Death Toll in SE Asia Estimated by Counting the Living

The governments of the eleven countries hit by the quake are still trying to determine the death toll. Reportedly, authorities in some regions abandoned attempts to count the number of dead and began instead to count the living. The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that the death tolls may surpass 100,000 after the release of casualty figures on the Indian island of Bengal. Since the crisis response is not well organized, search and rescue operations and aid distribution are faced with chaos. Thousands of corpses are decaying under the tropical sun and collecting and burying them has proved to be difficult. Those who were rescued from the calamity are fighting against starvation and disease and repairing the damage may take months.

Cihan News Agency team flew over the Hambantota region of southeastern Sri Lanka in a helicopter belonging to the Indian Air Force to survey the damage. The Cihan team helped with aid package distribution. The helicopter also transported injured people to the hospitals.