U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell toured Indonesia's tsunami-wracked Sumatra island Wednesday and the former army general said the devastation was the worst he's ever seen. "I've been in war and I've been through a number of hurricanes, tornados and other relief operations, but I've never seen anything like this," Powell said after flying over flattened villages along Sumatra's northern coastline. "I can not begin to imagine the horror that went through the families and all of the people who heard this noise and then had their lives snuffed out by this wave." Powell was in Indonesia ahead of a meeting of world leaders in Jakarta on Thursday to iron out problems coordinating history's largest relief operation. So far US$2 billion (¤1.5 billion) has been pledged, but with nearly 150,000 people dead, millions homeless and tens of thousands threatened by disease, the challenges are enormous. Hardest hit was Sumatra, which was closest to the 9.0 magnitude quake that struck off of Indonesia's western coast on Dec. 26, triggering the tsunami that caused deaths as far away as East Africa.
