Deaths top 114,000 in southeast Asia – Fishupdate.com

Deaths top 114,000 in southeast Asia Published:  30 December, 2004

The estimated death toll for the giant wave which hit great swathes of south east Asia has been put at 114,000 people.

Officials in Indonesia say they have lost at least 80,000 people, while some major population centres remain out of contact.

Aid workers are now trying to get to the area to assist the millions of people displaced from their homes by Sunday’s huge wave.

The wave was triggered by the largest underwater earthquake in living memory.

Aftershocks from that quake are still being felt, adding to the panic in large areas of coastline in India, Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

The World Bank has announced that it is giving $250m to help victims while the UK increased its contribution to $96m, making it the biggest donation from an individual country.

Asian aquaculture producers were responsible for 91.2% of global aquaculture production in 2002, according to the Fish Farmer Handbook 2005.

India produced 2.2m tonnes, while Indonesia produced over 1m tonnes of red seaweeds.

Thailand produced over 160,000 tonnes of tiger prawns in 2002. It is not know how aquaculture will be affected by the huge disaster.

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