Rescue efforts wane

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A Sumatran fisherman was discovered barely alive under his beached boat Sunday — the first survivor found in three days, but with tens of thousands still missing in crushed seaside settlements and in the flotsam washing the shores of the Indian Ocean, rescuers turned full attention to getting food and water to the living.

Today, Indonesia increased its death toll from last week's devastating earthquake and tsunamis to 94,081, raising the total number of people reported killed in 11 countries to nearly 140,000. Aid agencies have said the death toll was expected to hit 150,000. Five million people are homeless.

The discovery of 24-year-old Tengku Sofyan, who could barely speak and was badly dehydrated, came as relief efforts accelerated across the southern Asian destruction zone. He was sent to a hospital in Banda Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, the hardest hit region where an estimated 100,000 died when the most powerful earthquake in four decades ripped a fault line beneath the sea bed 100 miles off shore. The tsunami it spawned turned the world upside down for people living as far away as Somalia, 3,000 miles away on the east coast of Africa.

With rescue teams focused on Sumatra, U.S. military helicopters flew in biscuits, energy drinks and instant noodles to hungry, homeless villagers. The operation was part of a $2 billion global relief effort announced as international donors began assembling for a conference on rebuilding in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday.

As the relief efforts drove deeper into the sprawling disaster zone, American pilots had some of the first glimpses of wrecked Sumatran coastal villages such as Kuede Teunom, where survivors in tattered clothing grabbed at bottles of water dropped from helicopters.

Officials said 8,000 of Keude Teunom's 18,000 residents were killed in the disaster.

Reporters were given a look at the wiped-out village of Malacca, on the Indian island of Car Nicobar, where the only structure still standing was a statue of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. About 4,000 people are missing on the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Indian territory off the coast of Malaysia.

In New York, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said more aid was getting to survivors, but there were still problems helping those in Indonesia.

"We are seeing that the assistance is becoming increasingly effective in all of the countries," he told reporters. "Overall I am more optimistic today than I was yesterday that we the global community will be able to face up to this enormous challenge."