death toll upwards of 30,000...

Asia piles up dead, toll in quake, tidal wave tops 22,000

GALLE, Sri Lanka (AP) - The carnage from an earthquake-driven tidal wave that devastated coastlines from Asia to Africa doubled to more than 22,000 dead Monday, and rescuers struggled to deliver aid to the hardest-hit areas, raising fears about the spread of disease as bodies rotted on tropical beaches.

Offers of aid poured in from around the globe, but millions of people remained homeless and thousands were still missing a day after the disaster.

The number of dead was expected to keep rising as workers reached remoter regions and the sea washed up more corpses.

U.N. Undersecretary-Jan Egeland, who is in charge of emergency relief, said the disaster could be the costliest in history, "probably many billions of dollars.''

More than 12,000 people died in Sri Lanka, nearly 5,000 in Indonesia, and 4,000 in India.

The International Red Cross, which reported 23,700 deaths, said it was concerned that waterborne diseases like malaria and cholera could add to the toll.

Dazed tourists evacuated the popular island resorts of southern Thailand, where the Thai-American grandson of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej was listed as one of more than 900 people dead. Scores more died in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives - and thousands of kilometers (miles) away in Africa.

Officials in Thailand and Indonesia officials conceded that immediate public warnings of monster waves could have saved lives.

The only known warning issued by Thai authorities reached resort operators when it was too late.

But governments insisted they couldn't have known the true danger because there is no international system in place to track tidal waves in the Indian Ocean, and they could not afford the sophisticated equipment to build one.

The 9.0-magnitude quake struck off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra early Sunday, unleashing waves that roared across the Bay of Bengal at 800 kilometers per hour (500 kph), ripping into Thailand in an hour and striking Sri Lanka and India within 2 1/2 hours.

They raced 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) to Africa, killing hundreds of people in Somalia and three in the Seychelles.

In a scene repeated across the region, bodies were still coming in Monday evening to the hospital in Sri Lanka's southern town of Galle - one of the worst-affected areas of the hardest-hit nation.

A tractor carried about 15 corpses of mostly women and children, some wrapped in white plastic sheets.

A large crowd had gathered at the hospital trying to learn if their missing family members were there.

"The toll is increasing,'' said Brig. Daya Ratnayake, a military spokesman. "We are finding more bodies.''

The six-meter-high (20-foot-high) waves smashed into seaside towns and resorts, sweeping away boats, homes, hotels, fishermen and holidaymakers.

At the Thai island resort of Phuket, the torrents pulled a 6-month-old Australian baby from her father's arms.

A large proportion of the victims were youngsters, and funerals were held for children and teenagers who could not cope with the fury of the sea. Ted Chaiban, chief for the United Nations Children's Fund in Sri Lanka, estimated that nearly half the victims there were children.

In Cuddalore, India, the bodies of more than 150 children killed were buried in a mass grave - their weeping, red-eyed parents looking on as a bulldozer filled the hole with sodden earth.

In Banda Aceh, capital of Indonesia's strife-torn Aceh province, the streets were filled with overturned cars and the rotting corpses of adults and children.

Shopping malls and office buildings lay in rubble, and thousands of homeless families huddled together in mosques and schools.

The city of 400,000 people is the nearest population center to the epicenter of the quake and was virtually unique in being destroyed by the temblor - the world's most powerful in 40 years - rather than the floodwaters.

At least 3,000 people died.

"Where are my children?'' said 41-year-old Absah, crying uncontrollably as she searched for her 11 children, whom she said were still missing.

"Where are they? Why did this happen to me? I've lost everything.''

The Indonesian and Sri Lankan governments declared national disasters, as did the Maldives, a low-lying string of coral atolls where a meter (three feet) of water pushed into homes in Male, the capital, on Sunday and residents spent a night fearing the waves would return.

Indonesia and Sri Lanka had at least a million people each driven from their homes. Helicopters in India rushed medicine to stricken areas, while warships in Thailand steamed to island resorts to rescue survivors.

About 200 people were evacuated from devastated Phi Phi island, one of Thailand's most popular destinations for Westerners, who had been escaping frigid winters on the beaches before their Christmas holidays were turned into what some likened to a war zone.

Jimmy Gorman, 30, of Manchester, England, said he saw 15 bodies on the island, including up to five children and a pregnant woman.

"Disaster. Flattened everything,'' Gorman said.

"There's nothing left of it.''

Among the dead in southern Thailand was the grandson of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, officials said. Poom Jensen, 21, was reportedly jet skiing when the tidal wave struck.

Witnesses in Thailand described seeing waters disappearing away from the beaches in the minutes before the waves struck.

Scientists say the effect is caused by tidal waves sucking shallow coastal waters out to sea before returning them as a massive wall of water.

"The water went back, back, back, so far away, and everyone wondered what it was. Then we saw the wave come, and we ran,'' said Katri Seppanen, who was on Phuket Island's Patong beach with her family when the wave washed over their heads and separated them.

They found each other two hours later.

Italy confirmed that 13 of its citizens had died in Thailand. Britain confirmed 11 deaths, Norway 10, Sweden nine, the United States eight, and France and Australia six.

Austria confirmed four deaths and Denmark three. Belgium and South Africa confirmed two, and Finland one.

Malaysia, South Korea, Switzerland, Poland, Japan, Russia, Turkey, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic had unconfirmed reports of dead or missing.

U.S. officials were seeking to contact hundreds of Americans who remain unaccounted for in the region, and European countries set up hotlines for family members and sent diplomats to aid stranded countrymen.

Follow Ups:

• with india being in a state of emergency, this will affect us..nm - mel 15:33:13 12/28/04 (0)