Saturday, January 08, 2005
January 9, 2005
Deadly Leak Underscores Concerns About Rail SafetyBy WALT BOGDANICHand CHRISTOPHER DREW
Ten months ago, government safety officials warned that more than half of the nation's 60,000 pressurized rail tank cars did not meet industry standards, and they raised questions about the safety of the rest of the fleet as well.
Their worry, that the steel tanks could rupture too easily in an accident, proved prophetic.
On Thursday, a derailment in South Carolina caused a catastrophic release of chlorine: 8 people died, 58 were hospitalized and hundreds more sought treatment. Thousands of people within a mile of the accident were driven from their homes.
And last summer, a derailment in Texas caused a steel tank car to break open, spewing clouds of chlorine gas that killed three people.
The exact causes of the accidents are still under investigation. But the devastation they have wrought shows why tank cars have become an increasing concern not just to safety investigators but also to domestic security officials worried that terrorists could turn tank cars into lethal weapons.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned in 2002 that Al Qaeda might be planning to attack trains in the United States, possibly causing derailments or blowing up tank cars laden with hazardous materials. And after bombings on commuter trains killed 191 people in Spain last March, security officials secretly persuaded one railroad to reroute toxic shipments that had routinely passed within four blocks of the Capitol in Washington, government officials said.
Federal authorities have been working with railroads and the chemical industry to improve security for trains. But there is still much to be done, particularly given the structural weaknesses of many tank cars, current and former federal officials say. George Gavalla, a former associate administrator for safety at the Federal Railroad Administration, said railroads had promised to beef up security when there was a credible terrorist threat.
So when such a threat arose a year ago in Las Vegas, Mr. Gavalla said, he sent an inspector there on New Year's Eve to assess the security measures in place. Those measures, he said, were virtually nonexistent.
When the inspector visited a rail yard 13 miles from the airport, he found no one watching over six tank cars with markings indicating that they might contain chlorine gas, according to a memorandum that he wrote about his visit. Two hours later, he visited another rail yard with four tank cars possibly carrying poisonous gas and they, too, were unguarded, the memorandum stated.
Finally, Mr. Gavalla said, the inspector visited a rail yard near several hotels. "None of the train crew members challenged me or even talked to me," the inspector wrote. A spokesman for the railroad administration declined to comment.
Railroad officials have said they have taken many steps to improve security. Nancy L. Wilson, a senior vice president of the Association of American Railroads, said in a statement about the same time as the inspection that the railroads had "tightened security and intensified inspections across their systems." Police forces employed by the major railroads, Ms. Wilson said, had "put into place more than 50 countermeasures to ensure the security of the industry."
Just how ruptured tank cars can endanger a community was underscored three years ago when a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train derailed just outside Minot, N.D. Five tank cars carrying a liquefied type of ammonia gas broke open, releasing toxic fumes that killed one resident and injured more than 300.
The National Transportation Safety Board, in a report on the accident released last year, said the steel shells on the five ruptured tank cars had become brittle, causing a "catastrophic fracture" that released clouds of toxic vapors. Those cars, the safety board found, were built before 1989 using steel that did not - as it does now - undergo a special heat treatment to make it stronger and less brittle. Tank cars built after 1989 use this specially treated steel.
The safety board warned that of the 60,000 pressurized tank cars in operation, more than half were older cars that were not built according to current industry standards, leaving them susceptible to rupture. And because these cars may remain in service for up to 50 years, some older ones could still be hauling hazardous materials until 2039.
Among the hazardous materials carried by the tank cars are liquefied ammonia, chlorine, propane and vinyl chloride. In most cases, chemical or leasing companies own the cars, not the railroads.
"We are required to carry this stuff," said Kathryn Blackwell, a spokeswoman for Union Pacific, the nation's biggest railroad. "We'd rather not in many cases, but this is one of the things we would like chemical companies to be responsible for."
