Bush hikes relief to $350 million

Indonesia's health minister said the estimate of 80,000 deaths in Aceh province on westernmost Sumatra island could rise to 100,000. Officials in Indonesia and in Sri Lanka, where about 28,000 people were believed killed, said the true death toll probably would never be known. India, with 7,763 confirmed deaths, and Thailand, with 4,560 dead, also reported that thousands of people were still missing.

Deseret Morning News graphic Tsunami's mounting toll Requires Adobe Acrobat.

"Not since the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 have we been hit so hard by the devastating wrath of nature," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia said in a grief-stricken New Year's Eve speech, referring to the volcanic eruption and tsunami that killed 36,000. "We mourn, we cry, and our hearts weep witnessing thousands of those killed left rigid in the streets."

Indonesia's minister of state-owned enterprises, Sugiharto, visited the west coast of Sumatra by military helicopter Friday and reported staggering destruction in the region's two largest cities, Meulabohand Calang, and the surrounding coastal communities. He said the official tally of 9,200 people killed in the two main western districts was a vast understatement. He reported that at least 80 percent of central Meulaboh had been leveled and that 90 percent of Calang, to the north, had been leveled. The region had a population of about 100,000.

But Sugiharto said that small vendor markets had reopened in Meulaboh and that some food was available. The Indonesian military had dispatched five trucks with provisions on a 16-hour journey over the mountains from a neighboring province to Meulaboh. Two navy vessels with essential supplies were also bound for the city.