Stealing Children

Fox has just reported that the death toll has topped 80,000. No link needed, sadly, that number will change. Cox and Forkum has a telling cartoon marking the disaster with some excellent links such as this one. Here's a very sad, small sample of the full story. It will absolutely break your heart.

The U.N. organization estimates at least one-third of the tens of thousands who died were children, and the proportion could be up to half, said UNICEF spokesman Alfred Ironside in New York. He said communities are suffering a double loss: dead children and orphaned boys and girls. ''Our major concern is that the kids who survived the tsunami now survive the aftermath. Because children are the most vulnerable to disease and lack of proper nutrition and water.''

Children make up at least half of the population in Asia. Many of them work alongside poverty-stricken parents in the fishing or related industries in coastal areas, so they were in harm's way when the tidal waves came. Many children from the more affluent families would also have been on the beaches for a stroll or for Sunday picnics.

In Sri Lanka, which suffered the biggest loss of life in the tsunami, crowds had come to the beaches to watch the sea after word spread that it was producing larger-than-normal waves.

Thousands of children joined their elders to see the spectacle. The waves brought in fish. The old and the young collected them. Many waited for more fun.

Then the 15 feet-to-20 feet tidal waves hit the tropical island of 19 million people.

''They got caught and could not run to safety. This is the reason why we have so many child victims,'' said Rienzie Perera, a police spokesman who said reports from affected police stations indicated children made up about half the victims in Sri Lanka.

On Monday, parents wept over the bodies of their children in streets and hospitals across the island, even as some dead children still dangled unclaimed from barbed wire fences.

The scenes of unimagined grief and mourning were repeated across Asia.

''Where are my children?'' wept 41-year-old Absah, as she searched for her 11 missing children in Banda Aceh, the Indonesian city closest to Sunday's epicenter. ''Where are they? Why did this happen to me? I've lost everything.''

On the day disaster struck, Malaysian Rosita Wan recalled watching in horror as her 5-year-old son was gulped by the sea while he swam near the shore at Penang.

''I could only watch helplessly while I heard my son screaming for help. Then he was underwater and I never saw him again,'' said a sobbing Rosita, 30.

I don't know when I'll ever want to go back to the ocean.