Although the rail industry now requires that tank shells be made with the special, heat-treated steel, the safety board said that treatment alone "does not guarantee" enough protection against impact. Other manufacturing techniques should also be explored, the board said, but it cautioned that the industry and the railroad administration "have not established adequate testing standards to measure the impact resistance for steels and other materials used in the construction of pressure tank cars."
Steven W. Kulm, a spokesman for the railroad administration, said, "We have a long history of activities and actions that have improved the integrity of tank car construction." Mr. Kulm said that since 1994 accidents "have been few in number," though even one death, he added, was too many. "Tank cars are more crashworthy and puncture resistant in train derailments today than ever before," he said.
In the Texas crash last summer, the tank car that ruptured and released poisonous gas was made before 1989, though federal investigators have not yet concluded whether brittle steel played a role in that accident. The South Carolina crash involved the rupture of a newer tank car manufactured in 1993, said Richard Koch, vice president for public affairs at the Olin Corporation, a diversified manufacturing company that owned the car.
Mr. Koch said that tanker had been recertified to carry hazardous materials last June.
Railroad and chemical executives formed a task force to study the safety board recommendations, and it has been conducting crash tests on about a dozen tank cars.
Michael E. Lyden, the vice president for storage and transport at the Chlorine Institute, a trade group in Arlington, Va., said the leading companies were "working in a cooperative manner to improve the pressure vessels."
Industry officials said the group could recommend the retirement of cars made by certain manufacturers or suggest that some types of cars carry less hazardous materials.
Security experts said the recent accidents also illustrated the harm that terrorists could cause if they attacked trains carrying highly toxic substances. Some cars are also used to store chemicals at water-treatment, sewage and industrial plants.
"Whether it's an accident or Al Qaeda, these hazardous materials are very vulnerable and pose a great risk to densely populated areas," said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has pushed for greater rail security.
The danger of such an attack has been a major concern since the Sept. 11 strikes. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, freight railroads placed a 72-hour moratorium on carrying some hazardous chemicals as a precaution against retaliatory strikes.
In warning in 2002 about possible attacks, the F.B.I. said: "Recently captured Al Qaeda photographs of U.S. railroad engines, cars and crossings heightens the intelligence community's concern of this threat."
The fears have been most evident among local officials in Washington, some of whom have pushed for a year to ban toxic rail shipments though the capital. An expert from the Naval Research Laboratory testified last January that more than 100,000 people could be at risk of death or injury if one of the tank cars exploded there.
Federal and railroad officials have opposed a ban, saying that rerouting the shipments could lengthen transits and upset other communities.
But late last year, officials from the Department of Homeland Security told congressmen that after the Madrid bombings they had quietly asked the CSX Corporation, a leading railroad, to shift some of the shipments away from Washington, Mr. Markey said.
The officials also said they were working on a $6 million security plan that would increase surveillance of 42 miles of railroad track in the Washington area.
The District of Columbia Council rejected the proposal for a ban last November. But Kathy Patterson, a District of Columbia councilwoman, said in an interview that last week's accident in South Carolina should increase the chances that the Council would approve the ban when it reconsidered the matter early next month.
"Frankly, the horrific news out of South Carolina underscores that these really are nasty chemicals," Ms. Patterson said, "and that could make a difference with my colleagues, especially given the extent that we are vulnerable here."
Since last August, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation have been looking at whether to require greater security for toxic rail shipments nationwide. The agencies have said they are considering several possible measures, including better identification and tracking of the most toxic substances and "strengthened tank car integrity."
But Rick Hind, a toxics specialist at Greenpeace, the environmental group, said that the best answer would be for industrial plants to substitute less toxic substances for chlorine and other hazardous materials.
Safer technologies have emerged in some areas, Mr. Hind said, and switching to them would reduce the sense that the plants and trains are "a target-rich environment."
Jenny Nordberg contributed reporting for this article.
Deadly Leak Underscores Concerns About Rail SafetyBy WALT BOGDANICHand CHRISTOPHER DREW
Ten months ago, government safety officials warned that more than half of the nation's 60,000 pressurized rail tank cars did not meet industry standards, and they raised questions about the safety of the rest of the fleet as well.
