Sri Lanka struggles to bury its 15,000 dead
Families of the dead used cooking utensils and even their bare hands to dig graves in the aftermath of a huge tidal wave in Sri Lanka, as rescuers searching through the debris uncovered another 2,480 bodies today, bringing the toll on the tropical island to 15,000.
In Muslim villages in the east of the otherwise Buddhist-dominated island, solemn survivors started to bury the bloated and decomposing bodies. Some, lacking shovels, used forks and their hands to scrape a final resting place for several dozen victims, half of them children.
In Galle – one of the worst-affected areas of the hardest-hit Asian nation - officials used a loud speaker on a fire engine to advise residents to lay the bodies of the dead on roads for collection and burial.
Prime Minister’s Secretary Lalith Weerathunga said the official death toll stood at 13,000, raising the official tally by more than 2,480 from yesterday. An additional 2,000 bodies have been recovered in areas controlled by the country’s Tamil Tiger rebels, the guerrillas said.
One million people have been displaced by massive flooding.
