BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters):THE DEATH toll in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster soared above 125,000 yesterday as millions scrambled for food and clean water and rumours of new waves sent many fleeing inland in panic.
Aid agencies warned many more, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, could die in epidemics if shattered communications and transport hampered what may prove history's biggest relief operation.
The World Bank offered $250 million in relief, bringing total international aid to nearly $500 million. Representatives of 18 U.N. agencies consulted and Secretary-General Kofi Annan held a video conference with members of a four-country coalition announced by U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday.
David Nabarro, head of a World Health Organisation (WHO) crisis team, said as many as 5 million people were now unable to obtain the minimum they needed to live. Rescue workers pressed on into isolated villages devastated by a disaster that could yet eclipse a cyclone that struck Bangladesh in 1991, killing 138,000 people.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called for an emergency meeting of the Group of Eight so that the rich nations' club could discuss aid and possible debt reduction after "the worst cataclysm of the modern era".
DEATH TOLL MOUNTS
The death toll had shot up more than 50 per cent in a day with still no clear picture of conditions in some remote islands around India and Indonesia.
While villagers and fishermen suffered devastation, losses among foreign tourists, essential to local economies, mounted.
Prime Minister Goran Persson, his government under fire over its tardy response, said more than 1,000 Swedes may have died. Some 5,000 tourists, mostly Europeans, are still missing four days after walls of water devastated beach resorts.
The Indonesian Health Ministry said just under 80,000 people had died in the northern Aceh province that was close to the undersea quake, some 28,000 more than previously announced.