Their worry, that the steel tanks could rupture too easily in an accident, proved prophetic.
On Thursday, a derailment in South Carolina caused a catastrophic release of chlorine: 8 people died, 58 were hospitalized and hundreds more sought treatment. Thousands of people within a mile of the accident were driven from their homes.
And last summer, a derailment in Texas caused a steel tank car to break open, spewing clouds of chlorine gas that killed three people.
The exact causes of the accidents are still under investigation. But the devastation they have wrought shows why tank cars have become an increasing concern not just to safety investigators but also to domestic security officials worried that terrorists could turn tank cars into lethal weapons.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned in 2002 that Al Qaeda might be planning to attack trains in the United States, possibly causing derailments or blowing up tank cars laden with hazardous materials. And after bombings on commuter trains killed 191 people in Spain last March, security officials secretly persuaded one railroad to reroute toxic shipments that had routinely passed within four blocks of the Capitol in Washington, government officials said.
Federal authorities have been working with railroads and the chemical industry to improve security for trains. But there is still much to be done, particularly given the structural weaknesses of many tank cars, current and former federal officials say. George Gavalla, a former associate administrator for safety at the Federal Railroad Administration, said railroads had promised to beef up security when there was a credible terrorist threat.
So when such a threat arose a year ago in Las Vegas, Mr. Gavalla said, he sent an inspector there on New Year's Eve to assess the security measures in place. Those measures, he said, were virtually nonexistent.
When the inspector visited a rail yard 13 miles from the airport, he found no one watching over six tank cars with markings indicating that they might contain chlorine gas, according to a memorandum that he wrote about his visit. Two hours later, he visited another rail yard with four tank cars possibly carrying poisonous gas and they, too, were unguarded, the memorandum stated.
Finally, Mr. Gavalla said, the inspector visited a rail yard near several hotels. "None of the train crew members challenged me or even talked to me," the inspector wrote. A spokesman for the railroad administration declined to comment.
Railroad officials have said they have taken many steps to improve security. Nancy L. Wilson, a senior vice president of the Association of American Railroads, said in a statement about the same time as the inspection that the railroads had "tightened security and intensified inspections across their systems." Police forces employed by the major railroads, Ms. Wilson said, had "put into place more than 50 countermeasures to ensure the security of the industry."
Just how ruptured tank cars can endanger a community was underscored three years ago when a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train derailed just outside Minot, N.D. Five tank cars carrying a liquefied type of ammonia gas broke open, releasing toxic fumes that killed one resident and injured more than 300.
The National Transportation Safety Board, in a report on the accident released last year, said the steel shells on the five ruptured tank cars had become brittle, causing a "catastrophic fracture" that released clouds of toxic vapors. Those cars, the safety board found, were built before 1989 using steel that did not - as it does now - undergo a special heat treatment to make it stronger and less brittle. Tank cars built after 1989 use this specially treated steel.
The safety board warned that of the 60,000 pressurized tank cars in operation, more than half were older cars that were not built according to current industry standards, leaving them susceptible to rupture. And because these cars may remain in service for up to 50 years, some older ones could still be hauling hazardous materials until 2039.
Among the hazardous materials carried by the tank cars are liquefied ammonia, chlorine, propane and vinyl chloride. In most cases, chemical or leasing companies own the cars, not the railroads.
"We are required to carry this stuff," said Kathryn Blackwell, a spokeswoman for Union Pacific, the nation's biggest railroad. "We'd rather not in many cases, but this is one of the things we would like chemical companies to be responsible for."
Although the rail industry now requires that tank shells be made with the special, heat-treated steel, the safety board said that treatment alone "does not guarantee" enough protection against impact. Other manufacturing techniques should also be explored, the board said, but it cautioned that the industry and the railroad administration "have not established adequate testing standards to measure the impact resistance for steels and other materials used in the construction of pressure tank cars."
