In Asia, growing desperation

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- Airborne military patrols scoured inaccessible sections of Sumatra island yesterday and discovered that swaths of land were inundated and roads, villages, and bridges had vanished. After helicopter flyovers, rescuers estimated more than 80,000 deaths in the region and described the scene as catastrophic.

''The scale of devastation is huge, bigger than imagined," said Emil Agustiono, a government official helping coordinate the Aceh relief effort.

In Meulaboh, 110 miles southeast of this provincial capital in northern Sumatra, rescuers reported that lagoons had formed where communities had disappeared. Officials expressed fears that 40,000 of the 120,000 residents could have died in Meulaboh and the area around it. The district is about 60 miles from the epicenter of Sunday's undersea earthquake, which registered a magnitude of 9.0 and generated a massive tsunami that killed at least 117,000 people in 12 countries in South Asia and Africa.

The force of the tsunami swept the sea to the foot of mountains more than a mile inland, according to a reporter for the Reuters news agency who surveyed the area. Mangled cars littered streets, and fishing boats were strewn on top of other debris, but the city's maroon-domed mosque remained standing.

As governments of the 12 countries struggled to restore basic needs -- potable water, medicines and food for millions affected by the disaster -- relief operations were spurred on around the world. But the poorest survivors still wandered aimlessly amid rubble looking to bury their dead, or waited for food that had not arrived. The World Health Organization reported that ''between 3 and 5 million people in the region are unable to access the basic requirements they need to stay alive -- clean water, adequate shelter, food, sanitation, and healthcare."

The first survivors were airlifted yesterday from Meulaboh to Banda Aceh. One woman, Epayani, 31, said the tsunami surged over the town moments after the earth tremors stopped.

''I heard the sound of the wave," said Epayani, who uses only one name. ''It was very loud. Imagine hearing the sound of a volcano erupting."

A US Navy battle group raced to Sumatra as the United States and dozens of other countries shuttled tons of supplies to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, the countries that were the hardest hit. Although governments and international agencies had pledged almost $1 billion to an unprecedented recovery effort, basic needs were still barely being met in the stricken area.

In Banda Aceh, corpses lay along the muddy streets, and the military could not meet a deadline for clearing them away that had been imposed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after touring the area Tuesday.

The Indian government yesterday issued an erroneous warning of another tsunami, and people fled the southern Indian coast on jammed roads and climbed roofs in coastal areas of Sri Lanka and Thailand. Hours later, the government said the alert was a false alarm. There is no coordinated tsunami warning system in the region.

Periodic aftershocks from the Sunday quake were registered in South Asia yesterday. Lava was spewing from a volcano in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian archipelago off the coasts of Burma and Indonesia, officials told news agencies. Previously, the crater emitted only gas.

Sister Charity, a 32-year-old nun rescued by an Indian navy ship from Andaman and Nicobar on Wednesday, told the Associated Press that confused and hungry crocodiles were on the loose.

Relief supplies were arriving from the United States, Australia, Europe, and other Asian countries. Distribution centers were being established at Medan on Sumatra, south of Aceh, and at U Tapao, a Thai air base used by the United States during the Vietnam War. As many as 1,000 US military personnel were expected at the Thai base in the next week, according to US military officials.

The Indonesian Health Ministry reported that it expected further increases in the death toll. Sri Lanka reported 27,268 dead and about 1 million people displaced; India, at least 7,368 deaths, with 8,000 missing and possibly dead in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Thailand, 2,394 dead; Somalia, 114; Burma, 65; Malaysia, 65; Maldives, 69; Tanzania, 10; Bangladesh, two; and Kenya, one.

Indonesian officials continued to struggle with the lack of infrastructure in Aceh Province.

Many local government officials were killed in the disaster, and authorities said others were missing or too traumatized to function. Officials said the federal government would send 300 workers from various ministries to reestablish government services.

At least 500,000 people were displaced and 100,000 homes destroyed in Aceh, officials said. A major highway to towns on the west coast is impassable, and there is no access by land.

Oliver Hall, head of the UN disaster assessment and coordination team in Indonesia, said that local officials were ''clearly in a state of great shock" and that ''there's huge devastation in Banda Aceh and along the west coast."

''There's no extra water available," he added, warning that volunteers must bring their own provisions to the region. ''There's no communication equipment available. There's no extra food available. It's a wasteland."

Meulaboh's electrical grid will take perhaps three months to fully restore, Agustiono said. In Calong, a town north of Meulaboh, he said, only 5,000 of 15,000 people were reported to have survived. Most of the rescuers on the west coast are with the Indonesian military, supported by a Malaysian air force team, he said.

While the airport at Banda Aceh is busy with the arrival of relief-related flights, residents said little was getting through to them. Hungry crowds jostled around aid workers who tried to deliver biscuits to relieve hunger. Some drivers dared not stop.

In India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, where more than 4,000 people died, police and fire departments were put on high alert after the false alarm of a new tsunami.

The Indian Home Ministry was unapologetic. A.K. Ragosti, a senior official, said there was ''no need to panic. We issued the alert as a precautionary measure."

This week, India announced plans to set up its own early tsunami warning system within two years. Meanwhile, the UN said Wednesday it believes the current warning system in the Pacific could easily be extended to countries around the Indian Ocean within a year.