Indonesia Aceh deaths might hit 80,000 -UN official

Reuters ^ | 12/29/04

[kattracks]

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Dec 29 (Reuters) - The death toll in Indonesia's Aceh province from a quake and tsunami that struck on Sunday might reach between 50,000 and 80,000, a UN official said.

"I would say we are probably talking about somewhere in the order of 80,000 people, 50 to 80,000 people, that would be my educated guess," Michael Elmquist, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Indonesia, told reporters on Wednesday.

He said the coastal town of Meulaboh alone may have had 40,000 deaths.

The latest official government estimate of the death toll for all of Indonesia is 36,268 deaths. Aceh was by far the hardest hit province in the country.

[verity]

I suspect the count will eventually exceed 150,000.

[glock rocks]

Wed Dec 29, 7:44 AM ET
Indonesian navy officials organize supplies to be sent to Aceh province for victims of the weekend's quake-triggered tsunami December 29, 2004. International aid teams landed in devastated villages on Wednesday to restore drinking water in a desperate race to prevent the spread of diseases, but in many remote areas -- three days after a giant wave hit seven Asian nations killing nearly 70,000 -- observers said aid was non-existent. (Supri/Reuters)

[NautiNurse]

Posted this on another thread from CNN. It posits another potential problem in the recovery efforts.

"The USGS team in Pasadena, California, also was studying more detailed satellite images on Tuesday to determine if the scraping of one [tectonic] plate over another plowed up enough debris on the ocean floor to block the port of Banda Aceh in Sumatra where international aid was headed."

[glockmeister40]

We get accused of being stingy with our foreign aid. Their large moslem population would be spitting on Americans and committing terrorism if it wasn't for this disaster.

[mewzilla]

Holy moly. I wonder how long it will take to find out if the port's usable.

[glock rocks]

Wed Dec 29, 4:33 AM ET
Residents walk through debris at destroyed market after tidal waves hit at the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia's Sumatra island, Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2004. The military was preparing to dig mass graves Wednesday on Indonesia's battered Sumatra Island, where the government said the official death toll from an earthquake and tsunamis had reached more than 32,000. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

[U S Army EOD]

I am afraid you are correct, and if disease hits bad, there will be a lot more.

[Zacs Mom]

I heard a spokesman from the disease center say last night that they fully expect the deaths from disease to equal or surpass the number of deaths from the tsunami itself.

Truly frighten numbers - numbers I can't even get my mind to fully grasp.

[trebb]

We get accused of being stingy with our foreign aid. Their large moslem population would be spitting on Americans and committing terrorism if it wasn't for this disaster.

Yes, some idiot was on FOX to make the point that we are stingy and donating less of our GDP than any other industrialized nation. The guy on FOX showed him some figures by country. We had the top with $35 Mil and France was at the bottom with $163 Thou. The guy on FOX asked him to comment on France and the twit hemmed and hawed and said he didn't have all those figures and data. Of course, all he could do is bluster whne asked how he could make his "stingy" statements if he didn't have . . . you guessed it; the facts.

[U S Army EOD]

Remember the African country where they had the cholera outbreak? They were bringing the bodies out with dump trucks and that was just from the hospital areas. This was only in a small area. We really need to pray for these people.

[U S Army EOD]

He should have asked the guy how much he had personally given. By the way, at that time France had committed a whopping sum of $136,000.00 at that time.

[eclectic]

Considering the followup deceases, we might have just witnessed the most devastating natural catastrophe in the recorded human history!

[U S Army EOD]

No I think the Black Death and Flu outbreak in 1918 would top it easy.

[eclectic]

Pandemics do not count!

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Their large moslem population would be spitting on Americans and committing terrorism if it wasn't for this disaster."

Indonesia has been the victim of attacks by Islamic terrorists just as we have.

[U S Army EOD]

They do to the dead. Typhoons in those areas killed many more.

[eclectic]

I am talking about a single geological event. We all die, you know ...

[libs_kma]

"Indonesia has been the victim of attacks by Islamic terrorists just as we have."

They had the bombing of the Austrailan embassy in Jakarta, but I don't think it was targeted at Indonesians themselves. According to CIA Worldfacts, Indonesia was 88% Muslim back in 1998. It's probably more by now.

My prayers go out for their suffering, but I think Indonesia and other Muslim countries should be the ones collecting aid money to help these people. All the funds they send for relief are less funds they are using to kill our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Ragnar54]

Indonesia is a failed state. We should help them out by taking West Papua New Guinea off their hands (liberated by the US from the Japanese in WWII, seized by Indonesia in the 60's, renamed to Irian Jaya).
New Guinea has been described as a mountain of gold floating on a sea of oil. The entire island will be Islamic unless something is done. The local residents will be "converted" to Islam via the usual means.
The current disaster is another measure of how incompetent the Islamic crime syndicate is at governing.
There are probably lots of able bodied Indonesians in "Irian Jaya" who could be sent to help with the cleanup efforts. There would be plenty of room for them to live in Indonesia afterward.