of those dropped on Japan in World War II, and said the shaking had been so powerful it even disturbed the Earth's rotation.
Waves were monitored in waters off eastern Africa and even on the coast of Western Australia.
There was no warning as much of the Indian Ocean is not covered by an international tsunami alert system.
"Death came from the sea," said Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry, India. "The waves just kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?"
The wall of water up to 10 metres tall flattened houses, hurled fishing boats onto coastal roads, sent cars spinning through swirling waters into hotel lobbies and sucked sunbathers and fishermen off beaches and out to sea.
"We have never known a disaster like this," Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who declared a national disaster and appealed for donor aid, said from holiday in Britain.
It was the worst natural disaster to hit Sri Lanka in recorded history.
Officials placed the death toll at 4,500 and said that figure could rise substantially as troops recovered bodies dragged out to sea or smashed on golden beaches.
©AAP 2004
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