Tsunami Death Toll passes 60,000.
Desperate survivors foraged for coconuts or looted food on battered Sumatra island today as the number killed by Asia's earthquake and tsunami passed 60,000.
WHO, the UN health agency, warned that disease in the aftermath of the disaster could double the toll yet again as the world launches what could be its biggest disaster relief operation.
"There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," Dr David Nabarro, head of crisis operations for WHO, told reporters in Geneva.
The catastrophe spans five time zones, 12 countries, three civil wars and thousands of kilometres of ocean - and there are fears that help won't get to those who need it most quickly enough.
Millions of people whose homes were swept away or wrecked by raging walls of water are struggling to find shelter, water and food and locate loved ones.
The death toll was rising by the hour, with staggering figures feared because of the huge number of people still missing and the inability of relief teams to get to many areas, including dozens of isolated islands.
Exact figures were impossible to get because of the sheer scale of the catastrophe.
The death toll in Indonesia's Aceh province is estimated to be as high as 40,000, Vice President Yusuf Kalla told reporters today.
"The estimate to this day, those who died in Aceh, number more or less 30 to 40,000," Kalla said.
Indonesia's social affairs ministry earlier put the toll so far from the quake at 30,057, but officials have warned it was expected to increase as contact was made with isolated areas.
Sri Lanka listed almost 22,000 people dead, India 4,400 and Thailand 1,500. All expect their tolls to rise.
A total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania, the Seychelles and Kenya.
Aid groups struggled to mount what they described as the largest relief operation the world has ever seen, and to head off the threat of cholera and malaria epidemics that could break out where water supplies are polluted with bodies and debris.
Dr David Nabarro, head of crisis operations for the World Health Organisation, warned that disease could take as many lives as Sunday's devastation.
"The initial terror associated with the tsunamis and the earthquake itself may be dwarfed by the longer-term suffering of the affected communities," he told reporters at the UN agency's offices in Geneva.
Along India's southeastern coast, hospital teams stood by to help the injured.
But three days after the disaster struck, many spent most of their time tabulating the dead as ambulances hauled in more bodies.
"The enormity of the disaster is unbelievable," said Bekele Geleta, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in South-East Asia.
One of the most dramatic illustrations of nature's force came to light when reporters reached the scene of a Sri Lankan train that was swept into a marsh by a wall of water, killing at least 802.
Eight rust-coloured cars lay in deep pools of water in a ravaged palm grove, with torn-off wheels and baggage scattered among the twisted rails.
The train was called "Sea Queen".
Of the overall death toll so far of 59,186, Indonesia has suffered the biggest number of victims, with its Health Ministry reporting 27,174 dead while Sri Lanka reported around 19,000.
India's toll of 11,500 included at least 7,000 on one archipelago, the Andamans and Nicobar. On one island, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population.
Hundreds of others died in the Maldives, Burma and Malaysia. The arc of water struck as far as Somalia and Kenya. Fishing villages, ports and resorts were devastated, power and communications cut and homes destroyed. The United Nations said the cost of the damage will reach billions of dollars.
The tremor, the biggest in 40 years, tore a chasm in the sea bed which launched the tsunami, which appeared to be the deadliest in more than 200 years.
A tsunami at Krakatoa in 1883 killed 36,000 and one in the south China Sea in 1782 40,000, according to the National Geophysical Data Centre in the United States.
In northern Indonesia's remote Aceh region, closest to the epicentre, bodies littered the streets. About 1,000 people lay on a sports field where they were killed when the three-storey-high wall of water struck.
"My son is crying for his mother," said Bejkhajorn Saithong, 39, searching for his wife at a wrecked hotel on the beach. Body parts jutted from the wreckage.
"I think this is her," he said. "I recognise her hand, but I'm not sure."
At the Thai holiday resort of Phuket, foreign tourists pored over names on hospital lists and peered at 80 hospital photos of swollen, unidentified bodies.
"My father was not there," said German yacht skipper Jerzy Chojnowski, who was looking for his 83-year-old father, missing since the tsunami struck. "My father was not a good swimmer."
Many of the bodies were already decomposing in the heat, underlining the growing health risk.
Relief teams and rescuers flew into the region from around the globe to help in what the United Nations said will be the biggest and costliest relief effort in its history.
Gerhard Berz, a top risk researcher at Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, estimated the economic cost of the devastation at over $US13 billion ($16.97 billion).
More than 20 countries have pledged emergency aid worth more than $US60 million ($78.32 million). Several Asian nations have sent naval ships carrying supplies and doctors to devastated areas.
In Geneva, the WHO's Dr David Nabarro said it was vital to rush medicine and fresh water to the worst-hit countries to prevent further catastrophe.
"There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," Nabarro told a news conference.
There was a serious risk of an explosion of malaria and dengue fever, already endemic in South-East Asia, he said.
Around the ring of devastation, Sweden reported 1,500 citizens missing, the Czech Republic almost 400, Finland 200 and Italy and Germany 100.
Jan Egeland, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said:
"We cannot fathom the cost of these poor societies and the nameless fishermen and fishing villages ... that have just been wiped out. Hundreds of thousands of livelihoods have gone."
Around Sri Lanka's southern coasts about 1.5 million people -- or one in 12 of the population -- were homeless, many sheltering in Buddhist temples and schools.
In Aceh, Lieutenant-Colonel Budi Santoso said: "Many bodies are still lying on the streets. There just aren't enough body bags."
On the island of Chowra in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, rescuers found only 500 survivors from 1,500 residents. A hundred air force officers and their families vanished from one island base.
Authorities said at least 7,000 people were confirmed or presumed dead in the group of more than 550 islands.
