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Kanada/Canada news
http://www.canada.com/news/world/story.html?id=a6b72030-63df-4d01-b1ad-34e31cfffad6

Dilip Ganguly
Canadian Press

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Rescuers piled bodies along coastlines devastated by a tsunami that obliterated seaside towns in Asia and Africa, killing some 21,000 people in nine countries. Hundreds of children were buried in mass graves in India, and morgues and hospitals struggled Monday to cope with the catastrophe.

The death toll rose sharply a day after the magnitude 9 quake struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia. It was the world's most powerful earthquake in four decades.

Walls of water sped away from the epicentre at more than 800 kilometres an hour before crashing into the region's shorelines, sweeping people and fishing villages out to sea. Millions were displaced from their homes and thousands remained missing Monday.

The governments of Indonesia and Thailand conceded that public warnings came too late or not at all. But officials insisted they could not know the seriousness of the threat because no tsunami warning system exists for the Indian Ocean.

Officials said the death toll would continue to rise, and the international Red Cross said it was concerned about waterborne diseases.

Sri Lanka said more than 10,000 people were killed along its coastlines, and Tamil rebels said 2,000 people died in its territory, raising that country's toll to more than 12,000.

Indonesia reported about 5,000 deaths and India 3,000. Thailand - a western tourist hotspot - said hundreds of people were dead and thousands more were missing. Deaths also were reported in Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Somalia, more than 4,800 kilometres away in Africa.

On the remote Car Nicobar island northwest of Sumatra, Police Chief S.B. Deol told New Delhi Television he had reports that another 3,000 people may have died. If confirmed, that would raise India's death toll to 6,000 and the overall number to 23,900.

"The Andaman and Nicobar islands have been really badly hit," said Hakan Sandbladh, senior health officer at the Geneva headquarters of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Offers of aid poured in from around the globe as troops in the region struggled to deliver urgently needed aid to afflicted areas.

A Canadian was among those killed in Sri Lanka, and at least a dozen were reported injured in Thailand, Foreign Affairs confirmed Sunday. No information was immediately available on their names or hometowns. The number of Canadians in the affected areas was not known, because registration with embassies by tourists is voluntary.

In Bandah Aceh, Indonesia, 240 km from the quake's epicentre, dozens of bloated bodies littered the streets as soldiers and desperate relatives searched for survivors Monday. Some 500 bodies collected by emergency workers lay under plastic tents, rotting in the tropical heat.

"We have ordered 15,000 troops into the field to search for survivors," Indonesian military spokesman Edy Sulistiadi said. "They are mostly retrieving corpses." Thank you