Verbatim.

"Any reported death toll would be understated. Whose families are missing. Who would report them?"
--> Syaffudin Abdullah, oil co. manager who lost his sister and bro-in-law in Indo's Aceh.

"We worked eight months on this, two shifts per day, 3,000 workers...And it is all gone in 5 minutes."
--> Ekasak Thongthasawes, architect n builder of the Sofitel Magic Lagoon In Khao Lak, Thailand.

"One of the problems is that if you tell untrained people, 'listen- there's a tsunami coming,' half of them go down to the beach to see what a tsunami looks like." --> Phil Mcfadden, chief scientistat Geoscience Australia, an agency that monitors earthquakes, on the difficulties of issuing tsunami warnings in Indian Ocean countries.

"We are getting unprecedented support from all the countries. Right now we are unable to handle it." --> Tilak Ranaviraja, head of Sri-Lanka's disaster-management team, describing the aid pouring ino the country.

"It has become clear that what has happened is a catastrophe and tragedy of enormous proportions and will affect Sweden's daily life for a long time to come." --> Goran Persson, Swedish prime ministe, mourning the 59 swedes killed and the 3,500 still missing in Thailand.

"Hundreds of thousands of children who survived the massive waves that destroyed their communites now rish getting seriously ill from something as simple as taking a drink of water."
--> Carol Bellamy, UNICEF executive director, on the health risks facing the affected countries.

On the morning of Dec 26, an earthquake off Sumatra was followed by a massive tsuanmi. They called it the sea of sorrow. Asia's suffering touches the world. After reading the stories from the Internet, newspaper, news.... I realize that how fragile life can be. I didn't know it was so serious until I read the full report on the Dec 27. I became obessed with the story. It breaks my heart to see families looking for their missing love ones. Do get a copy of this month issue of TIME.

Verbatim was taken from TIME: Tsunami Special Report magazine.