Dan Eaton, Banda Aceh

Two weeks after a tsunami slammed into coastlines around the Indian Ocean, thousands of bodies were still being pulled out of the mud and world leaders visiting the region were shocked at the devastation.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan flew over the ravaged landscape of Indonesia’s tsunami-hit Aceh province yesterday and asked “Where are the people?” as Jakarta sharply raised its death toll.

Indonesia pulled 7,118 new bodies from the rubble near a shattered beachfront community visited today by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, bringing the confirmed overall death toll from the Asian tsunami to nearly 150,000.

Indonesia’s official earthquake and tsunami death toll jumped by more than 4,000 today to 98,489, the government said – correcting a toll of 113,306 it issued earlier.

Authorities in Indonesia have discovered 4,000 new bodies, bringing the death toll from the tsunami in Asia and Africa to nearly 150,000, while UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan toured Sumatra island to witness the devastation and the massive relief effort.

Reduced to fighting over wild bananas and coconuts after a tsunami ravaged their homes, survivors jostled for supplies as the first ship carrying aid docked near the remote West Aceh town of Calang today.

AN ARMY of aid workers faced a race against the clock to supply food and water to millions of tsunami victims yesterday as logistical problems continued to hamper relief efforts.

WORDS are left impotent by a tragedy such as has unfolded in southern Asia over the past week. The sheer scale of the devastation wrought and the number of people killed cripples the imagination.

Rescuers were today ready to give up hope of finding more survivors in Indonesia’s shattered Sumatra island, one week after tsunamis wrought death and destruction on a massive scale across Asia.

One of the biggest US military disaster relief missions in history kicked into high gear today as an aircraft carrier battle group arrived off the shores of tsunami-battered Sumatra and began launching helicopters heavy with supplies.

Heavy rain fell on Indonesia’s corpse-littered city of Banda Aceh today, creating the conditions for cholera and other waterborne diseases to spread and adding to the misery of the thousands made homeless by the quake and tsunamis.

Fears rose in Indonesia today that the bodies of perhaps tens of thousands of victims will never be found. Entire villages have been swept to sea.

As foreign military cargo planes touched down in Indonesia today with emergency aid, fears rose that the bodies of perhaps tens of thousands of victims will never be found. Entire villages have been swept to sea.

THE death toll from the tsunami disaster doubled again yesterday, soaring towards the 100,000 mark.

The International Red Cross raised to 68,000 the death toll from Sunday’s earthquake and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean today but a UN expert said 80,000 people could have died in one Indonesian province alone.

The death toll in Indonesia’s Aceh province might reach 80,000, a UN official said.

The military was preparing to dig mass graves today 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.

AS rotting bodies stack up and contaminate water supplies across Asia, fears grew that sickness will pile more misery on a region reeling two days on from its worst disaster in living memory.

SWATHES of coast were stripped of life in the isolated west of Indonesia’s Aceh, with reports of starvation and looting doing little to alleviate fears for areas from where there was only silence.

The death toll from the killer waves unleashed across the Indian Ocean by the megaquake climbed inexorably toward 50,000 tonight.

They struggled to bury the dead and desperate residents looted shops on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island today, where the earthquake and tsunamis killed up to 25,000 people, according to government estimates.

Dozens of bloated bodies littered the streets of Banda Aceh city today as soldiers and volunteers searched for survivors of an earthquake and tidal waves that killed more than 5,000 people in Indonesia.