Asia Death,Toll at 59,000

Asia Disaster Yields Its Dead, Toll at 59,000
The sea and wreckage of coastal towns around the Indian Ocean yielded up tens of thousands of bodies on Tuesday, pushing the toll from Sunday's tsunami close to 60,000.
The apocalyptic destruction caused by the ocean surge dwarfed the efforts of governments and relief agencies as they recovered countless corpses while trying to treat survivors and take care of millions of homeless, increasingly threatened by disease amid the rotting remains. Thousands more were injured.
The United Nations launched what it called an unprecedented relief effort to assist nations hit by a devastating tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
In a further threat to the region, disease could kill as many people as those killed by the wall of water, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official said.
While grieving families in wrecked coastal towns and resorts buried their loved ones, others, including many foreign tourists, searched for friends and relatives still missing.
"Why did you do this to us, God?" wailed an old woman in a devastated fishing village in southern India's Tamil Nadu state. "What did we do to upset you? This is worse than death."