East-West Center
students worry about
loved ones back home

When University of Hawaii student Muhamad Jailani called his mother in Indonesia on Sunday, she told him his family was OK and to concentrate on his studies. But he knew something was wrong.

Hawaii comes to aid of victims MILITARY The Pacific Command at Camp Smith reported yesterday that the Air Force plans to send six C-130 transport aircraft loaded with relief supplies from Japan to the tsunami-stricken areas. Also, three Navy P3 Orion subhunter aircraft will be used to help in search-and-rescue operations. The P-3s were sent from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. The Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor said the P-3s were flown to Utaphao, Thailand, to conduct survey operations, including a possible role in search-and-rescue efforts. Also, three joint-service teams were sent from Japan to Asian countries affected by the earthquake and tsunamis. HOW YOU CAN HELP To aid victims of the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia, you can write a check to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, noting "South Asia Earthquake/ Tsunami" in the memo. Checks can be mailed to the American Red Cross Hawaii State Chapter at 4155 Diamond Head Road, Honolulu, HI 96816. To make a contribution by credit card, call 800-HELP-NOW or the local office at 734-2101. EAST-WEST CENTER EVENT The East-West Center is organizing a Sunday fund-raiser for the victims of the Southeast Asian tsunami. Visiting artists and EWC international students will perform in the Imin Center's Keoni Auditorium from 2-5 p.m. Also: Checks or money orders made out to East-West Center Tsunami Relief Fund can be dropped off at John Burns Hall, 1601 East-West Road, as well as at all First Hawaiian Bank branches.

She later told him that his uncle is among the missing in Aceh, Sumatra's northernmost province and the one hardest hit by Sunday's earthquake and the tsunamis it generated.

"My mom said that he disappeared for a while, and they still couldn't find my uncle," said Jailani, 32, attending UH on an East-West Center grant.

Many students at the East-West Center have no way to contact family members in their Southeast Asian countries affected by the earthquake and the resulting tsunamis.

Jailani said he and others at the East-West Center are consoling a fellow student whose mother and sister in Aceh died in the disaster. They are trying to get her a plane ticket to Sumatra. But so far, there are no flights into Banda Aceh, he said.

The student did not want to be identified or talk to the press, he said.

Jailani said he could not get through to Aceh because the telephone lines are down. And because there is no electricity there, cellular telephones work for only as long as their batteries last.

"I cannot imagine my mom's face right now, but I think she is still strong," Jailani said. His uncle lives in Banda Aceh, the province's capital. Jailani's mother and grandmother live in Medan, the capital of the neighboring province.

Jailani worries that aftershocks could still affect his mother and grandmother in Medan, and continues to call home for news on his uncle.

Yesterday, he got word that a friend who works as a photographer for an Indonesian-language online magazine in Banda Aceh is also missing.

"I will contact again, find out what happened," he said, "but you have to be strong."

Prabodh Illukpitiya's family lives in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. He said the fishing villages and tourist resorts devastated by Sunday's tsunami are about 46 miles away from the capital.

But the tragedy has affected everybody in the country.

"Although they are not from the affected area, they are mentally depressed," said Illukpitiya, 34, another EWC participant who has been studying for his Ph.D. in economics at UH the past 4 1/2 years.

When he called home Sunday and asked his mother how she was doing, he said she could not talk. "They were really shocked. My mother could not explain what was happening."

He says he believes many of the survivors still might not understand what happened to them other than a large wave came ashore and washed everything away.

"Before this occurred, I don't think many people even know about the word 'tsunami,'" he said. "People are totally unaware of it."

Death toll exceeds 25,000

The United Nations predicts
that the region will see the
biggest relief effort in history

LHOKSEUMAWE, Indonesia » Rescue workers battled to reach isolated coastal towns today on the island of Sumatra nearest the epicenter of the monstrous earthquake that sent tidal waves surging through the region, killing more than 25,000. Indonesian officials said they feared the death toll would climb by thousands in their country alone.

So far, Indonesia has confirmed 4,991 deaths, most of them in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra. The quake epicenter was more than 6 miles under the Indian Ocean seabed, less than 100 miles from the Sumatra coast. Most of the coastal region south of the provincial capital of Banda Aceh had not been visited by government officials or rescue teams nearly two days after the disaster.

