BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Dec. 30 -- Airborne military patrols scoured inaccessible sections of Sumatra island Thursday and discovered that swaths of land were inundated and roads, villages and bridges had vanished. After helicopter flyovers, rescuers estimated more than 80,000 deaths in the region and described the scene as catastrophic.
"The scale of devastation is huge, bigger than imagined," said Emil Agustiono, a government official helping coordinate the Aceh relief effort.
Sri Lankans search for bodies on Kalmuni beach. Many people in Sri Lanka and elsewhere fled and climbed onto roofs after India issued a tsunami warning Thursday that turned out to be a false alarm.
(Thomas White -- Reuters)
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In Meulaboh, 110 miles southeast of this provincial capital in northern Sumatra, rescuers reported that lagoons had formed where communities had disappeared. Officials expressed fears that 40,000 of the 120,000 residents could have died in Meulaboh and the area around it. The district is about 60 miles from the epicenter of Sunday's undersea earthquake, which registered a magnitude of 9.0 and generated a massive tsunami that killed at least 119,000 people in 12 countries in South Asia and Africa.
The force of the tsunami swept the sea to the foot of mountains more than a mile inland, according to a reporter for the Reuters news agency who surveyed the area. Mangled cars littered streets, and fishing boats were strewn on top of other debris, but the city's maroon-domed mosque remained standing, the reporter said.
As governments of the 12 countries struggled to restore basic needs -- potable water, medicines and food for millions affected by the disaster -- relief operations were spurred on around the world. But the poorest survivors still wandered aimlessly amid rubble looking to bury their dead, or waited for food that had not arrived. The World Health Organization reported that "between three and five million people in the region are unable to access the basic requirements they need to stay alive -- clean water, adequate shelter, food, sanitation and healthcare."
The first survivors were airlifted Thursday from Meulaboh to Banda Aceh. A U.S. Navy battle group raced to Sumatra as the United States and dozens of other countries shuttled tons of supplies to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, the countries that were the hardest hit. Although governments and international agencies had pledged at least a half a billion dollars to an unprecedented recovery effort, basic needs were still barely being met in the stricken area.
[The Indonesia government said on Friday it would host an international tsunami summit on Jan. 6 to try to obtain more aid, the Reuters news agency reported.]
On Thursday, in Banda Aceh, corpses lay along the muddy streets, the military could not meet a deadline for clearing them away that had been imposed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after touring the area Tuesday.
The Indian government issued an erroneous tsunami warning Thursday, and people fled the southern Indian coast on jammed roads and climbed roofs in coastal areas of Sri Lanka and Thailand. Hours later, the government said the alert was a false alarm. There is no coordinated tsunami warning system in the region.
Periodic aftershocks from the Sunday quake were registered in South Asia on Thursday. Lava was spewing from a volcano on an island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian archipelago off the coasts of Burma and Indonesia, officials told news agencies. Previously, the crater emitted only gas.
Relief supplies were arriving from the United States, Australia, Europe and other Asian countries. Distribution centers were being established at Medan on Sumatra, south of Aceh, and at U Tapao, a Thai air base used by the United States during the Vietnam War. As many as 1,000 U.S. military personnel were expected at the Thai base in the next week, according to U.S. military officials.
President Bush said he was sending Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, his brother, to the disaster zone on Sunday. "In this hour of critical need, America is joining with other nations and international organizations to do everything possible to provide assistance and relief to the victims and their families," he said.
Four days after one of the largest earthquakes in history triggered a tsunami that smashed into coastlines from Indonesia to Somalia, half a billion dollars has been pledged to the relief effort, the United Nations said.
European nations have pledged millions in aid to South Asia relief. Britain said it was donating $95 million; Sweden promised $75.5 million; Spain, $68 million; and France, $57 million. Aside from the military commitment, the United States has announced an initial $35 million aid package. The largest single donation so far has been $250 million from the World Bank, announced Thursday by the organization's president, James D. Wolfensohn.
