Tsunami disaster

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan saw the scars on Saturday that the tsunami left in Sri Lanka, where lives are in ruins but where hard work and outside help have started to make a difference.

Nearly two weeks after the monster waves hammered the coasts of Indian Ocean nations, hardest-hit Indonesia was still pulling thousands of bodies out of the rubble. Its toll rose to more than 104,000 -- two-thirds of all those who died in the killer waves.

A day after saying he was shocked by what he saw in Indonesia, Annan visited Hambantota, a popular tourist resort in southeastern Sri Lanka, which has been largely ruined and where exposed concrete foundations showed where houses used to stand.

"From the air I saw a beautiful country, but there has been a lot of damage," he told reporters after flying in by helicopter.

In Hambantota district alone, nearly 5,000 people died, most buried before they could be identified.

Giving some much-needed good news, the United Nations said that by this weekend, relief workers would get at least some food and other emergency supplies to "every person in need" in Sri Lanka, a figure officials put at 750,000.

World Health Organization Director-General Lee Jong-wook said there no signs of the feared epidemics among the 800,000 homeless in Sri Lanka.

In an unprecedented response to the widest-ranging natural calamity in living memory, governments and agencies have pledged more than US$5 billion in aid. Corporations and private individuals, from Hollywood stars and professional athletes to children donating lunch money, have promised US$1.5 billion more.

Rich nations pledged on Friday to suspend debt repayments by tsunami-hit nations, which may free resources for rebuilding.

Forty nations lost nationals in the catastrophe in addition to the 13 countries swamped by the tsunami. Some 7,500 foreign tourists are dead, missing or unaccounted for.

Sri Lanka lost 30,000 people to the waves. India and Thailand were also badly hit, but most of the tsunami's more than 156,000 victims died in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island.

Every piece of positive news around the stricken Indian Ocean region is dwarfed by one awful truth: after almost two weeks, whole swathes of Aceh, along the remote but populous west coast that faced the waves, are still out of contact.

Indonesia's Health Ministry on Saturday listed 77,000 people as missing and the government also sharply raised the number of homeless in the calamity to 655,000.

Separatists have been fighting the Indonesian army here off and on in Aceh for three decades and fresh clashes this week have sparked concern that renewed fighting would disrupt aid and give the military an opportunity to cement its control over the province.

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Civil war in Sri Lanka marred Annan's trip to the island. The government stopped him from touring tsunami ravaged areas controlled by its Tamil Tiger rebel foes, despite his requests, officials said. "I am here on a humanitarian mission. I would like to visit all the areas, but as you know I am here as a guest of the government and they set the itinerary," Annan told Reuters.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began a tour of the country's worst-hit Andaman and Nicobar islands Saturday but aid workers complained his visit had hit relief operations.

"For the last three days, officials have done little else except make pie charts, graphs, files for the prime minister's visit," said Vikram Tirkey, a doctor on the remote island chain.

Singh said he would ensure that houses and schools are quickly rebuilt.

"This is my solemn assurance that the government of India will spare no resources to come to the aid of all families affected by this tragedy," he said.

The government said India's toll from the Dec. 26 tsunami had risen to 15,636, including 6,000 people feared to have died on the remote chain of islands that are home to endangered tribes.

U.S. Navy helicopters dropped rice on Saturday to desperate survivors in Meulaboh, Aceh, about 150 km (90 miles) from the epicenter of the powerful undersea quake that unleashed the tsunami without warning on Dec. 26.

The United Nations estimates one-third of Meulaboh's 120,000 people were killed. Nothing is known about people further south.

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