Sri Lanka blasts: Trump goofs up in condolence message, tweets 138 million people dead

US President Donald Trump on Sunday committed another faux pas as he erroneously wrote that "138 million people" were killed in a string of blasts in Sri Lanka. His tweet was soon deleted, but not before twitterati took notice of the error by the US President and mocked him for that.  

The near-simultaneous attacks on Easter Sunday at three churches and as many luxury hotels frequented by foreigners killed more than 200 people and injured over 450 others, shattering a decade of peace in the country after the end of the brutal civil war with the LTTE.

"Altogether, we have information of 207 dead from all hospitals. According to the information as of now we have 450 injured people admitted to hospitals," police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera told reporters. 

Three churches in various parts of the country and four hotels in Colombo were hit. At least 27 of the dead were foreigners, including people from Turkey, China, India and Holland, officials and media reports said.

President Trump offered "heartfelt condolences" to the people of Sri Lanka and said the US stood ready to help.

The US leader, however, erroneously wrote that "138 million people" were killed in the attacks instead of just 138.

"Heartfelt condolences from the people of the United States to the people of Sri Lanka on the horrible terrorist attacks on churches and hotels that have killed at least 138 million people and badly injured 600 more. We stand ready to help!" Trump said in a tweet which was taken down after more than 20 minutes.

Trump's remarks did not go unnoticed as the agile twitterati started poking fun at the appalling tweet.

"You might want to revise that death toll Donald Trump. Not everything is measured in millions. How 'heartfelt' can the condolences be if you aren't even concentrating on the message of condolence when sending it out?" said former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah.

"138 million? Maybe you should wait for the facts pops," wrote one follower of the US president.

"We are a population of 20 million. 138 million is mathematically impossible. Keep your icky condolences, we don't want it," responded another user.

"138 million! More than the population of Sri Lanka. We are now an empty Country as per Donald!!" tweeted another follower.

Sri Lanka has a total population of around 21.7 million.

After deleting his tweet, he posted another condolence message, "138 people have been killed in Sri Lanka, with more that 600 badly injured, in a terrorist attack on churches and hotels. The United States offers heartfelt condolences to the great people of Sri Lanka. We stand ready to help!"

Trump is known for his wrong tweets and for using embarrassing nicknames as well as 'mispronouncing names' of people such as "Jeff Bozo" in reference to Jeff Bezos of Amazon.

In March, he mistakenly referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as "Tim Apple", a verbal slip which netizens poked fun at by sharing rib-tickling memes on social media.

Last year, he had called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson "Marillyn Lockheed." 

(With PTI inputs)