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SLUG: 2-321350 (CQ) Asia/Earthquake (S/L-Upd)
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DATE=12/26/04 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE= (CQ) ASIA/EARTHQUAKE (S/L-Update) NUMBER=2-321350 BYLINE=TIM JOHNSTON DATELINE=JAKARTA CONTENT= ///EDS: REISSUED TO DELETE REFERENCE TO 8.9 MAGNITUDE OF QUAKE IN FIFTH GRAF OF TEXT; EARTHQUAKE UPGRADED TO 9.0 ON THE RICHTER SCALE; UPDATE HEADLINE AND INTRO AS NEEDED. /// HEADLINE: Death Toll Rising After Asian Earthquake & Tsunamis INTRO: More than three-thousand people have been killed in South and Southeast Asia (Sunday), after one of the largest earthquakes in a century struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra. As Tim Johnston reports from Jakarta, most of the dead were victims of a tidal wave that spread out across the Indian Ocean, devastating coastal communities as far as Sri Lanka and Thailand. TEXT: The death toll continues to rise as rescue teams reach more remote coastal communities in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maldives and Indonesia. /// OPT /// Across the region, emergency services are scrambling to rescue the injured, and provide survivors with tents, blankets, food and clean drinking water. /// END OPT /// Indonesian presidential spokesman Andi Mallararengeng says damaged communications are making it difficult to assess the full situation. /// MALLARARENGENG ACT /// "So, we are waiting for more accurate information." /// END ACT /// The quake hit Sunday morning, more than 100-kilometers off Indonesia's Sumatra Island. U.S. experts say it is the worst quake in Indonesian history, and the fifth strongest since 1900. /// REST OPT FOR LONG /// It sent huge tidal waves more than 15-hundred kilometers across the Indian Ocean, which caused most of the damage and fatalities. The towering waves swept clean across the low-lying Maldive Islands, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake. A list of the dead at one hospital in northern Indonesia showed that many children were victims: too weak to swim, and too small to climb to one of the few safe havens. Indonesia sits on the so-called "ring of fire," a highly active seismic band where plates of the earth's crust collide. (SIGNED) NEB/HK/TJ/JJ/TW |
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