Anxious wait for aid

In Sri Lanka's tidal wave catastrophe, some of the horrors are only now being revealed. This morning, as one of the first British journalists to reach the country's remote rebel-dominated north-east, I witnessed scenes of desperation unequalled in other areas. But, unlike on the south or west coasts, this desperation seemed very little, if at all, relieved by any kind of outside help.

Trucks lay on their side, unrecognisably mangled and already rusting in the smelly salt air. What had been Beach Road in the small town of Pedro is now simply rubble, strewn with tossed-about fishing boats. Still looking for possessions or bodies, people dug through the rubble and earth.

In a Christian cemetery near the seafront, the boats - from the fishing fleet which was most of this town's economy - had crashed among the graves knocking the crosses sideways. They were trying to clear some space, perhaps to bury someone.

Kanna Maradhaf, who lived in Beach Road, said his next-door neighbours had died on the morning of the tidal wave. "The house just collapsed," he said. "They were crushed within it and they did not rise out."

Kilbid Maranadam, a fisherman, showed me his boat. It was in a tree. "I have no money. I cannot earn any money without my boat but prices have risen so fast since the disaster."

Of the buildings, only the Britishera lighthouse in grubby white brick and concrete still stood apparently undamaged. We had been waved down by a man with a red frisbee, a warning that the road was impassable. We found another way by driving on tarmac with great chunks carved out of it.

The chunks had been carved by the concrete street lights which had been dragged, twisted and bent, across the road.

The only way you could recognise that people had lived by this road was by the wells in the ground - the only thing still left of their houses. This is the worse hit side of the country. Unlike the tourist areas on the west coast, which were badly devastated enough, this side of the island faced directly towards the oncoming wave.

Official reports gave the death

toll last night in this town and area alone of 2,076, a tenth of the Sri Lankan total. In a nearby area, the settlement Mullaitibu, a thousand are dead and 2,000 are missing.

Further down the east coast the Ampara district is almost deserted with a figure or more than 8,000 dead. And all these numbers can only rise.

But although we saw several aid agencies' white vehicles and one lorry unloading sacks of food, there was little other assistance in evidence.

This is the stamping ground of the Tamil Tiger rebels - and while the peninsula on which Point Pedro stands has gone back to government control, all aid coming by land must pass through areas still controlled by the Tigers.

The fate of this area is a vital test, not just of the aid agencies' abilities to save lives in the most difficult places, but of the peace deal signed between government and rebels.

Accusations are already flying that this area is being deliberately neglected by the government and aid diverted to areas inhabited by the Finhalese majority.

Sri Lankan newspapers have reported that convoys coming up to the north-east have been forcibly waylaid by local officials before they can reach this affected area.

UN staff in Colombo deny this, saying the lack of aid is probably just due to the general chaos.

The devastation that has struck this area is all the crueller for the fact that it has only just recovered from 20 years of war.

Bullet holes pockmark the buildings and, for more than a mile of our journey, all were burnt out. Minefields still line some of the roads.

In the town of Jaffna, large numbers of antique Morris Minor cars testify to the years that this area spent cut off from the rest of the country.

A peace deal signed in 2002 saw some rebuilding, much of which has now been destroyed underneath the waves.

There is increasing anger across Sri Lanka this morning at the slow pace of the aid effort - but the areas suffering the worse are also the areas receiving the least.

The first precept of the Sri Lanka national religion, Buddhism, states that "all life is suffering".

Point Pedro is a Hindu area but its people would be the first to agree that for the moment this statement very much applies to them.