Dec 30 (AT) One of the biggest mysteries in the wake of the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka is the missing leader of the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran. The tsunami hit the area where he was hiding – ie. Mullativiu which is on the eastern coast near Trincomalee harbour – with full force on Boxing Day and he has not been seen or heard since then. more..

Dec 30 (AT) A tsunami alert issued by Indian Radio has caused panic among Colombo coastal residents who are fleeing their homes. Indian government issued a tsunami alerts and as a result some evacuations are taking place in some Southern coastal towns such as Weligama here in Sri Lanka. more..

Dec 30 (AT) The United States Pacific Command in Hawaii, led by Admiral Thomas Fargo, has set up Joint Task Force 536 to direct and support military humanitarian-relief operations throughout the Indian Ocean Region and that the first teams arrived in Sri Lanka and Thailand on December 29 more..

Dec 30 (AT) President Chandrika Kumaratunga today is on a visit to Amparai and Trincomalee districts to meet personally with the tsumani victims and to console them as well as to find out personally requirements of the districts and to provide adequate relieves. more..

Dec 30 (LBO) Sri Lanka decides to stop international donations of food and selected medical items and focus on other areas of shortage to rehabilitate tsunami victims. “We have temporarily discontinued foreign aid in some areas. That is food and medical aid because we have enough of both right now,” more..

Dec 30 (LBO) South Asian countries will look at setting up a pre-warning system against tsunamis, for the SAARC region, next week. “SAARC countries will discuss how the region can set up its own pre-warning system this time,” said Thilak Ranaviraja, Commissioner of Essential Services on Thursday. more..

Dec 30 (PIS) Following the destruction of lives and property caused by the Tsunami waves that hit Sri Lanka on 26th December, the Government of Sri Lanka has embarked on large-scale relief and rehabilitation activities in all affected areas. more..

Dec 30 (Reuters) Dilip Sivakumar’s family has made a living from the sea for generations. This week the ocean took it back. He is one of just 15 survivors of a 36-strong extended family that lived in a fishing hamlet on Sri Lanka’s southern coast. more..

Dec 30 (IANS) A Russian cargo plane left here Thursday carrying relief material for Sri Lanka's tsunami-affected people, reports Xinhua. The Il-76 plane is loaded with over 20 tonnes of airlifts, including 60 large tents, 7,000 bed linen packs and two water purification machines, it quoted Itar-Tass news agency as saying. more..

Dec 30 (IANS) India, while battling its own tsunami ravages, is assisting Sri Lanka in a big way to cope with the calamity. Since a Dornier aircraft of the Coast Guard with 600 kg of medical supplies and a medical team landed near here Sunday within hours after tsunami waves battered the island, India has stepped in a big way to help its smaller neighbour. more..

Dec 30 (BBC) Aid workers around the Indian Ocean are struggling to reach millions affected by Sunday's devastating tsunami waves. Relief teams and supplies are pouring into the region but have yet to reach the hardest-hit and most remote areas. more..

Dec 30 (BBC) Two survivors of what is believed to be the world's worst rail accident have been telling the BBC News website of their experiences. The Queen of the Sea was nearing its destination when the waves knocked it sideways. more..

Dec 30 (AP) Bodyguards whisked Sri Lanka's prime minister away from a meeting with ethnic-Tamil tsunami quake victims Thursday after some victims hit journalists and a soldier with wooden poles. more..

Dec 30 (Reuters) The aftermath of a tsunami that destroyed vast swathes of Sri Lanka's coastline raised hopes on Thursday of a new era of peace between Tamil Tiger rebels and the government. more..

Dec 30 (AFP) Sri Lanka appealed for more aid as it plodded on with the sickening task of burying bloated corpses in the struggle to prevent outbreaks of disease among its shattered population. more..

Dec 30 (ND) The last time M.G. Wejetunge spoke to his daughter, she had telephoned him from a stalled train and urged him not to be concerned. The water was not too high, 25-year-old Lanka Chandima told him Sunday as she sat in the carriage watching the sea slosh around her knees. more..

Dec 30 (NT) The chief monk of a Queens Buddhist temple returned from tsunami-wrecked Sri Lanka Wednesday and immediately appealed for medicine, financial help and construction tools for his native country. more..

