Desperate refugees foraged for coconuts or looted food on battered Sumatra island, as the number killed in a mammoth earthquake and tsunami soared above 55,000 on Wednesday with tens of thousands still missing. The U.N. health agency warned that disease in the aftermath of the disaster could double the toll yet again.

10,000 dead in one town:

Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at Indonesia's Social Affairs Ministry, said 10,000 people had been reported killed in and around Meulaboh, a poor Sumatran town where most people are fishermen or workers on palm oil plantations

Video footage of the tsunami, plus other good links, here.

Incredible photos here.

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A top World Health Organization official warned that disease following in the wake of the devastation could kill as many people again. Dr. David Nabarro told a Geneva news conference Tuesday that an influx of medical supplies and water treatment equipment is crucial to head off the looming health catastrophe. "We could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," he said, according to a Reuters reporter in Switzerland.

• Generation of children swept away:

Authorities believe the most powerful loss of this terrible event may prove to be the loss of a generation of children. UNICEF estimates at least one-third – possibly half – of the estimated 60,000 dead are children. Perhaps the same number have been left orphans.

[If I may interject here] ---

The enormity of the disaster is just now sinking in for me. As when I covered the Russian hostage crisis, the first few days were a flurry of internet activity; gathering links, scanning stories, reading blogs and emails with more links and more stories. My purpose is, of course, to perform my Command Post duties and bring you all the news as quickly as possible, but it serves another purpose - treating the story as a job has kept me somewhat detatched from the human face of it.

It is only now, when I've had a few spare moments to digest everything that's happened in the past few days, that it hits me just how much - and how many - were lost. Not just lives, but perhaps an entire generation. Livelihoods are gone. Entire families wiped out. Towns demolished. The sadness and grief will be felt around the world. How do you mourn 60,000 people at once? How do you even comprehend that number? It seems almost impossible.

Here's a sobering thought for you:

The number of people killed by the South Asian tsunami will likely exceed the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War.

The only thing we can do, as observers, is reach out however we can.

[I apologize for this personal intrusion into the usual barrage of links and updates]