Tsunami Death Toll Rises Above 150,000

Tsunami Death Toll Passes 150,000; WHO Says No Major Disease Outbreaks Have Been ReportedTwo weeks after a tsunami slammed into coastlines around the Indian Ocean, thousands of bodies were still being pulled out of the mud in remote villages, as the official death toll from the catastrophe rose above 150,000.



In a rare positive note, the World Health Organization said no major disease outbreaks have been reported in the crowded camps where millions have sought refuge after losing everything.



"It is normal after a catastrophe like this nature to have some disease, but they are under control," WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook said in Sri Lanka.



The U.N. agency has warned that disease could put as many as 150,000 survivors "at extreme risk" doubling the disaster's toll.



Aid workers struggled Saturday to reach survivors and provide for their needs. Staggered by the scale of the disaster, aid officials described plans to feed as many as 2 million survivors a day for six months. The cost will be $180 million.



"This truly is the most extraordinary physical natural disaster I have ever seen," World Food Program Executive Director James Morris said after viewing the battered coast. "The damage is overwhelming, the loss of property, the loss of life, injury to people and the risk going forward is enormous."



Indonesia also said it was monitoring its international borders to prevent child traffickers from smuggling young victims out of the country, and it will set up special camps to protect children from criminal gangs.



The government and UNICEF also will establish centers to care for traumatized women, Minister of Women's Empowerment Meutia Hatta said.



There have been sporadic reports of attempted child trafficking in Indonesia since a Dec. 26 earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a deadly tsunami, but police say there have been no confirmed cases. Medan, the main city on Sumatra island, has a reputation as a base for criminal gangs that sell children into servitude or for sexual exploitation.



In Sri Lanka on Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan toured the coastal city of Hambantota, where hundreds of shoppers at an outdoor market were swept to their deaths when the massive waves hit. The U.N. chief told reporters he was formulating ideas on how to respond to the disaster.



Sri Lanka, where more than 30,000 people were killed and 800,000 were left homeless, was the second stop on Annan's tour of nations afflicted by the worst natural calamity in modern times.



"I have never seen such utter destruction mile after mile," he said after a helicopter flight Friday over the western coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island. "You wonder: Where are the people? What has happened to them?"



Annan agreed to a Sri Lankan request not to visit disaster-stricken areas controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels, thousands of whom were killed by the tsunami.



The Tigers, who have fought a 20-year war for Tamil independence from the Sinhalese-dominated south, invited Annan to tour the northern province but the government could not guarantee his safety, officials said on condition of anonymity.



"I'm concerned about everyone with need in the humanitarian situation," Annan said. "But I'm also a guest of the government, and we'll go where we agreed we'll go."



Indonesia raised its estimated death toll Saturday by more than 2,700 to 104,055, pushing the overall count to 150,578. Indonesia's toll has risen sharply in recent days as teams of rescuers recover bodies from previously inaccessible regions, many on the western coast of northern Sumatra, close to the epicenter of the magnitude-9.0 quake.



Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs also increased its number of homeless by more than 100,000 to 655,000.



The toll of those missing increased as well: close to 5,000 in Sri Lanka and 10,000 in Indonesia. Officials said some people trying to find loved ones were only now reporting them as missing.



"First the people tried to find them among the dead, then went around the hospitals. Now they are coming to us," said K.G. Wijesiri at Sri Lanka's National Disaster Management Center.



World governments, led by Australia and Germany, have pledged nearly $4 billion in aid the biggest relief package ever. The world's richest nations also have agreed that debt repayments for tsunami-devastated countries should be frozen, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said. The seven leading industrial nations, or G-7, will seek agreement from all creditors at the next meeting of the Paris Club on Wednesday.



Coordinating the aid was becoming a challenge, with some humanitarian groups in Indonesia's hard-hit Aceh province saying the stream of dignitaries flying into the tiny airport was hampering aid deliveries.



"It slows things down," said Maj. Murad Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan's Tsunami Relief Task Force.



A 220-person team of Pakistani military doctors and civilian engineers was rerouted to the east Sumatran city of Medan, where they hired trucks to make the 15-hour drive to Banda Aceh only to be turned back by the Indonesian army.



"In Medan we were hearing that (Secretary of State) Colin Powell was there and that's why we couldn't get here," Khan said.



A delegation of American congressmen was arriving to see Banda Aceh later Saturday. They came by helicopter from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier so they would not disrupt other flights.



Singapore, for its part, flew a mobile air traffic control tower to Banda Aceh's airport to help speed up deliveries of emergency supplies.



Around the devastated Indonesian town of Lhok Nga, convoys of trucks were dumping debris and rubble from the town in a previously upscale neighborhood and soldiers continued to pick through the wreckage hunting for bodies. An elephant also helped move the debris.



Rice farmer Mohammad Amin, 45, was walking along the road with his wife and one of his daughters with sacks of rice and noodles on their heads after traveling for three days on foot from their shattered village to pick up food. They said there was nowhere for relief helicopters to land in their village.



Near the road a huge barge, about the size of a football field, was lying on its side 500 feet from the coast. Close to it were tugs that apparently were pulling it when the wave struck.



On the road along the Sumatran coast, dozens of Indonesian soldiers were heading to a military base amid fears that Aceh rebels could get their hands on weapons left there as soldiers fled from the tsunami. Rebels have been fighting since 1976 for an independent homeland in Aceh, leaving thousands dead.



The Associated Press