UN warns of epidemics in Asia

Reuters, Geneva
The United Nations warned on Monday of epidemics within days unless health systems in southern Asia can cope after more than 14,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless by a giant tsunami.

Aid agencies round the world rushed staff, equipment and money to southern Asia after huge waves, triggered by a massive underwater earthquake, pummeled and swamped coastal communities in at least six countries on Sunday.

"This may be the worst national disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas ... so many vulnerable communities," the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told CNN.