A generation suddenly depleted

"In country after country, children have emerged as the biggest victims of Sunday's quake-born tidal waves — thousands and thousands drowned, battered and washed away by huge walls of water that have decimated an entire generation of Asians.

"The power of this earthquake, and its huge geographical reach, are just staggering," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. Hundreds of thousands of children who managed to survive in the affected coastal communities now "may be in serious jeopardy," she added.

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." ..."

[Generation of Asians Lost in Disaster (Associated Press)]