Tsunami Update II

An official document says nearly 210,000 people in Indonesia are dead or missing from the Dec. 26 tsunami, a death toll that appears to be far higher than officials have reported publicly. Rescue workers think even that number might be low.

The larger Indonesia toll would bring the total of dead and missing from the tidal surge across the Indian Ocean to nearly 272,000, ranking the tsunami as the fifth or sixth deadliest natural disaster in more than 300 years.

Indonesian officials offered no explanation for the sharp rise in the number of dead and missing. Compiled by the Disaster Management Task Force for Aceh province, the document listed casualties by district in a variety of categories, including buried, known dead, and missing.

It gave the number of known dead at 78,395 and said another 131,479 are lost or missing. It said the information was current as of 9 p.m. Tuesday (9 a.m. EST Tuesday). Those returning from the field said the new numbers don’t surprise them. That's not counting the still missing in the other affected areas.

The new figures rank the tsunami in the same category as a 1976 earthquake in China that killed at least 255,000 people. The worst natural disaster since 1750 is thought to have been a flood in China in 1939 that killed an estimated 3.7 million people.