Alive after days at sea

A man swept out to sea by the tsunami survived for eight days clinging to a tree, eating coconuts and drinking rainwater.

Mr Shahputra, found weak and badly sunburned on Monday evening, became only the second person to be discovered alive at sea after the disaster. The crew of a container vessel returning to Malaysia from South Africa spotted him standing on a raft of branches and debris and desperately waving to attract their attention.

A member of the Malaysian crew of the MV Durban Bridge took this dramatic photograph. Huang Wen said: "When I saw him I was very surprised. He waved at me - he was standing on what looked like a tree. He was shouting at us. I couldn't believe it." Mr Shahputra told his rescuers he was cleaning a mosque when the tsunami struck. Children rushed in to warn him of impending disaster but the waves swept everyone out to sea before they could escape.

At first he had shared the branches with others from his village who had managed to cling on as the waters retreated, but they were all eventually swallowed by the sea.

"At first there were some friends with me," Mr Shahputra told reporters before being taken to hospital in Malaysia early today. "After a few days, they were gone... I saw bodies left and right.

"Everybody sank, my family members sank. There were bodies around me."

Adrian Arukiasamy, a spokesman for the Malaysian shipping company, said: "It was certainly a miraculous survival." Mr Shahputra, who ate floating coconuts he prised open with a door latch, was in shock when he was found.

Last Friday, a Malaysian tuna ship found an Indonesian woman who had held on to a sago palm tree for five days in the Indian Ocean after the tsunami swept her out to sea.

Identified as Ms Malawati, the 23-year-old arrived on Monday in Malaysia's northwestern Penang state, where she is still receiving hospital treatment. Officials said she had been bitten by fish and was traumatised but survived by eating the palm's fruit and bark.

Indonesian consular officer Helena Ferat said the authorities were trying to trace Ms Malawati's husband, who has been missing since the disaster hit their home in Banda Aceh.

The Aceh province, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, lies close to the epicentre of the earthquake which caused the Boxing Day tsunami.

It has suffered more than any other region. About 89,000 Indonesians were killed, more than half of the estimated total of 150,000. United Nations humanitarian chief Jan Egeland is warning that more flattened villages are still being spotted along the coast of Sumatra.

He said: "What the final toll will be we will never know, but we may be talking of tens of thousands of further deaths in this area."

US secretary of state Colin Powell was visiting the region today as world leaders arrived for a summit aimed at co-ordinating the surge of aid being offered.

Mr Powell said: "What we really want to do is make sure the money that has been pledged and the resources that are on the way are properly and appropriately distributed to deal with the need."

UN secretary-general Kofi Annan joined the gathering in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to plan a humanitarian relief operation-being described as the biggest since the Second World War.

Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he wanted the meeting to produce "a concrete result in the mechanism of how to assist countries that are to be assisted".

Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer said: "This will make a major contribution to ensuring there is a better coordinated effort and there are stronger contributions."

Emergency supplies of medicine, food, clean water and shelter are pouring in by air, sea and road. But charities say they are still facing huge difficulties, struggling with wrecked roads, unusable ports and a limited number of aircraft to ferry supplies to remote areas.