The death toll after the quake and tsunamis in the Indian ocean continues to grow. The bad news abounds, the good news is mixed, and I thought a wrap up of the biggest natural disaster in a century in order.

By far the most disturbing story comes from The Scotsman:

Swedish and Thai police are searching for a 12-year-old Swedish boy last seen leaving a Thai hospital with an unknown man in the aftermath of the south Asian tsunami.

A boy matching the description of 12-year-old Kristian Walker was last seen with a German man at a hospital near Khao Lak on Monday, but has since vanished, despite a desperate search by his American grandfather, Daniel Walker, family and police said.

In the wake of the devastating tsunami, there have been unconfirmed reports of dozens of orphaned children taken by unidentified people, some of them possibly child traffickers.

Normally the phrase Human Vermin in a headline would strike me as a bit Yellow Journalism-y, but in this case...

STOCKHOLM: In the latest example of the tsunamis exposing the worst as well as the best of human nature, Swedish authorities are refusing to release the names of people missing in the tsunami for fear their homes will be robbed.

Thieves, rapists, kidnappers and hoaxers are preying on tsunami survivors and victims' families in refugee camps and hospitals in the affected countries and in the home countries of European tourists hit by the giant waves.

In one of the worst incidents, a 12-year-old Swedish boy who survived the disaster is believed to have been kidnapped from a Thai hospital by suspected child-sex traffickers.

And that's just the sideshow. Reuters wraps up the main event:

The United Nations warned that the toll of about 150,000 known dead would rise as more bodies were found and survivors fell sick. In Indonesia's worst-hit Aceh province, infectious illnesses were already rife.

The bad news ranges from gigantically bad

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated there were more than half a million people injured and in need of medical care in six nations. Fears grew that diseases like cholera and malaria would break out among the 5 million displaced.

The U.N. agency said pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and skin infections had already emerged in Aceh. There were cases of gangrene among survivors with wounds exposed to polluted water. Seawater and sewage have contaminated many wells.

to simply bizarre:

On Tuesday salvage crews dragged away a crippled cargo jet that had been blocking the runway at Banda Aceh, capital of the devastated province of Aceh on the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

The airport was closed to fixed-wing craft overnight after the chartered Boeing 737 reportedly hit a water buffalo on landing and damaged its undercarriage.

You can tell an airport's in good shape when you “hit a water buffalo on landing.”

Good news is far between, although some of it is very good:

Global promises of aid total $2 billion. "It's been just phenomenal," U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland told U.S. television.

"We have never, ever seen anything like this. In 10 days, we've had more relief to the tsunami victims than we had to all other emergencies in the world last year. It is the standard that we should set for relief to the world in the future."

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) even urged the public to stop sending it money, saying it had enough for its projects in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, on his way to a global aid summit in Jakarta on Thursday, vowed Washington would help the millions hit by the December 26 tsunami to rebuild. But he said an effort on the scale of the post-World War Two Marshall Plan was probably not needed.

Nine times out of ten, I'm sympathetic to people talking suggesting the U.S. is not providing enough foreign aid to protect our most basic self-interest, let alone be charitable. But in this case, “not quite as massive as the Marshall Plan” is hardly what I'd call stingy.

Appearing on Good Morning America, Powell outlined some of the problems: “Everybody thinks you can just magically move aircraft, helicopters and aircraft carriers across an ocean in a day. ... It's not just money. It's getting food, water, medical supplies in place. It takes time to generate such an effort.” Former President's Clinton and Bush have been doing PSA's asking for private contributions.

And more importantly, Powell discussed the need for a tsunami alert system. Nature.com analyzes what's needed for such as system:

First, the region needs an extensive network of seismographs, which pick up the tremors from underwater earthquakes. Second, regional centers must be established to process and interpret the seismographic information in real time, and predict the likely impact and location of subsequent tsunamis. Third, communication systems must be set up that can relay swift warnings internationally, regionally and then to local communities.

But the final, disturbing note:

Most attention is focused on the Indian Ocean at the moment, but researchers warn that other regions at risk of tsunamis, including the Caribbean, the coasts of Central and South America and the Mediterranean, also lack adequate warning systems. "It would be unwise to put all the efforts into the Indian Ocean," says Vasily Titov, who studies tsunamis at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington.

Very unwise. Unfortunately, unwise things are something humanity is very good at doing.

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