In Aceh, which was closest to the epicentre of the deep-sea temblor which registered 9.0 on the Richter scale and triggered the waves, volunteers desperately tried to bury thousands of corpses rotting in tropical temperatures in hopes of curbing the spread of disease.
Junaidi, 26, survived the tsunamis that killed up to 100,000 in Indonesia but now sits helplessly in a Red Crescent field hospital in Banda Aceh with wounds oozing with pus and lungs gasping for air.
"I swallowed dirty water and the doctor said I have problems with my lungs and my stomach lining is damaged," he said.
Agoes Kooshartoro, who leads about 100 Indonesian Red Crescent volunteers in Aceh, said many others were also suffering disease, particularly of the lungs, after the tsunamis swept away the sanitation infrastructure.
"Over the past five days many people have died because of this. They survived the waves, but they died of infections and breathing failure. There are many stories like that and we have seen such incidents," he said.
The World Health Organisation said it was also seeing growing reports of potentially deadly diarrhea outbreaks in displacement camps in Sri Lanka and India.
"It needs a few more days before we can state that we are confident that we've been able to avoid major outbreaks of disease," David Nabarro, the top WHO official dealing with humanitarian crises, told reporters in Geneva.
Source: Agence France-Presse by Ian Timberlake
http://www.reliefweb.int
News - Massive tsunami aid operation picks up steam in race to battle disease
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