"The store had advertised that it would distribute "survival kits" to the first 500 shoppers who raided its post-Christmas stocktake sale. The kits were to contain a cut-price voucher such as a $50 fridge or a $5 DVD player, as well as complimentary sweets, bottled water and coffee. But obtaining a survival kit proved dangerous in itself yesterday, when an unexpectedly large crowd of 2000 swelled the store’s twin entrances just before 7am"

"Early-bird shopper John Kokkinos, 46, who had been camped at the store’s back entrance on the corner of George and Market Streets with his daughter and nephew since 4.30am, told of a "crush" followed by "panic"."

"However, the NSW Chamber of Commerce chief executive, Margy Osmond, said that Boxing Day sales crowds were generally "fairly buoyant but quite well controlled"."

Still some 60,000 people have died as a result of the Tsunami and the number keeps rising…

Update: Relief agencies struggled to rush aid to more than 3 million people in Africa and Asia who lack food and medicine as the number of fatalities from the weekend’s earthquake and tsunamis passed 80,000, with more than half the dead in Indonesia.

Photo: Agence France Presse
A NASA image released Tuesday shows the sequence of Sunday’s tsunami, which caused the deadly tidal wave.