In the course of the largest global rescue operation, Europe has been connected with Asia by an "air bridge" transporting food and medical supplies to the south and rescued tourists to the north. Up to 60 countries allocated more than $250 million for humanitarian aid to Asian countries devastated by natural disaster.
The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami in 12 countries of Asia and Africa has exceeded 83,000 people.
According to the Red Cross organization, the overall number of the dead might exceed 100,000. "We are dealing with a natural catastrophe of unprecedented proportions," announced head of Asian Pacific branch of the Red Cross Simon Missiri.
Almost a third of the dead are children. Millions of people are left without housing.
More than a half of the dead, about 45,000 people according to the recent data, are counted in Indonesia, which was the closest to the epicenter of the earthquake. Half a million of people were injured. Approximately a million lost housing.
On the island of Sumatra, the major part of the western coastline was literally wiped off the face of the earth. The Aceh province in the north of the island has been pronounced a national disaster zone.
The number of Russian tourists in Thailand who were fortunately not affected by the disaster grew up to 590 people, press secretary of the Russian Embassy in Thailand Irina Borisyuk told RIA Novosti over the phone on Thursday.
At present, four Russian diplomats work in close contact with local authorities on the Thai resort island of Phuket.
"We have not been able to establish contact with 43 Russian tourists who were definitely in the disaster zone," the press secretary said.
Thanks to information provided by relatives, the authorities identified another group of 52 Russian tourists that might have been in the disaster zone, although the exact location of the group at the time of tsunami is still unknown.
"We are not ruling out the possibility of additional deaths among Russian citizens," the press secretary underlined. "There are too many unidentified corpses. It is very difficult to ID them."
On Thursday, a government plane will airlift a large group of Russian citizens from the island of Phuket, she added. By now, eighty Russian tourists expressed their desire to use this opportunity.
According to the latest official data, 1,975 people died and 8,950 people were injured in Thailand as a result of the natural disaster.
More than 13,000 Thai rescue workers and rescue teams from Australia, Germany, Japan and some other countries participate in an unprecedented in the Thai history rescue operation in the south of the country.
