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UN says hundreds of fishermen likely killed in Myanmar

GENEVA: Hundreds of fishermen were probably killed in Myanmar by Indian Ocean killer waves, the World Food Program (WFP) said Tuesday, as Yangon put the tsunami toll at 53 killed and 21 missing.

“We are afraid that hundreds of fishermen may have died,” WFP spokesman Simon Pluess told AFP. “Some 30,000 people are in immediate need of shelter, food, drinking water and medical drugs,” he added.

Yangon made an appeal for international aid on December 30, four days after the tsunami devastated Indian Ocean coastlines after initially believing that the problem could be resolved by local means, said the spokesman. On Saturday, official Myanmar media reported that 53 people had died in the waves in 17 fishing villages. Another 21 people were reported missing, 43 injured and 778 homeless. A previous UN toll spoke of at least 90 dead on December 28. Damage by the tsunami has been estimated at 53,000 dollars.

Myanmar borders Thailand where the tsunami killed nearly 5,200 people, almost half of them foreign holidaymakers, according to the interior ministry in Bangkok. It said 3,810 are missing.

On Tuesday, the number of people killed in the undersea earthquake and giant waves that hit Indian Ocean shorelines on December 26 neared 146,000.

Myanmar’s military junta rarely gives any figures on natural disasters hitting the country which is among the least developed in the world. Pluess said that a WFP evaluation team would on Tuesday assess damage in the coastal region around Kawthaung which is among the hardest hit. afp

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