20,000 dead and tidal waves death toll mounts by the minute

The torrents swept a six-month-old Australian baby from her father’s arms to her death in the Thai island resort of Phuket.

The death toll increased steadily as authorities sorted out the far-flung disaster caused by Sunday’s 9.0-magnitude earthquake under the Indian Ocean. Offers of aid poured in from around the globe, as troops in the region struggled to deliver urgently needed aid to afflicted areas.

The waves sped away from the epicentre at over 500 mph before crashing into the region’s shorelines without warning, sweeping people out to sea. Thousands were missing and millions left homeless.

In Sri Lanka, the death toll reached 11,529, according to military officials and Web sites reporting from Tamil areas outside the government’s control.

Indonesia and India also each reported thousands dead, and Thailand said hundreds were dead there. Deaths also were reported in Malaysia, Maldives, Burma, Bangladesh and even in Somalia, 3,000 miles away in Africa.

Sri Lanka and Indonesia had at least a million people each driven from their homes along their coastlines, and officials feared the spread of water-borne diseases such as cholera.

Signs of carnage were everywhere today.

Dozens of bodies still clad in swimming trunks lined beaches in Thailand. Villagers in Indonesia picked through destroyed homes amid the smell of rotting corpses, lacking any dry ground to bury the dead.

“What shall I do? I don’t know where to bury my wife and children,” said Rajali, 55, of Indonesia’s Aceh province. He goes by a single name.

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.

Jimmy Gorman, 30, of Manchester, 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.”

The earthquake hit Sunday off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The US Geological Survey said the quake’s magnitude was 9.0 – the strongest since a 9.2 magnitude quake in Alaska in 1964, and the fourth-largest in a century.

The quake unleashed tsunamis that pummelled southern Thailand an hour later. In 2 1/2 hours, the torrents travelled 1,000 miles to slam into India and Sri Lanka. They eventually struck Somalia.

An international network warns of the potentially killer waves along Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America – but no such system exists for the Indian Ocean.

Scientists said this week’s death toll would have been reduced if the region had one.

About 25,000 Sri Lanka troops were deployed to crack down on looting, track escaped inmates and help in rescue efforts as helicopters dropped medicine and rescue teams to remote areas.

Sri Lanka’s government declared a national disaster, as did the neighbouring Maldives, a low-lying string of coral atolls where 43 people were killed.

Towns in Indonesia’s Aceh province on Sumatra, the closest land to the earthquake’s epicentre, were swamped. The Health Ministry said at least 4,491 people were killed in Indonesia, hundreds missing and at least a million left homeless. Bodies were wedged into trees in one village, apparently left there by receding waters.

In India, the waves swept away boats, homes and vehicles, killing at least 2,958 people – most of the victims in Tamil Nadu state, officials said. At least 20,000 people were evacuated, officials said.

In Thailand, where tourist season is at its peak as Europeans escape frigid winters, the government said 839 people were killed and 7,271 injured.

Among the dead was the Thai-American grandson of the King Bhumipol Adulyadej. Poom Jensen, 21, was 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 – a full moon or what? Then we saw the wave come, and we ran,” said Katri Seppanen, who was 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.

Six-month-old Melina Heppell of Western Australia was swept from her father’s arms on the same beach.

Thailand reported 35 foreigners among its dead, and Sri Lanka reported 40.

Seven Britons were said to have died in Thailand, Italy said 11 of it citizens were killed, the US reported three, Australia and Denmark each reported two and New Zealand one. Japanese media said 15 bodies in Sri Lanka appeared to be of Japanese.

Also among the missing, injured or dead were nationals of South Korea, Germany, South Africa, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Chile.

In Malaysia, at least 48 people, including foreign tourists swimming or riding jet skis, were killed on the resort island of Penang, officials said. A dozen were reported killed in Burma, and two in Bangladesh.

US President George Bush expressed his condolences over the “terrible loss of life and suffering.” From the Vatican, Pope John Paul led appeals for aid for victims, and the EU promised to quickly deliver £2 million.

Japan, China and Russia among the countries sending teams of experts to the region.

Jasmine Whitbread, international director of the aid group Oxfam, warned that without swift action, more people could die. “The flood waters will have contaminated drinking water and food will be scarce,” she said.