Family members of a Salt Lake teenager missing in the aftermath of southeast Asia's devastating tsunami continued to wait for news late Thursday as the region's death toll maintained its dramatic growth.

Skyline High School sophomore Kali Breisch has been missing in Thailand since the tsunami hit the day after Christmas. Her father, Stuart Breisch, has been combing the beaches and searching sites where unidentified bodies lie by the hundreds, hoping to find a sign of what has happened to his daughter, family friend Charlene Edmunds said.

Breisch, 15, was swept away from a beachside bungalow in the resort area of Phuket, Thailand, and has been missing since.

As the search for Kali continued, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was working to help survivors.

Garry Flake, director of emergency response for the church, has been in Southeast Asia since Monday, helping assess needs.

It may be one of the largest humanitarian relief efforts the church has ever participated in, said Flake — and perhaps one of the most difficult.

"It's been a real issue to try to get your hands around and coordinate," said Flake, who was in Colombo, Sri Lanka, early Thursday. "Each day I've been here, the number of mortalities have gone up. As that has gone up, the number of homeless have gone up."

During a 15-minute telephone report to LDS Church headquarters, Flake described the devastation and the immediate efforts of the church to assist victims of the tsunami.

"We were astonished by the force of the water," he said. "We just couldn't believe seeing the walls that have been caved down, homes that came down, people sitting along the side of the road where their homes were — literally thousands upon thousands have been displaced."

In Indonesia and Thailand, the church has been asked to provide body bags. Cash donations have been made to government agencies overseeing relief efforts in devastated countries. On Saturday, members of the LDS Church in Hong Kong will oversee an effort to assemble 30,000 hygiene kits.

"It's moving now from a phase where they're counting the dead, determining who's alive and trying to get families back together, to where they're needing basic food and medical supplies, plastic sheeting and hygiene kits — the items that people need just to simply keep on going day to day," said Flake.

In the coming days, shipments of food, clothing and other necessities will be made. Much of what the LDS Church is doing now is "evaluative," said spokesman Dale Bills.

"We're matching resources to need," he said.

Other organizations are in the same situation. Many have yet to amass in full force; taking time to gather volunteers and prepare shipments of needed supplies.

"Some of these very immediate needs are so critical to try to reach out and help people," Flake said.

Today, he will meet with government officials in Indonesia. Later, he will travel to Thailand and India — and maybe back to Sri Lanka.

Other international relief agencies have been contacted, and where it is safe, LDS missionaries are helping with humanitarian efforts.

Each day the efforts get better, said Craig Knight, church manager for emergency response. One of the challenges has been in reaching remote villages, where much of the devastation occurred.

"Right now we're working on getting our aid from here to there," said Knight, who is Flake's counterpart in Salt Lake City.

"In the present circumstances, we urge our people to remember in their prayers those in the devastated areas," reads the statement. Donations can be made online at www.lds.org.

Meanwhile, Breisch family members have had help in their search from a French taxicab driver they befriended, as well as government representatives, in their difficult and desperate search, Edmunds told the Deseret Morning News Thursday evening — early this morning in Asia, as survivors of the disaster awoke to yet another day of waiting for food and other aid that doesn't seem to be reaching people fast enough.

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The Los Angeles Times reported Stuart Breisch; his girlfriend, Sally Nelson; and other daughter, Shonti, 18, had gone out diving early Sunday morning, leaving Kali and her brother, Jai, 16, to sleep late in the bungalow on Thailand's Khao Lak beach when the water hit.

Edmunds said family in the Salt Lake area last heard from Breisch Thursday morning, as he prepared to go to bed. She said the emotional and physical strain of the past several days have become too much for the family.

"They're pretty maxed out," Edmunds said. "I don't know that they can handle this kind of thing too many days. It's getting to take a toll on them, not only the emotional and physical toll. You reach a point where it's hard to move forward. This has got to be horrible for them."


E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com; nwarburton@desnews.com

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