Tidal wave kills 100 Somalis
2004-12-28 13:57
Nairobi - One hundred people have died in Somalia from flooding after Sunday's catastrophic Indian Ocean earthquake sent tidal waves that battered the East African coast, a Somalia government spokesperson said on Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, we can now confirm that at least a hundred people have died", the spokesperson of newly installed president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Yusuf Mohammed Ismail said the dead included fishermen, who had gone out to sea on Sunday, as well as people living in coastal communities.
Ismail said the remoteness of the affected communities made it difficult to gather correct information about casualties and damage caused by the sea surges.
He said: "They were all caught off guard."
A time-consuming process
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC, was more moderate in its estimate of casualties.
The head of the IFRC Somalia delegation, Ed Cooper, said: "According to the information we've been able to gather from the local Red Crescent branches, we can say between 40 and 50 people have died as a result of the sea surges."
"The Puntland coast seems to have gotten the worst hit".
The IFRC was still gathering information early on Tuesday, a time-consuming process due to the remoteness of the region, and said it would decide on its response when more details had become clear.
Somalia's assessmnent mission
Kenya, Mauritius and the Seychelles islands northeast of Madagascar were among the East African countries hit by tsunamis.
The Somali leadership, newly installed, was to hold an emergency meeting at their temporary base in Kenya.
Ismail said the Somali government would ask the UN and other aid agencies to conduct an assessment mission of the damage in Somalia.
On Monday, Somalia appealed to the international community to come to the aid of the affected communities.
Ismail said: "As our economy is built largely around fishing and livestock, this is an enormous blow."
- SAPA