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Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Five people were killed in clashes between rival forces in the Yemeni capital Sanaa as nationwide protests against the government continued Wednesday.

Of the dead in Sanaa, two were loyal to Gen. Ali Muhsen Al-Ahmar, who has defected to the opposition, a government security official said. The other three were regime soldiers.

Government forces were sending in armored vehicles as reinforcements to the demonstrations in Sanaa, the official said.

Thousands of Yemenis took to the streets in Aden, Taiz, Hodeida and Dhamar.

In addition to the dead in Sanaa, two people were killed in Aden, according to medical staff at the city's Naqeeb Hospital.

Meanwhile, Yemen's attorney general threatened to resign unless the government went after the killers of anti-government protesters last month.

Abdullah Al-Olufi said "those who were responsible for killing almost 60 protesters and injuring hundreds of others should be identified and brought to justice soon."

"If the security authorities don't identify those responsible for the massacre including those who were masked, I will step down," Al-Olufi said as public and external pressure mounts on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.

Protests erupted in Yemen this week despite an attempt by Persian Gulf nations to decrease tensions.

The Gulf Cooperation Council has urged Saleh to transfer powers to his vice president, a move that falls short with the protesters who returned to the streets for marches. Opposition leaders vowed not to back down.

The Joint Meeting Parties bloc, Yemen's largest opposition group, said the Gulf initiative "does not clearly state that Saleh must step down and only focuses on Saleh's transferring power."

"We all know the VP is not strong and will never be able to tell Saleh no, even if all his powers are transferred," said senior bloc official Hasan Zaid.

Saleh, in power since 1978, said he welcomes the council's efforts to help resolve the political crisis in his country. He has said he intends to step down but only under a peaceful and constitutional transition process. He has already promised not to run in the next round of elections.

The United States, which has been allied with the Saleh government in its fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has welcomed past Gulf council initiatives to resolve the crisis in Yemen.

Mentawai tsunami death toll triples

The lucky ones: Survivors Daniel Scanlan (left) and Robert Marino walk on the pier upon their arrival at a port in Padang, West Sumatra, on Wednesday. The group of Australians said they were on the rear deck of their chartered boat, anchored in a bay, when Monday’s quake and tsunami struck. The 3-meter tsunami swept away hundreds of homes, and killed hundreds of villagers. AP/Achmad Ibrahim After a tsunami hit the Mentawai Islands on Monday, one villager struggled through 30 kilometers of forest to reach Sikakap, abandoning dozens of bodies that lay strewn in his flattened hamlet.

Brenti’s home in Muntei Baru-Waru in Batumonga village on North Pagai Island — one of Mentawai’s three main islands, was devastated by an earthquake-triggered tsunami on Monday night.

More than 300 people were killed by the tsunami and about 100 more missing, according to authorities. They said earlier that 113 had died.

Brenti said the first wave was eight meters high and engulfed half of the hamlet. But the second wave struck like a giant wall and was higher than a coconut tree. It struck harder and deeper, eventually reaching the slopes of a hill more than 800 meters inland.

“Only 40 people survived. All 73 houses were gone. The night after the disaster, we — the injured and babies — slept under the rain on a hill in the back of our hamlet,” the 40-year-old said, as quoted by Josh Kamatis, a disaster post coordinator for North and South Pagai Islands in Sikakap, who shared Brenti’s story with The Jakarta Post.

“Those who survived were those who ran to higher ground after the first wave struck, while the dead were mostly those who could not escape the second wave.”

Brenti’s wife and two children were swept away in the tsunami.

When Brenti left his ruined hamlet, dozens of bodies lay scattered on the ground and over 100 people were still missing.

He said that most residents had not felt the 7.2-magnitude quake as they were inside their homes due to rain. Residents were shocked after hearing a thundering sound that resembled loud wave breaks about 15 minutes after the earthquake.

Soon afterwards, the tsunami swept the hamlet.

“The hamlet is just a name now. No more buildings. On Wednesday, 80 dead victims were found and 102 still missing. There were only 40 survivors,” said Kamatis, adding the dead had been buried the same day.

Two days after the disaster struck, the death toll continues to rise, with the disaster post listing 282 dead and 411 missing.

The tsunami badly damaged 25,426 houses, flattened six hamlets and forced 4,500 residents to evacuate to makeshift shelters.

Rescue workers and relief supplies intended for more than a dozen villages on the islands arrived by plane and helicopter on Wednesday.

West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency Operational Control Center head Ade Edward defended the agency’s decision to lift a tsunami warning that had been issued immediately after the temblor struck.

He said his office had not established a tsunami early warning system for Mentawai Islands, adding that even the most advanced equipment could not have processed warning signs fast enough to avoid disaster in the regency after the earthquake.

“The [epicenter] was very close and the tsunami arrived in just 15 minutes, so it was unnecessary,” Ade told the Post on Wednesday.

“The most sophisticated system currently available needs five minutes to process information from an earthquake before issuing a tsunami warning — and a issuing a command to respond to the field would take more than 15 minutes. It would have been too late for Mentawai.”

An early warning system would have been effective for the provincial capital, Padang, and for other areas along West Sumatra’s western coast that were more than 200 kilometers from the epicenter, he said.

When the earthquake hit on Oct. 25, Ade said his office had processed information from weather stations but did not issue an evacuation order since the sea level had not decreased. “In 15 minutes, we decided that a tsunami would not hit the west coast of Sumatra and informed the public by radio that there was no need to evacuate,” he said.

Mentawai Islands regency lawmaker Jan Winnen Sipayung said that some victims might have been asleep when the earthquake struck.

“Nearly all of the villages that were devastated by the tsunami were unconnected to the power network, so most residents went to sleep early. Some of the people likely failed to flee to safety after the quake,” he said Wednesday.