Friday, December 31, 2004
tsunami news.
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) - The death toll in Asia's tsunami disaster ticked relentlessly upward to top 125,000 as clocks ticked down to a desolate new year in countries struggling to get food and water to millions facing starvation and disease.
With international aid agencies still struggling to get aid into Banda Aceh, Budd said many people were leaving the city to escape the stench of rotting corpses and threat of disease, and to search for food.
"This is my first meal in five days," said construction worker Iskandar Ibrahim as he devoured rice brought by an AFP photographer who had travelled 12 hours through dense jungle on a motorcycle to reach the town.
The national flag was at half mast at state buildings and radio and television played sombre music as relief workers carried out the grim task of burying rotting corpses in mass graves along the island's devastated coast.
Adding a ghoulish note to the tragedy, local media reported that bodies of tsunami victims in Sri Lanka have been stolen from hospitals and "sold" to distraught relatives while fingers and ears of corpses have been chopped off to steal jewellery.
pray for them.
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______ dreams come true
