Saturday, January 15 2005 10:00 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Observing that many tsunami-hit Asian countries might take years to recover, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has highlighted India as the only country in the region that could handle the crisis on its own.

"It's going to take years and each country is a little different. India is fine. It can handle its own needs. It had a significant loss of life, but it has the resources to deal with it," Powell told the CNN in an interview on Thursday (Jan 13, 2005).

It's going to be in Indonesia and Sri Lanka that will need the most international help, he said.

"Then there are other nations that will need some help: the Maldives and the Seychelles, perhaps a little bit in Somalia and Kenya and a few other places," he said.

Thailand also needs a bit of help, he added.

Comparing the destruction wrought by the tsunami in Sumatra to what a nuclear blast would do, he said, "Nothing was like the tsunami, because flying over the city of Banda Aceh in northern Sumatra looked like flying over a place that had just been hit by a nuclear weapon, completely flattened."

"It was something like I had never seen before, but I had studied when I was a young officer studying how to use nuclear weapons. This is what you expected to see from a nuclear weapon."

"I think what is also unprecedented is the level of the international response, a tremendous outpouring of support from Governments around the world and private citizens," he said.