Steven W. Kulm, a spokesman for the railroad administration, said, "We have a long history of activities and actions that have improved the integrity of tank car construction." Mr. Kulm said that since 1994 accidents "have been few in number," though even one death, he added, was too many. "Tank cars are more crashworthy and puncture resistant in train derailments today than ever before," he said.
In the Texas crash last summer, the tank car that ruptured and released poisonous gas was made before 1989, though federal investigators have not yet concluded whether brittle steel played a role in that accident. The South Carolina crash involved the rupture of a newer tank car manufactured in 1993, said Richard Koch, vice president for public affairs at the Olin Corporation, a diversified manufacturing company that owned the car.
Mr. Koch said that tanker had been recertified to carry hazardous materials last June.
Railroad and chemical executives formed a task force to study the safety board recommendations, and it has been conducting crash tests on about a dozen tank cars.
Michael E. Lyden, the vice president for storage and transport at the Chlorine Institute, a trade group in Arlington, Va., said the leading companies were "working in a cooperative manner to improve the pressure vessels."
Industry officials said the group could recommend the retirement of cars made by certain manufacturers or suggest that some types of cars carry less hazardous materials.
Security experts said the recent accidents also illustrated the harm that terrorists could cause if they attacked trains carrying highly toxic substances. Some cars are also used to store chemicals at water-treatment, sewage and industrial plants.
"Whether it's an accident or Al Qaeda, these hazardous materials are very vulnerable and pose a great risk to densely populated areas," said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has pushed for greater rail security.
The danger of such an attack has been a major concern since the Sept. 11 strikes. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, freight railroads placed a 72-hour moratorium on carrying some hazardous chemicals as a precaution against retaliatory strikes.
In warning in 2002 about possible attacks, the F.B.I. said: "Recently captured Al Qaeda photographs of U.S. railroad engines, cars and crossings heightens the intelligence community's concern of this threat."
The fears have been most evident among local officials in Washington, some of whom have pushed for a year to ban toxic rail shipments though the capital. An expert from the Naval Research Laboratory testified last January that more than 100,000 people could be at risk of death or injury if one of the tank cars exploded there.
Federal and railroad officials have opposed a ban, saying that rerouting the shipments could lengthen transits and upset other communities.
But late last year, officials from the Department of Homeland Security told congressmen that after the Madrid bombings they had quietly asked the CSX Corporation, a leading railroad, to shift some of the shipments away from Washington, Mr. Markey said.
The officials also said they were working on a $6 million security plan that would increase surveillance of 42 miles of railroad track in the Washington area.
The District of Columbia Council rejected the proposal for a ban last November. But Kathy Patterson, a District of Columbia councilwoman, said in an interview that last week's accident in South Carolina should increase the chances that the Council would approve the ban when it reconsidered the matter early next month.
"Frankly, the horrific news out of South Carolina underscores that these really are nasty chemicals," Ms. Patterson said, "and that could make a difference with my colleagues, especially given the extent that we are vulnerable here."
Since last August, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation have been looking at whether to require greater security for toxic rail shipments nationwide. The agencies have said they are considering several possible measures, including better identification and tracking of the most toxic substances and "strengthened tank car integrity."
But Rick Hind, a toxics specialist at Greenpeace, the environmental group, said that the best answer would be for industrial plants to substitute less toxic substances for chlorine and other hazardous materials.
Safer technologies have emerged in some areas, Mr. Hind said, and switching to them would reduce the sense that the plants and trains are "a target-rich environment."
Jenny Nordberg contributed reporting for this article.
today's papersDetain. Detain.By David SarnoPosted Saturday, Jan. 8, 2005, at 3:14 AM PT
The New York Times leads with the hundreds of new foreign fighters detained in recent raids in Iraq—prisoners the Bush administration says will not be protected by the Geneva Conventions. According to a Pentagon official, more than 325 non-Iraqi fighters are being held there, up from 140 on Nov. 7, before the U.S. invaded Fallujah. The Washington Post leads with the $337 million U.S. charities have raised for tsunami relief so far—a figure expected to swell well past the $350 million pledged by the U.S. government. In its top non-local story, the Los Angeles Times reports on the mass burials that have become necessary in parts of Indonesia—there are too few people available to bury the tens of thousands of bodies individually. In most cases, authorities do not have the resources to identify the bodies before they are buried, meaning it will be nearly impossible for families to know where their lost relatives are located.
