Tidal waves travel 3,000 miles to kill hundreds of Somalis

Hundreds of Somalis died and entire villages and towns disappeared when tidal waves hit the east African nation’s coastline after travelling 2,800 miles across the Indian Ocean.

The waves were triggered by the 9.0-magnitude undersea quake centred off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The “human loss is in the hundreds in the central and north-eastern coastal area. Entire villages and coastal town have been swept away by the tidal waves and there is severe damage to property,” said Yusuf Ismail, spokesman of Somalia’s President Abduallhi Yusuf Ahmed.

The spokesman is based in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where the Somali parliament is based because the Somali capital is considered too dangerous.

He said he could not give an exact figure of the number dead because “we’re focusing on extending our limited relief to the badly affected people”.