LHOKSEUMAWE, Indonesia – Rescue workers battled to reach isolated coastal towns today on the island of Sumatra nearest the epicenter of the monstrous earthquake that sent tsunami waves surging through the region, killing more than 22,500. Indonesian officials said they feared the death toll would climb by several thousand in their country alone.
In the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, 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. At least 3,000 people died in the city of 400,000.
The fear of a far higher death toll came as bodies washed up on tropical beaches and piled up in hospitals Monday, raising fears of disease. Thousands were missing and millions homeless.
Sunday’s massive quake of 9.0 magnitude off the Indonesian island of Sumatra’s northern tip sent 500-mph tsunami waves surging across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in the deadliest known tsunami since the one caused by the 1883 volcanic eruption at Krakatoa – located off Sumatra’s southern tip – which killed an estimated 36,000 people.
More than 12,500 people died in Sri Lanka, nearly 5,000 in Indonesia, and 4,000 in India. Scores died in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The International Red Cross, which reported 23,700 deaths, said it was concerned that diseases such as malaria and cholera could add to the toll.
Late Monday, Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla was quoted as saying he believed the toll in the country could be as high as 25,000.
Eight Americans were among the dead, and U.S. embassies in the region were trying to track down hundreds more who were unaccounted for.
John Krueger, 34, of Winter Park, Colo., and his wife, 26-year-old Romina Canton, were in their beach bungalow north of Phuket, Thailand, when the sea rushed in and blew it apart.
“The water rushed under the bungalow, brought our floor up and raised us to the ceiling,” he said. “The water blew out our doors, our windows and the back concrete wall. My wife was swept away with the wall, and I had to bust my way through the roof.”
Krueger was sucked nearly 10 feet underwater, and Canton was dragged out to sea where she struggled to live for more than an hour before the sea tossed her back ashore with a broken nose, fractured foot and scrapes over most of her body.
The waves wiped out villages, lifted cars and boats, yanked children from the arms of parents and swept away beachgoers, scuba divers and fishermen.
In a scene repeated across the region Monday, relatives wandered hallways lined with bodies, searching for loved ones at the hospital in Sri Lanka’s southern town of Galle – one of the worst-affected areas of the hardest-hit nation. People lifted blankets and soaked clothes to look at faces in a stunned hush, broken only occasionally by wails of mourning.
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.
Humanitarian agencies began what the United Nations said would become the biggest relief effort the world has ever seen.
The disaster could be the costliest in history as well, with “many billions of dollars” of damage, said U.N. Undersecretary Jan Egeland.
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