Like the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the new Iraq detainees are suspected by the Bush administration of having ties to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups, and have been deemed "unlawful combatants," meaning they can be "transferred out of the country for indefinite detention elsewhere," including to secret CIA detention centers. The article notes that indefinite detention has become an increasingly prickly legal problem, since no one in the administration can say when the war on terror might end. Most of the 550 prisoners at Guantanamo "are no longer seen as worthy of regular interrogation," according to one senior official, but they will not be released because the Defense Department believes they "continue to pose a threat to the United States."
With so much money flowing into charities (largely through the Internet, as Slate's David Wallace-Wells explained last week), worries about tsunami fund-raising are growing. Some organizers are concerned that the tsunami will siphon funds from important domestic causes or that it will distract donors from less spectacular disasters like famine and war. Watchdog groups, meanwhile, are making sure that charities are actually spending their donation money on tsunami relief and not using it to buy new computers and stuff. As the LAT explains inside, a few charities, like Doctors Without Borders, have stayed honest by declared that they've got all they need for their tsunami effort, and that future donations will be used where most needed.
The WP also fronts the devastation and mass burials in Meulaboh, Indonesia (strangely, the article opens with the exact same image as the LAT piece).
And the NYT fronts the stories of several American families who still haven't heard from their relatives. According to the article, about 20 Americans are still missing or presumed dead from the disaster.
All three papers front the Bush administration's controversial $240,000 contract with conservative TV personality Armstrong Williams, who agreed to promote Bush's education policies on the air and to other black media figures. Williams has a syndicated TV show and newspaper column and appears frequently on CNN, NBC, and elsewhere. When the story became public, he called his failure to disclose the paid arrangement "an error in judgment." Congressional Democrats have begun to complain about what they see as a Bush pattern of "bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies." The LAT notes: "In two cases last year, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' nonpartisan investigative arm, declared that departments under Bush had engaged in illegal "covert propaganda."
The NYT and LAT front, and the WP stuffs, the indictment of 79-year-old Mississippi Klansman Edgar Ray Killen for the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964, 41 years ago. Activists have long rallied for the arrest of Killen and the other men allegedly involved in the murders, eight of whom are still living, but Killen was the only one indicted. At a hearing on Friday, he pleaded not guilty to all three charges.
The WP is the only paper to front the U.S. economy's addition of 2.2 million jobs in 2004, the first annual payroll gain since the recession began in 2001. The unemployment rate also dropped to 5.4 percent from 5.7 percent in December 2003, though unemployment among factory workers has risen in the same period, as has the jobless rate among blacks.
The NYT fronts a look at the apparent weakening of the once-powerful Palestinian group Hamas. In the wake of Yasser Arafat's death, popular sentiment among Palestinians has cooled to Hamas' violent approach—including the necessary destruction of Israel—and warmed to a more mainstream path to peace and mutual statehood. Hamas is boycotting Sunday's presidential election in Palestine, hoping a low turnout will rob the winner of legitimacy and prove the group still has a strong following.
