Death toll from tsunami disaster surpasses 117,000

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — The death toll from last weekend's earthquake-tsunami catastrophe rose to more than 117,000 Thursday as Indonesia uncovered more and more dead from ravaged Sumatra island, where pilots dropped food to remote villages still unreachable by rescue workers. A false alarm that new killer waves were about to hit sparked panic in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Up to 5 million people around the tsunami-struck Indian Ocean region do not have access to the basics they need to stay alive — clean water, shelter, food, sanitation and health care, the U.N. World Health Organization said, saying it needed $40 million dollars to get those supplies to victims.

The increase in the death toll came after Indonesia reported nearly 28,000 newly confirmed dead in Sumatra, which was closest to the epicenter of last weekend's massive earthquake and was overwhelmed by the tsunami that followed. Some 60 percent of Banda Aceh, the main city in northern Sumatra was destroyed, the U.N. children's agency estimated, and 115 miles of the island's northwest coast — lined with villages — was inundated.

Another zone where officials have hardly begun to get a sense of the human cost was India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, just northwest of Sumatra, where entire villages were wiped out. With only 400 bodies found so far, the region's administrator said Thursday that 10,000 people were missing.

Survivors who reached the archipelago's main city, Port Blair, said they had not eaten for two days and people had to contend with hungry crocodiles that were washed ashore. "Two or three crocodiles started coming toward us," said Sister Charity, a 32-year-old nun, decribing her rescue from a small island by the navy. "The navy officers had to fire their revolvers to ward off the crocodiles to protect us."

Government have so far donated some $500 million for victims of the disaster, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, adding that he was "satisfied" by the response.

Indonesia, with around 80,000 dead, was the worst hit, followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. The total across 11 nations in southern Asia and East Africa was likely to rise, with thousands still missing and fears that disease could bring a new wave of deaths.

Tens of thousands of residents fled coasts in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand after warnings that a new tsunami was about to strike after new aftershocks hit the Indian Ocean Thursday.

India issued a tsunami warning at midday, but then hours later its science minister, Kapil Sibal, went on television to announce the warning was incorrect and based on information received from a U.S. research firm.