Red Cross: Asian death toll could top 100,000

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.

And the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said its own estimate was more than 77,000. It suspected the number could rise to more than 100,000.

“We’re facing a disaster of unprecedented proportion in nature,” said Simon Missiri, Asia Pacific chief at the federation.

The death toll in Indonesia’s Aceh province might reach 80,000, said Michael Elmquist, head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Indonesia.

“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,” he said

He said there might have been 40,000 deaths in the town of Meulaboh.