CNN - Tsunami deaths soar past 2CNN - Tsunami deaths soar past 212,000

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesia is reporting a staggering new death toll from the tsunami disaster as recovery efforts slowly resolve the fates of tens of thousands of missing people.

The Indonesian Health Ministry says the December 26 earthquake and tsunamis killed 166,320 people in Indonesia, double the previous official figure.

The latest figures out of Indonesia now put the regional death toll for the Indian Ocean disaster at 212,611.

The new death numbers reflected the latest reports from the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, both in the path of the killer tsunamis spawned by a magnitude 9 earthquake the day after Christmas, Dodi Indrasanto, a director at the Health Ministry, told Reuters.

From: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/19/asia.tsunami/index.html

Also, look at this transcript of an ABC radio interview of United Nations Deputy Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Indonesia; Joel Boutroue:

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Do you think the figure's going to go beyond that official toll that is now about 177,000? Do you expect it to go higher?

JOEL BOUTROUE: I don't know. I mean I cannot say. The Government will know better. We know that probably thousands of people, the bodies of thousands of people, will probably never be found again. So we will probably never have an exact figure. But you should consider the number of thousands of missing and the number of people buried in a sort of wide margin and the figures may indeed increase even further, dramatically so.

From: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1285802.htm