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Powell, Annan Tour Tsunami Devastation

Plight of survivors in camps, death toll tops 1,65,000

AFP, Colombo
US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday visited areas of Sri Lanka devastated by the December 26 tsunamis, saying afterwards he was impressed with how survivors were helping each other recover from the calamity.
Powell, winding up his three-nation tour with a media conference at Colombo airport, reaffirmed US support for the victims of the tsunamis and earthquake.
He said the United States had committed roughly 25 million dollars to Sri Lanka, including 10 million for temporary housing and a 10 million dollar program to put
affected Sri Lankans to work.
"As long as it takes (the Sri Lankan government) to rebuild infrastructure and reconstruct their society, the United States will be here with them," he said.
He said a contingent of US marines was due in the country as well as engineers and medical personnel, but denied that the American forces would be in any way involved in the country's longstanding conflict between the government andTamilDger rebels.
"Die US military presence is strictly for humanitarian purposes and not to affect the political outcome" he said, before heading to Nairobi, where he will witness the
signing Sunday of a peace agrcc-mentforthcSudan.
Powell, after arriving in Colombo from Jakarta mid-morning, travelled by helicopter to the battered southern region of Galle, where the USmarincs arc to be based.
The sight of destruction was not as bad as what he had witnessed in the Indonesian province of Aceh but nevertheless testified to the fury of the tsunamis which killed at least 30,615 people in Sri Lanka.
Pockets of houses along the coast were reduced to rubble and the beaches were littered with debris. Boats were washed up on the shore and overturned, and one tug boat FROM PAGE 12
was perched oddly on a mound of debris. Resorts were deserted and sand filled thepools.
Train tracks were twisted, broken and washed away in some areas but the roads appeared largely intact and the occasional traveller was seen.
Powell's motorcade drove through the centre of Galle, where homes and shops were crushed by the massive waves and dozens of fishing boats still Utter the streets.
"I had a chance to witness the destruction first hand and only by seeing it on the ground can you really appreciate what it must have been like on that terrible day," Powell said through an aide.
"But I am impressed to see people cleaning up, helping their neighbours, starting to clean up shops and homes."
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday toured the devastation from Asia's tsunamis as the world body took charge of the relief operation for the disaster, which left over 165,000 dead.
A day after making an impassioned plea for almost a billion dollars in immediate aid, Annan flew into the Indonesian province of Aceh for a tour of the region which was the worst hit by last week's killer waves.
His visit comes two days after a stop here by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who told a crisis summit Wednesday in Jakarta that Washington had disbanded a five-nation "coalition", criticised as a challenge to UN authority.
The United Nations is mounting its largest ever relief operation to help tsunami victims but warned its efforts faced major obstacles as transport links and communications in Aceh had "essentially collapsed" in the disaster.
Indonesia, and especially Aceh, should receive about 371 million dollars of the 977 million dollar overall appeal by Annan, the UN's humanitarian coordination agency said.
"As many as two million people there are in need and one million of them require immediate assistance," Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator Yvette Stevens told journalists in Geneva.
The confirmed death toll from the catastrophe soared to over 165,000 Friday as over 19,000 more deaths were confirmed. Indonesia's health ministry said the death toll in the country had risen to 113,306.
But the United Nations has warned that tens of thousands more dead may be as yet unaccounted for in Indonesia.
World attention was also focused on the desperate plight of many survivors living in camps with limited drinking water and poor sanitation in Sri Lanka, where 30,615 people have been confirmed killed.
The United Nations said some 167 million dollars from the emergency relief money would head to Sri Lanka.
"We are hungry, people are searching for food," says Pakeela Ummah, a 48-year-old mother of three crammed into one of the makeshift camps in Kattankundy on Sri Lanka's battered eastern 'coast.
Survivors in the camp said they had only enough to make one meal a day of rice and lentils, with little powdered milk for babies and just two litres of drinking water per family with an average of six children.
"The main problem is we don't have food. The government is still sending more refugees but there is no assistance from the government," says K. M. Muhad, who was appointed by the community to take charge of the camp.
In India, the United Nations Children's Fund Unicef said it was counselling more than 100,000 children who were traumatised by the death of relatives in the tsunamihit southern state ofTamil Nadu.
Fifty-two countries have reported dead or missing in the tsunami disaster, leading to- the unprecedented level of pledges to help survivors.