Dec 30 (NYT) Sri Lanka His home gone, his family shivering and hungry, everything he owned swept out to sea, Velu Kannan wandered down a lonely road here looking for a pen. Stagnant water lay in the fields around him. Crows cawed overhead. In his hands he carried a piece of cardboard he had found among the debris. more..

Dec 30 (NZH) This story was filed from Hambantota, but in reality most of the town doesn't exist any more. Situated on a narrow strip of land on Sri Lanka's south coast, it fronted the Indian Ocean, while to the rear lay a big lagoon - partly mangroves and partly reclaimed for salt farming. more..

Dec 30 (HT) The Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said that the LTTE is unlikely to go to war at this juncture if only because it has lost a lot of cadres and equipment in last Sunday's tsunami onslaught. "War seems remote at this point of time," said the President more..

Dec 30 (AP) The death toll from last weekend's earthquake-tsunami catastrophe rose to more than 114,000 on Thursday as Indonesia uncovered more and more dead from ravaged Sumatra island, where pilots dropped food to remote villages still unreachable by rescue workers. more..

Dec 30 (LBO) Sri Lanka Telecom hopes to fork out over Rs. 25 mn each for the next three months to restore services in areas struck by Sunday’s tsunami. Sri Lanka's dominant carrier says two percent of its total network, which includes 10 percent strung across the island’s Southern and Eastern coastal belt, more..

Dec 30 (TD) A couple from North Devon count themselves lucky to be alive after being caught up in the disaster that decimated the coastline of southern Asia on Boxing Day. Terence and Carol Rudd, of Bishops Nympton, arrived back home on Tuesday night after a two-week holiday in Sri Lanka, more..

Dec 30 (TD) Two Paignton postmen had to cling to palm trees to escape the deadly tsunami as it tore through the coast of Sri Lanka, it emerged today. A honeymooning couple were saved because they were diving from a boat off the coast, unaware of the devastation until they returned to find their holiday bungalow by the sea had been washed away. more..

Dec 30 (AP) Sri Lankans run away from the coast as rumors spread that a new tidal wave was about to hit the coast in the town of Hambatota, southern Sri Lanka Thursday. Tens of thousands fled their homes Thursday, panicked by a false alarm that a new tsunami was about to hit following aftershocks in the Indian Ocean. more..

Dec 30 (BBC) The North–East has been sufficiently provided with relief supplies say Commissioner General of Essential Services Thilak Ranviraja. Speaking to BBC Sandeshaya Ranviraja said “I am in contact with the Divisional Secretaries of Jaffna, Mullaithivu and Kilinochchi and all three of them have confirmed that sufficient relief supplies have arrived more..

Dec 30 (BBC) "I need antibiotics, IV sets, surgical masks and syringes." Dr Shelen Pereira's neck muscles are taut as he shouts down a telephone line. I am at the Karapitiy hospital in Galle, the largest hospital in southern Sri Lanka. more..

Dec 30 (BBC) The earthquake under the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the tsunami that followed, have left thousands dead across south and east Asia. News of the devastation was largely relayed to the rest of the world by many of the foreign tourists holidaying in the region. more..

Dec 30 (AP) Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who was evacuated from his seaside Sri Lankan vacation hotel when the Indian Ocean tsunami hit, said the devastation reminded him of World War II bombing. more..

Dec 30 (TN) Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) appealed to other relief help organizations not to be daunted by the threat due to mines and not to delay relief coming to the most needed areas. more..

Dec 30 (TN) Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksha and leaders of the Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna visited Jaffna Thursday amidst strong protests by refugees from the Tsunami destroyed coastal villages of the peninsula. more..

Dec 30 (TN) Colonel Sornam, Trincomalee district military commander of the LTTE Thursday visited Tsunami victims given shelter in several camps in the Sri Lanka Army controlled areas in the Trincomalee town and villages in the north of the district. more..

Dec 30 (TN) Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), a non-governmental organization from Sri Lanka, has fully geared its administrative machinery to provide relief assistance to victims of all communities - Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese - in the northeast province. more..