Late yesterday, Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla told the state news agency he believed the toll in his country could climb to 25,000.

"We don't have confirmed data, but I think between 21,000 and 25,000 people" have died, he said, according to the Antara state news agency.

Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at the Social Affairs Ministry, said Kalla's prediction was in line with his ministry's estimates.

"Thousands of victims cannot be reached in some isolated and remote areas that cannot be contacted due to lack of communication," he said.

In the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, where rescue efforts were already well under way, the streets were filled with overturned cars and the rotting corpses of adults and children. Shopping malls and office buildings lay in rubble, and thousands of homeless families huddled together in mosques and schools. The minaret of the city's 125-year-old mosque leaned precariously.

The fear of a far higher death toll came as bodies washed up on tropical beaches and piled up in hospitals yesterday, raising fears of disease across the 10-nation arc of destruction left by a monster earthquake and walls of water. Thousands were missing and millions homeless.

Humanitarian agencies began what the United Nations said would become the biggest relief effort the world has ever seen.

The disaster could be the costliest in history as well, with "many billions of dollars" of damage, said U.N. Undersecretary Jan Egeland, who is in charge of emergency relief coordination. Hundreds of thousands have lost everything, and millions face a hazardous future because of polluted drinking water, a lack of sanitation and no health services, he said.

More than 15,000 people died in Sri Lanka, nearly 5,000 in Indonesia and 4,400 in India. The International Red Cross, which reported 23,700 deaths, said it was concerned that diseases like malaria and cholera could add to the toll.

Dazed tourists evacuated the popular island resorts of southern Thailand, where the Thai-American grandson of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej was listed as one of more than 900 people dead. Scores more died in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The waves raced 2,800 miles across the Indian Ocean to Africa, killing hundreds of people in Somalia and three in the Seychelles.

Eight Americans were among the dead, and U.S. embassies in the region were trying to track down hundreds more who were unaccounted for.

Sunday's massive quake of 9.0 magnitude sent 500-mph waves surging across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in the deadliest known tsunami since the one caused by the 1883 volcanic eruption at Krakatoa, off Sumatra's southern tip, which killed an estimated 36,000 people.

Officials in Thailand and Indonesia conceded that immediate public warnings of gigantic waves could have saved lives. The only known warning issued by Thai authorities reached resort operators when it was too late. The waves hit Sri Lanka and India more than two hours after the quake.

But governments insisted they could not have known the true danger because there is no international system in place to track tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, and they could not afford the sophisticated equipment to build one.

For most people near shores across the region, the only warning of the disaster came when shallow coastal waters disappeared, sucked away by the approaching tsunami, before returning as a massive wall of water. The waves wiped out villages, lifted cars and boats, yanked children from the arms of parents and swept away beachgoers, scuba divers and fishermen.

In a scene repeated across the region yesterday, relatives wandered hallways lined with bodies, searching for loved ones at the hospital in Sri Lanka's southern town of Galle -- one of the worst-affected areas of the hardest-hit nation. People lifted blankets and soaked clothes to look at faces in a stunned hush broken only occasionally by wails of mourning.

"The toll is increasing," said Brig. Daya Ratnayake, a military spokesman. "We are finding more bodies."

Indonesia and Sri Lanka each had at least a million people driven from their homes. Helicopters in India rushed medicine to stricken areas, while warships in Thailand steamed to island resorts to rescue survivors.

In Thailand the government offered free flights for thousands of Western tourists desperate to leave the southern resorts ravaged by the tsunami. Chaos erupted at Phuket airport as hundreds of tourists, many bandaged and brought to the airport in ambulances, tried to board planes for Bangkok.

Bodies were pulled from roadsides, orchards and beaches at Khao Lak resort, where the Swedish tour operator Fritidsresor said 600 Swedes had not been accounted for.

The United States dispatched disaster teams and prepared a $15 million aid package to the Asian countries, and the 25-nation European Union promised to quickly deliver $4 million. Japan, China and Russia were sending teams of experts.