Indonesia tsunami toll rises by 5,000

Indonesia’s tsunami death toll rose today by about 5,000 as workers continued burying victims in Aceh province as tourism chiefs gathered to discuss how to bring travellers back to ravaged Asian beaches.

Just over five weeks after the tsunami disaster, the overall toll stood between 156,000 and 178,000 across 11 nations, with an estimated 26,500 to 142,000 missing, most of whom are presumed dead.

The range in death estimates reflects differing figures released by separate agencies in worst-hit Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

There has been optimism that the immensity of the disaster in Indonesia’s Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island will spur the government and separatist rebels there to end a long-running conflict and focus on rebuilding.

Talks between them broke off inconclusively over the weekend in Helsinki, Finland.

But the two sides agreed to resume talks on February 21 and the guerrillas were ready to consider setting aside their demand for secession if Indonesia agreed to hold an independence referendum within five to 10 years, rebel commander Teungku Adam said in north Aceh.

Indonesian communications minister Sofyan Djalil described the weekend talks as “quite hopeful”.

Both the rebels, who have been fighting for an independent homeland in Aceh since 1976, and government forces declared an informal ceasefire after the tsunami. But the promises apparently have been ignored, with the military saying it has killed more than 200 suspected rebels since December 26.

Indonesia’s National Disaster Relief Co-ordinating Board said today the death toll rose by 5,085 – from 103,025 to 108,110 – because additional bodies were found and buried. The Health Ministry is expected to update its numbers in line with the disaster relief board’s later in the day.

A third Indonesian agency has a higher death count, of 123,198.

Meanwhile, world tourism officials gathered on Thailand’s Phuket island, along a coast where thousands of victims were washed away by the tsunami. On the agenda were ways of bringing visitors and their needed cash to the region’s resorts.