Dec 30 (LBO) Putting Sri Lanka together again after Sunday's tsunami will cost US$ 1 bn says the island’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga. "The reconstruction process will cost around hundred billion rupees," says Kumaratunga told journalists after a visit to the tsunami stricken island on Thursday. more..

Dec 31 (VOA) Rizwan Mowlana, like so many Sri Lankans living in the United States, has been affected by the disaster back home. Rizwan lost at least 30 relatives including his aunt and her children who were taking a coastal train ride when the tidal waves crashed onto the shores of Sri Lanka's southern coast. more..

Dec 31 (MA) Tris Lewis is Medair’s representative in Khartoum. He was spending his Christmas holiday by the beach in Sri Lanka with his wife Rosi and their two small children, Luke (1) and Genevieve (3). This is Rosi’s eye witness account of the Tsunami tidal wave. more..

Dec 31 (BBC) The tsunami death toll in Sri Lanka has risen to 24,673 and 5000 people are still missing, the Presidents office announced on Thursday. The official figure however does not include thousands more killed in Tiger-controlled areas. Together with them the death toll is believed to be exceeding 27,000. more..

Dec 31 (TN) The Liberation Tigers Thursday said that red tape should not impede or delay delivery of urgent international aid to the Tsunami hit areas of the northeast. more..

Dec 31 (BI) Sri Lankan Airlines today said that there was no disruption to its services despite the tsunami disaster in that country and there was no change in flight schedules to any destination from India. more..

Dec 31 (NBC) Lou Brandon, a former employee of The Salvation Army USA Southern Territorial Headquarters, is now serving as Territorial Finance Secretary in the Sri Lanka Territory. She has sent an email that describes in graphic detail, the disaster that resulted from the tsunamis in the Indian Ocean last Sunday. more..

Dec 31 (AAP) DAMAGED infrastructure and a lack of government direction were hampering relief efforts in tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka, chief executive of World Vision Australia, Tim Costello, said today. More than 27,000 Sri Lankans were killed by Sunday's tsunami and one in 12 Sri Lankans has reportedly been left homeless. more..

Dec 31 (AT) BBC Tamil Service’s reporting on the Asian tsunami relief activities in North East Sri Lanka has exposed its pro-LTTE tilt. “Tamil Osai”, the Tamil Service of the BBC is widely listened to by Tamils living all over the world via its short wave broadcasts and internet service. more..

Dec 31 (AT) “The relief effort is under control even if there maybe minor shortcomings," said Sri Lankan President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge addressing a press conference in Colombo on Thursday evening. more..

Dec 31 (AT) The biggest problem facing Tsunami hit areas in Sri Lanka - at least in a psychological sense – seems to be the fact that there is no "closure" for the loved ones of the victims. Bodies have been buried unidentified more often than not -- in mass graves at that. more..

Dec 31 (AT) As the latest death toll stood at 24, 673, the number of displaced persons has reached nearly 55,000. The Presidential Secretariat has ordered that Rs. 1 billion be allocated to affected areas for urgent relief operations. more..

Dec 31 (AT) The names and other details of all those killed - over 24,000 are not available anywhere. In any case the number of dead is continuing to increase and hundreds are missing. Thousands of bodies are being hurriedly buried in mass graves without identification. more..

Dec 31 (AFP) Unprecedented foreign aid poured into Sri Lanka as its tsunami death toll was set to cross 29,000, but relief operations had effectively checked the spread of disease, the president said. more..

Dec 31 (Hindu) The Janata Party president, Subramanian Swamy, has urged the Centre to ensure that the aid agencies in Sri Lanka do not channel the aid given in the wake of the tsunami disaster through the LTTE or its outfit, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO). more..

Dec 31 (AP) Israel's army has sent more than 80 tons of food, medicine, generators and blankets to aid flood-stricken Sri Lanka, the military said Thursday. The officials said that the aid was sent on Wednesday, but the Israeli government scrapped plans to send a 150-member medical team to help in the recovery, more..

Dec 31 (AP) People climbed onto the roofs of their houses while others fled in cars away from the coastline Thursday after authorities urged residents to move to higher ground as fresh quakes sparked fears of new tsunamis. more..