The confirmed deaths in a mammoth Asian quake and tsunami soared above 58,000 on Wednesday as worst-hit Indonesia readied bulldozers to dig mass graves for corpses in a rush to ward off disease, which the U.N. health agency said could double the toll. Tens of thousands of people were still missing across a dozen countries from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Somalia, and estimates of the dead ranged up beyond 76,000. The millions of people whose homes were swept away or wrecked by raging walls of water Sunday struggled to find shelter. Indonesia's Health Ministry said thousands more bodies were found, raising to 30,000 the number of confirmed deaths on Sumatra island, the territory closest to the quake that sent tsunami waves rolling across the Indian Ocean. "We will start digging the mass graves today," Indonesian military Col. Achmad Yani Busaki said in the Sumatran city of Banda Aceh on Wednesday as bulldozers stood at the ready. With the threat of disease looming and little way of identifying the thousands of bodies lining the city's streets and the lawns of government offices, the army had no choice but to get the corpses under ground, he said. Sri Lanka on Wednesday listed more than 21,700 people dead, India close to 4,500 _ with 8,000 missing and feared dead. Thailand put its toll at more than 1,500. A total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.
