Tsunami death toll up to 225k

by on January 19th, 2005

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,15671,1394003,00.html

The death toll from the Boxing Day tsunami disaster increased to more than 225,000 today as the Indonesian health ministry raised the number of dead in the country by more than 50,000.

A statement said the new figure of 166,320 was based on fresh reports from the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra. A senior ministry official said it included many people who had previously been listed.

In Sri Lanka, two government agencies met in an attempt to clarify a discrepancy of more than 7,000 in their lists of the dead, but both continued to insist theirs was the correct figure.

On Monday, the Public Security Ministry said 38,195 people had died, while the National Disaster Management Centre said 30,920 had been killed. Both agencies expect the final Sri Lankan figure to exceed 40,000.

Etalkinghead Staff