Wednesday, December 29, 2004


Yahoo! News - Race to Bury Asia's Dead as Toll Nears 70,000
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - Thousands of corpses rotted in Indonesia's tropical sun on Wednesday as many who escaped death in the worst tsunami in recorded history faced a fight for survival against hunger and disease.

Rescuers scoured remote coastlines across the Indian Ocean for survivors of Sunday's giant waves that killed more than 68,000. The United Nations mobilized what it called the biggest relief operation in its history.

The ocean surge was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake, the biggest in 40 years, off the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It spread in an arc of death across the Indian Ocean, striking from Indonesia to Sri Lanka and beyond to Africa.

U.S. scientists said the quake that set off the killer wall of water had permanently moved tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 98 feet, slightly shifting islands near Sumatra. It may also have made the Earth wobble on its axis.

No words for this.