Supernova!: After seven years as the highest profile couple in Hollywood, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt officially separated Friday, calling their impending divorce "the result of much thoughtful consideration," but pledging continued mutual "love and admiration." Thankfully, the couple's his-and-her thrones may not stay empty long: People Magazine is reporting that Cameron Diaz, girlfriend of pop singer Justin Timberlake, was recently spotted wearing a "sparkling diamond on her ring finger."David Sarno is a writer in Iowa City.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2112056/
The New York Times leads with the hundreds of new foreign fighters detained in recent raids in Iraq—prisoners the Bush administration says will not be protected by the Geneva Conventions. According to a Pentagon official, more than 325 non-Iraqi fighters are being held there, up from 140 on Nov. 7, before the U.S. invaded Fallujah. The Washington Post leads with the $337 million U.S. charities have raised for tsunami relief so far—a figure expected to swell well past the $350 million pledged by the U.S. government. In its top non-local story, the Los Angeles Times reports on the mass burials that have become necessary in parts of Indonesia—there are too few people available to bury the tens of thousands of bodies individually. In most cases, authorities do not have the resources to identify the bodies before they are buried, meaning it will be nearly impossible for families to know where their lost relatives are located.
Like the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the new Iraq detainees are suspected by the Bush administration of having ties to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups, and have been deemed "unlawful combatants," meaning they can be "transferred out of the country for indefinite detention elsewhere," including to secret CIA detention centers. The article notes that indefinite detention has become an increasingly prickly legal problem, since no one in the administration can say when the war on terror might end. Most of the 550 prisoners at Guantanamo "are no longer seen as worthy of regular interrogation," according to one senior official, but they will not be released because the Defense Department believes they "continue to pose a threat to the United States."
With so much money flowing into charities (largely through the Internet, as Slate's David Wallace-Wells explained last week), worries about tsunami fund-raising are growing. Some organizers are concerned that the tsunami will siphon funds from important domestic causes or that it will distract donors from less spectacular disasters like famine and war. Watchdog groups, meanwhile, are making sure that charities are actually spending their donation money on tsunami relief and not using it to buy new computers and stuff. As the LAT explains inside, a few charities, like Doctors Without Borders, have stayed honest by declared that they've got all they need for their tsunami effort, and that future donations will be used where most needed.
The WP also fronts the devastation and mass burials in Meulaboh, Indonesia (strangely, the article opens with the exact same image as the LAT piece).
And the NYT fronts the stories of several American families who still haven't heard from their relatives. According to the article, about 20 Americans are still missing or presumed dead from the disaster.
All three papers front the Bush administration's controversial $240,000 contract with conservative TV personality Armstrong Williams, who agreed to promote Bush's education policies on the air and to other black media figures. Williams has a syndicated TV show and newspaper column and appears frequently on CNN, NBC, and elsewhere. When the story became public, he called his failure to disclose the paid arrangement "an error in judgment." Congressional Democrats have begun to complain about what they see as a Bush pattern of "bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies." The LAT notes: "In two cases last year, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' nonpartisan investigative arm, declared that departments under Bush had engaged in illegal "covert propaganda."
The NYT and LAT front, and the WP stuffs, the indictment of 79-year-old Mississippi Klansman Edgar Ray Killen for the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964, 41 years ago. Activists have long rallied for the arrest of Killen and the other men allegedly involved in the murders, eight of whom are still living, but Killen was the only one indicted. At a hearing on Friday, he pleaded not guilty to all three charges.
The WP is the only paper to front the U.S. economy's addition of 2.2 million jobs in 2004, the first annual payroll gain since the recession began in 2001. The unemployment rate also dropped to 5.4 percent from 5.7 percent in December 2003, though unemployment among factory workers has risen in the same period, as has the jobless rate among blacks.
The NYT fronts a look at the apparent weakening of the once-powerful Palestinian group Hamas. In the wake of Yasser Arafat's death, popular sentiment among Palestinians has cooled to Hamas' violent approach—including the necessary destruction of Israel—and warmed to a more mainstream path to peace and mutual statehood. Hamas is boycotting Sunday's presidential election in Palestine, hoping a low turnout will rob the winner of legitimacy and prove the group still has a strong following.
Supernova!: After seven years as the highest profile couple in Hollywood, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt officially separated Friday, calling their impending divorce "the result of much thoughtful consideration," but pledging continued mutual "love and admiration." Thankfully, the couple's his-and-her thrones may not stay empty long: People Magazine is reporting that Cameron Diaz, girlfriend of pop singer Justin Timberlake, was recently spotted wearing a "sparkling diamond on her ring finger."David Sarno is a writer in Iowa City.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2112056/
Tsunami deaths top 150,000
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Two weeks after a tsunami slammed into coastlines around the Indian Ocean, thousands of bodies were still being pulled out of the mud in remote villages, as the official death toll from the catastrophe rose above 150,000.
