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发表于 30-12-2004 22:28:55|来自:新加坡
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<P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>BANDA ACEH, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:country-region> (Reuters) - The mercilessness of Asia's tsunami grew clearer on Thursday as worst-hit <st1:country-region w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:country-region> sharply raised its death toll, taking the number of fatalities around the whole <st1:place w:st="on">Indian Ocean</st1:place> region above 120,000. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>Health Ministry sources told Reuters just under 80,000 had died in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s northern Aceh province that was close to the undersea quake, some 28,000 more than previously announced. Two sources said the toll would be officially announced soon. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>Aceh, already suffering a prolonged conflict, has emerged as the "ground zero" of Sunday's great earthquake just off its coast. It triggered monstrous waves all the way to Africa that killed thousands more in <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Thailand</st1:place></st1:country-region> and elsewhere. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sri Lanka</st1:place></st1:country-region>, severely afflicted, raised its toll on Thursday by just under 3,000 people to 27,268. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>Millions of people on Indian Ocean shores scrambled for food and clean water as disease, thirst, hunger and panic threatened survivors of the world's most lethal natural disaster since a cyclone in Bangladesh killed 138,000 people in 1991. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>Aftershocks, rumors and an Indian tsunami warning that proved wrong added to the chaos in a still terrified region. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>Despite Thursday's spiraling toll, the true scale of the disaster may not be known for weeks, if ever, as rescuers battled to reach remote areas and washed-away towns, and grieving survivors searched for bodies of locals and tourists alike. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>The scale that was known grew ever more awesome. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>"This isn't just a situation of giving out food and water. Entire towns and villages need to be rebuilt from the ground up," said Rod Volway of CARE Canada, whose emergency team was one of the first into Aceh. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>As the world pledged $220 million in cash and sent a flotilla of ships and aircraft laden with supplies, history's biggest relief operation battled with the enormity of the task. <p></p></FONT></P><P 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>"As many as 5 million people are not able to access what they need for living," said David Nabarro, head of a World Health Organization (WHO) crisis team.<p></p></FONT></P><P 6pt 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>Many villages and resorts are now mud-covered rubble, blanketed with the stench of corpses after the 9.0 magnitude quake, the most powerful in 40 years. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Thousands of bodies rotting in the tropical heat were tumbled into mass graves, but health officials said polluted water posed a much greater threat than corpses. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Holiday-makers were among those caught by surprise. Nearly 5,000 foreigners -- half from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Sweden</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> -- are missing, many in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Thailand</st1:place></st1:country-region>, where 710 foreigners have been confirmed dead. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>AID CHAOS <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Authorities warned of many deaths from dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever caused by contaminated food and water, and malaria and dengue fever carried by mosquitoes. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Four days after the tsunami, most people had given up hope of finding loved ones alive, realizing the sea's power forbade the miracle rescues often seen after land-based quakes. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Indonesian aircraft dropped food to isolated areas in Aceh on northern Sumatra, an island the size of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:State> -- areas that may not be reached by land for days. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Survivors complained aid was only trickling in, despite a mountain of supplies stacking up at the local airport. Aid officials blamed poor coordination with the military. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>"There's no information. Just what you hear on the street. Coordination is very bad," said Zulkarnaen, 36, from the province's main city Banda Aceh. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Hungry crowds jostling for aid biscuits besieged people delivering them in the town, so some drivers dared not stop. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>"Some cars come by and throw food like that. The fastest get the food, the strong one wins. The elderly and the injured don't get anything. We feel like dogs," said Usman, 43. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>In flattened Meulaboh town, the force of the waves pushed water up to the foot of tree-clad mountains two kilometers (a mile) inland. Officials fear a third of its 120,000 residents have perished.<p></p></FONT></P><P 6pt 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sri Lanka</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s worst-hit area Ampara, residents ran things themselves, going around with loudhailers, asking people to donate pots and pans, buckets of fresh water and sarongs. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>"Frustration will be growing in the days and the weeks ahead," said U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Well over a million people have been left homeless. Hospitals are overwhelmed with the injured -- an estimated 100,000 or more. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>The United Nations prepared what could be its largest appeal for donations to cope with its biggest relief effort. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>The <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> said a pledge of $35 million was just a start, and sent an aircraft carrier group toward Sumatra and other ships including a helicopter carrier to the <st1:place w:st="on">Bay of Bengal</st1:place>. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Financial costs, estimated at up to $14 billion, are tiny relative to the human suffering. By comparison, Hurricane Andrew killed 50 people in 1992 but, with much of the damage in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>, cost around $30 billion. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>TSUNAMI ALERT <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>The earthquake and the unprecedented tsunami it triggered kept nerves jangling in the region. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>India issued tsunami alerts -- that were absent on Sunday -- prompting a panicked exodus from coastal areas, and thousands of Sri Lankans also fled far inland after hearing similar reports. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>However, there were no signs of giant waves. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>In the Thai resort turned graveyard of Khao Lak, the grim task of retrieving bodies was interrupted briefly when a tremor cleared the beach of people in a flash. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Dutch, German and Swiss forensic teams flew to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Thailand</st1:place></st1:country-region> to help identify now hard to recognize bodies by collecting dental evidence, DNA samples, fingerprints, photographs and X-rays<p></p></FONT></P><P 6pt 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%"><FONT size=3>Preserving bodies was an urgent need and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra promised to provide refrigerated containers. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Overnight aftershocks in Banda Aceh also sent people fleeing their homes. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>"I was sleeping, but fled outside in panic. If I am going to die, I will die here. Just let it be," said Kaspian, 26. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>In north <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sri Lanka</st1:place></st1:country-region>, survivors recovering corpses faced a new danger -- floating land mines from a long-running conflict. <p></p></FONT></P><P 0in 0in 0pt 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 125%; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><FONT size=3>Animals seem to have escaped the disaster, adding weight to notions they possess a "sixth sense" for disasters, experts said. <p></p></FONT></P> |
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