India News: December 2004

India toll reaches 13,230Add to Clippings
Thursday, December 30, 2004 | Editor

NEW DELHI: Indian on Thursday said 13,230 people were dead or feared dead across the country after the tsunami that struck at the weekend, killing more than 80,000 people from Asia to Africa.

A government statement said 7,330 were confirmed dead and another 5,900 were missing and presumed dead.

All the presumed dead are in the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, where rescuers have yet to reach isolated islands and villages.

Bodies remain entombed in train
Thursday, December 30, 2004 | Editor

Mitiyagoda, Sri Lanka: The buzz of an electric chain saw pierces the air as it cuts through a coconut palm pinning down a bloated corpse. It is the only sound of rescue here where the sea swallowed an entire train packed with 1,500 passengers.

At this site of mass death and destruction -- where the Indian Ocean sped in and flipped over the train like a toy, killing all but 200 of its passengers -- there is a severe shortage of recovery gear.

"We want some machines to push the carriages (so we can) get at the bodies," says an air force officer leading a team of about 200 rescue workers in Mitiyagoda, just south of the resort of Hikkaduwa popular with divers for its rich coral life.

Rescue workers with no protective gear except surgical gloves and facemasks to help them stave off the stench, still have to retrieve 400 bodies trapped inside the gnarled carriages.

The putrid smell of decaying flesh is rapidly getting worse.

Bodies of many more people who lived along the train line are cooking in the tropical sun hundreds of meters away from the track and the water's edge.

"Look, a child's body," says Chandana Pushpalal, 38, pointing to a tiny figure under a pile of rubble. "About 10 months old ... There are many, many more bodies ... you must take pictures."

It is three days since tsunamis hit the palm-fringed island republic of Sri Lanka, killing at least 18,000 people, including the 1,300 passengers onboard the train travelling from Colombo to Galle.

Near the end of its 112 kilometres journey from the capital, Colombo to the resort city of Galle, it was hit by a tidal wave.

Karl Max Hantke, 75, who usually spends three months of every year at a house near the railway track said he saw the first wave rush over the tracks and stop the train.

A few minutes later, he says a second wave came in totally flipping the track and derailing the train.

"People were screaming 'help, help'," he said shaking his head, still shocked at the size of the calamity. "You could not help." He was watching from the roof of his flooded home.

Some 200 of the train's passengers, mostly people going home on a holy Poya (full moon) day, are believed to have jumped out of the train after the first wave and ran for their lives. Most were still inside when the bigger wave washed over them.

Sujeeva Priyadarshini, 22, lost her brother at their home by the track.

"I was at home when the first wave hit. But for the second, I ran... I heard my brother shouting. I looked and ... my father came back to take his body away."

Nearby, bulldozers are collecting the dead and beginning to push them into a shallow mass grave under swaying coconut palms a few metres from the water.

There are people trying to salvage what is left of their ruined homes. A man pleads with the coroner who is counting the bodies as they are pushed into the grave. The elderly man wants to take away the bodies of his children for a private funeral, a luxury thousands could not afford.

The government has streamlined burial procedures and wants to bury bodies as quickly as possible to prevent the spread of disease.

Official estimates place the death toll at about 18,000. Most of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves as identification was difficult.

Airmen and sailors are going through luggage from the train to see if they can find identity papers or telephone numbers to alert the next of kin. That process is as difficult as the recovery of the bodies in this former paradise where a train was turned into a tomb.

Government denies any warning of fresh quake in tsunami areas
Thursday, December 30, 2004 | Editor

UNI

NEW DELHI: The government denied that the Home ministry issued any warning about fresh quake in the tsunami-affected countries in the next few hours or days.

Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told a press conference here on Thursday that there was no technical or scientific instrument, which could predict an earthquake, and therefore such fears were unfounded.

He said that one terra research based in Portland had sent a message to him to the effect that there may be another quake of up to 7.5 in the Richter scale in the Sumatra belt in Indonesia, and he had ''simply forwarded'' that to the Home ministry.

''Some official in the home ministry may have issued this without giving any thought to it,'' he said.

Sibal urged the relief agencies working in the tsunami-hit areas not to panic and to continue their work without any fear of danger of another quake or tsunami.

Earlier in the day, reports had said the centre alerted the southern states, Pondicherry and the Andaman and Nicobar islands after warnings by experts of the possibility of another tsunami on Thursday afternoon, setting off panic in the areas swamped by Sunday's tidal waves which claimed thousands of lives.

India joins hi-nation group to provide Tsunami aid
Thursday, December 30, 2004 | Editor

PTI

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday agreed to join a four-member core group with the US, Australia and Japan to coordinate with the UN worldwide efforts to provide relief to victims of Sunday's devastating earthquake and tsunamis.

US president George W Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh in this regard.

It was conveyed that India would be prepared to join in this humanitarian effort, External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Navtej Sarna said.

Following these conversations, a teleconference was held on Thursday morning between US Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, Australian Permanent Secretary Douglas Chester, Director General of the Japanese Economic Cooperation Bureau Sato and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran.

The main purpose of the coordination effort is to avoid duplication of efforts, identify gaps in the relief process and find ways and means to address these deficiencies, the spokesman said.

A video conference will be held on Friday between the Washington-based ambassadors of India, Australia and Japan with Grossman and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

This group of four has agreed to work together closely with the UN and examine how the relief effort can best be channelised through the UN, he said.

Saran acquainted the other members of the group with the relief and rescue efforts already launched by India for Sri Lanka and Maldives, including substantial assistance being provided through deployment of Indian naval ships and aircraft.

These efforts have been deeply appreciated by Sri Lanka and Maldives and were continuing and could be expanded as needed, the spokesman said.

As far as the disaster in South India and island territories is concerned, India is confident that it will be able to deal with the challenges with its own resources. New Delhi feels that international relief, therefore, could be directed where it was most urgently required.

Saran told reporters that India has conveyed to the UN and key countries that at present outside assistance is not required to deal with the impact in the country of tsunami tidal waves and it will approach them if necessary.

"We have conveyed to them that we have mobilised all our resources" to deal with the disaster in India. "At present, there is probably no requirement for assistance. If it is there, we will talk to them," he said.

In Washington, Grossman told reporters, "We hope this core group (of four countries) will grow, because there are more people who have more capabilities and we hope will provide more capacity."

"There is going to be a gigantic international requirement. So our expectation is that the European Union, the United Nations and other countries will also join in this," he said.

US using spy satellites to aid tsunami victims
Thursday, December 30, 2004 | Editor

US using spy satellites to aid tsunami victims

Press Trust Of India/associated Press


Washington, December 30: US defence agency is using its spy satellites to measure the scope of the devastating tsunami in Asia and help workers manage their relief efforts.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a defence department component, normally gathers intelligence to support US security.

The agency said on Wednesday that it is using its satellite imagery to funnel information, including damage assessments of roads, bridges, ports and airfields, to the US agencies handling disaster relief.

Those updates are being used to guide where workers and life-support supplies are sent first.