Volunteers place dry ice on corpses in a mass grave at Wat Bang Muang, Thailand.
By David Longstreath, AP
In a rare positive note, the World Health Organization said no major disease outbreaks have been reported in the crowded camps where millions have sought refuge after losing everything.
"It is normal after a catastrophe like this nature to have some disease, but they are under control," WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook said in Sri Lanka. The U.N. agency has warned that disease could put as many as 150,000 survivors "at extreme risk" — doubling the disaster's toll.
In Sri Lanka on Saturday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan toured the coastal city of Hambantota, where hundreds of shoppers at an outdoor market were swept to their deaths when the massive waves hit on Dec. 26. The U.N. chief told reporters he was formulating ideas on how to respond to the disaster.
Sir Lanka, where more than 30,000 people were killed and 800,000 are homeless, was the second stop on Annan's tour of nations afflicted by the worst natural calamity in modern times.
"I have never seen such utter destruction mile after mile," he said after a helicopter flight Friday over the western coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island. "You wonder where are the people? What has happened to them?"
Indonesia on Saturday raised its estimated death toll by more than 2,700 to 104,055, pushing the overall count to 150,578. Indonesia's toll has risen sharply in recent days as teams of rescuers recover bodies from previously inaccessible regions, many on the western coast of northern Sumatra, close to the epicenter of the magnitude-9.0 quake.
Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs also raised its number of those left homeless by more than 100,000 to 655,000.
The toll of those missing was on the rise as well: close to 5,000 in Sri Lanka and 10,000 in Indonesia. Officials said some people trying to find loved ones were only now reporting them as missing.
"First the people tried to find them among the dead, then went around the hospitals. Now they are coming to us," said K.G. Wijesiri at Sri Lanka's National Disaster Management Center.
World governments, led by Australia and Germany, have pledged nearly $4 billion in aid — the biggest ever relief package. The world's richest nations have also agreed that debt repayments for tsunami-devastated countries should be frozen, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said. The seven leading industrial nations, or G-7, will seek agreement from all creditors at the next meeting of the Paris Club on Wednesday.
Coordinating the aid was becoming a challenge, with some humanitarian groups in Indonesia's hard-hit Aceh province saying that the stream of dignitaries flying into the tiny airport was hampering aid deliveries.
"It slows things down," said Maj. Murad Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan's Tsunami Relief Task Force. A 220-person team of Pakistani military doctors and civilian engineers was rerouted to the east Sumatran city of Medan, where they hired trucks to make the 15-hour drive to Banda Aceh — only to be turned back by the Indonesian army.
"In Medan we were hearing that (Secretary of State) Colin Powell was there and that's why we couldn't get here," Khan said.
Singapore, for its part, flew a mobile air traffic control tower to Banda Aceh's airport to help speed up deliveries of emergency supplies.
Around the devastated Indonesian town of Lhok Nga, convoys of trucks were dumping debris and rubble from the town in a previously upscale neighborhood and soldiers continued to pick through the wreckage hunting for bodies. An elephant also was helping move the debris.
Rice farmer Mohamed Amin, 45, was walking along the road with his wife and one of his daughters with sacks of rice and noodles on their heads — after traveling for three days on foot from their shattered village to pick up food. They said there was nowhere for relief helicopters to land in their village.
Near the road a huge barge, about the size of a football field, was lying on its side 500 feet from the coast. Close to it were tugs that apparently were pulling it when the wave struck.
On the road along the Sumatran coast, dozens of Indonesian soldiers were heading to a military base amid fears that Aceh rebels could get their hands on weapons left there as soldiers fled from the tsunami. Rebels have been fighting since 1976 for an independent homeland in Aceh, leaving thousands dead.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Two weeks after a tsunami slammed into coastlines around the Indian Ocean, thousands of bodies were still being pulled out of the mud in remote villages, as the official death toll from the catastrophe rose above 150,000.
