Please pray for the victims of the Asia Tsunami. Please pray for them to find strength in Jesus. Also please pray for the Volunteers who are helping the victims in that region.

Please Pray for the victims of this horrible tragedy. pray for them to find strength in Jesus. Please also pray for the volunteers, pray for their safety.

News and news servicesUpdated: 3:54 p.m. ET Dec. 30, 2004BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - The confirmed death toll from the weekend earthquake and tsunami in south Asia soared sharply to over 117,000 on Thursday as the Indonesian government announced that nearly 80,000 people had died in that country alone. Word of the growing death count came as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced that international aid pledges to the stricken nations had grown to $500 million, a response he called "very good."But workers on the front lines of the crisis reported that efforts to get aid to survivors were foundering in the chaos that gripped many of the hardest hit areas.

The World Health Organization said Thursday that up to 5 million people in the region lack access to basic supplies they need to stay alive, such as clean water, shelter, food and health care. Sumatra casualties inflate tollThe increase in Indonesia’s death toll to 79,940 — an increase of 27,940 from its previous tally — was due to new bodies being discovered on the coast of Sumatra, which was closest to the epicenter of Sunday''s quake, according to Health Ministry official Kardino, who like many Indonesians uses one name. Sri Lanka also added thousands to its official toll, which now stands at 27,268, and said that nearly 5,000 people are missing and nearly 1 million homeless sparking a deadly tsunami that killed tens of thousands in 11 countries. Thailand''s official death toll stood at 2,394, but it too was expected to climb significantly. Interior Minister Bhokin Balakula said Thursday that more than 3,500 bodies had been found in the southern province of Phang Nga''s Takuapa district alone, and provincial officials said that at least 2,027 foreigners had been killed, most of them on the Khao Lak beaches where giant waves destroyed luxury hotels packed with tourists at the peak of the Christmas tourist season.

As emergency workers sought to find any trapped survivors and recover and bury the dead, the U.N.''s health agency and other relief organizations were working to sustain the survivors of Sunday''s tsunami, generated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean. WHO officials estimated that the organization needs $40 million immediately to get necessary supplies to feed and care for the 3 million to 5 million people in the devastated area.President Bush on Wednesday announced the United States, India, Australia and Japan have formed an international coalition to coordinate relief and reconstruction along the 3,000 miles of Indian Ocean rim walloped by Sunday''s earthquake and the tsunami it unleashed.

Difficult conditions hinder aidOn the front lines of the relief effort, aid workers reported that their early efforts in the hardest-hit areas were in many cases ineffectual. Pilots struggled to drop food into isolated areas along the rugged coast of Sumatra, but officials said most survivors had fled the corpse-strewn villages.Throughout the region, relief workers were trickling into devastated towns and villages where many government institutions had ceased to function, often because officials were searching for family members or were themselves killed.Many lack basic supplies such as fuel, food and water, forcing even ambulances to ration gasoline and feeding an increasing desperation among survivors. On the streets of Banda Aceh, the devastated capital of Aceh province on Sumatra, fights were reported over packets of noodles dropped from military vehicles. "I believe the frustration will be growing in the days and weeks ahead," U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said. Some survivors have not eaten since Sunday when the tsunami hit and now face a fight for their lives against infections and diseases. Few additional rescues expectedRescue teams continued to probe the wreckage in ruined villages and tourist resorts, but most experts held out little hope for further happy outcomes. "We have to have hope that we''ll find somebody," said Ulf Langemeier, chief of 15 German veterans of earthquake disasters who, along with three sniffer dogs, combed a wrecked resort in Thailand under huge flood lamps early Thursday. A false alarm that new killer waves were about to hit added a new complication to the efforts to find survivors and recover bodies, sparking panic in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand early Thursday. India issued the tsunami warning at midday, but then hours later its science minister, Kapil Sibal, went on television to announce the warning was incorrect and based on information received from a U.S. research firm.Fears of a new tsunami were "unscientific, hogwash and should be discarded," Sibal said.As emergency workers sought to cope with the tsunami''s carnage, relatives of the missing turned to the Internet to try to discover the fate of loved ones.

On hundreds of Web sites, the messages were brief but poignant: "Missing: Christina Blomee in Khao Lak," or simply, "Where are you?" All conveyed the aching desperation of people the world over whose friends and family went off in search of holiday-season sun and sand and haven''t been heard from for four days.India islanders evacuatedIndian air force planes evacuated thousands of survivors from the remote island of Car Nicobar. Some of them had walked for days from their destroyed villages to reach a devastated but functioning airfield, where they were shuttled out 80 to 90 at a time.Journalists were not allowed to leave the base to verify reports that some 8,000 people were dead there, but at the base alone, 67 officers and their families were missing and feared dead.India''s death toll stood at more than 7,300, but did not include figures from the Andabar and Nicobar island chains. But in a rare piece of good news, Indian army officers who traveled to the interior of Car Nicobar island on Thursday said that initial estimates that 6,000 to 7,000 may be dead on the islands may turn out to be high. "Now that we’ve managed to reach and establish contact with some of these tribal communities, it’s possible that the estimate of missing and dead that the authorities had given may be on the higher side," Col. Sarb Jit told Reuters.

Thailand has reported an official death toll of around 2,400 — though that country’s prime minister said he feared the toll would go to 6,800. Thailand''s total included 473 foreigners of 36 nationalities, numbers that also were expected to climb. Thai officials said the victims included 54 from Sweden, 49 from Germany, 43 from Britain and 20 Americans — eight more than the total reported by the U.S. government on Tuesday.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.');