Volunteers place dry ice on corpses in a mass grave at Wat Bang Muang, Thailand.
By David Longstreath, AP
In a rare positive note, the World Health Organization said no major disease outbreaks have been reported in the crowded camps where millions have sought refuge after losing everything.
"It is normal after a catastrophe like this nature to have some disease, but they are under control," WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook said in Sri Lanka. The U.N. agency has warned that disease could put as many as 150,000 survivors "at extreme risk" — doubling the disaster's toll.
In Sri Lanka on Saturday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan toured the coastal city of Hambantota, where hundreds of shoppers at an outdoor market were swept to their deaths when the massive waves hit on Dec. 26. The U.N. chief told reporters he was formulating ideas on how to respond to the disaster.
Sir Lanka, where more than 30,000 people were killed and 800,000 are homeless, was the second stop on Annan's tour of nations afflicted by the worst natural calamity in modern times.
"I have never seen such utter destruction mile after mile," he said after a helicopter flight Friday over the western coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island. "You wonder where are the people? What has happened to them?"
Indonesia on Saturday raised its estimated death toll by more than 2,700 to 104,055, pushing the overall count to 150,578. Indonesia's toll has risen sharply in recent days as teams of rescuers recover bodies from previously inaccessible regions, many on the western coast of northern Sumatra, close to the epicenter of the magnitude-9.0 quake.
Indonesia's Ministry of Social Affairs also raised its number of those left homeless by more than 100,000 to 655,000.
The toll of those missing was on the rise as well: close to 5,000 in Sri Lanka and 10,000 in Indonesia. Officials said some people trying to find loved ones were only now reporting them as missing.
"First the people tried to find them among the dead, then went around the hospitals. Now they are coming to us," said K.G. Wijesiri at Sri Lanka's National Disaster Management Center.
World governments, led by Australia and Germany, have pledged nearly $4 billion in aid — the biggest ever relief package. The world's richest nations have also agreed that debt repayments for tsunami-devastated countries should be frozen, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said. The seven leading industrial nations, or G-7, will seek agreement from all creditors at the next meeting of the Paris Club on Wednesday.
Coordinating the aid was becoming a challenge, with some humanitarian groups in Indonesia's hard-hit Aceh province saying that the stream of dignitaries flying into the tiny airport was hampering aid deliveries.
"It slows things down," said Maj. Murad Khan, a spokesman for Pakistan's Tsunami Relief Task Force. A 220-person team of Pakistani military doctors and civilian engineers was rerouted to the east Sumatran city of Medan, where they hired trucks to make the 15-hour drive to Banda Aceh — only to be turned back by the Indonesian army.
"In Medan we were hearing that (Secretary of State) Colin Powell was there and that's why we couldn't get here," Khan said.
Singapore, for its part, flew a mobile air traffic control tower to Banda Aceh's airport to help speed up deliveries of emergency supplies.
Around the devastated Indonesian town of Lhok Nga, convoys of trucks were dumping debris and rubble from the town in a previously upscale neighborhood and soldiers continued to pick through the wreckage hunting for bodies. An elephant also was helping move the debris.
Rice farmer Mohamed Amin, 45, was walking along the road with his wife and one of his daughters with sacks of rice and noodles on their heads — after traveling for three days on foot from their shattered village to pick up food. They said there was nowhere for relief helicopters to land in their village.
Near the road a huge barge, about the size of a football field, was lying on its side 500 feet from the coast. Close to it were tugs that apparently were pulling it when the wave struck.
On the road along the Sumatran coast, dozens of Indonesian soldiers were heading to a military base amid fears that Aceh rebels could get their hands on weapons left there as soldiers fled from the tsunami. Rebels have been fighting since 1976 for an independent homeland in Aceh, leaving thousands dead.
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