Thousands of corpses rotted in South East Asia's tropical sun today as rescuers scoured isolated coasts across the Indian Ocean for survivors of Sunday's giant waves that killed at least 76,000 people.
The World Health Organisation says it fears to death toll may be up to 120,000. Children could account for up to a third of the dead.
The United Nations mobilized what it called the biggest relief operation in its history. Many who escaped death in what was possibly the deadliest tsunami in more than 200 years now face hunger and disease.
The ocean surge was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, spreading in an arc of death across the Indian Ocean and striking nations from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, and beyond to Africa.
US scientists said the quake that set off the killer wall of water permanently moved tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 98 feet, slightly shifting islands near Sumatra.
Indonesia's official death toll stood at 45,268, but authorities said this did not include a full count from Sumatra's west coast. The death toll in the Aceh province might reach 80,000, a UN official said.
"I would say we are probably talking about somewhere in the order of 80,000 people, 50 to 80,000 people, that would be my educated guess," said Michael Elmquist, head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Indonesia.
He said there might have been 40,000 deaths in the town of Meulaboh.
The stench of decomposing corpses spread over the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and fresh water, food and fuel were running short. Many in the city feared fresh quakes and tsunamis, and roads were filled with people trying to leave. Bodies lay scattered on the streets. Soldiers and volunteers were collecting corpses for mass burial to prevent disease.
Disease could kill as many people as those killed by the wall of water, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official said. "There is certainly a chance that we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," the WHO's Dr David Nabarro said.
A total of 22,493 people have been confirmed killed in Sri Lanka and the number is rising. The government today forecast the toll could pass the 30,000 mark. Hundreds of people were killed when a wave crashed into a train traveling to Galle from Colombo, wrecking carriages and uprooting the track.
Rescue teams headed out to the last of India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands that have been cut off since Sunday and where people on some of the isles have been surviving on just coconuts.
India's toll of nearly 12,500 included at least 7,000 killed on the islands. On one island, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population.
"One in every five inhabitants in the entire Nicobar group of islands is either dead, injured or missing," a police official said.
In parts of India's Tamil Nadu state officials had given up trying to count the dead and were disposing of bodies as quickly as possible in mass burials.
In Thailand, where thousands of tourists were enjoying a Christmas break to escape the northern winter, many paradise resorts were turned into graveyards.
In a French-run hotel at Khao Lak beach, north of Phuket island, up to half the 415 guests were believed killed. A reporter from France's Europe 1 radio said many bodies had been found in their rooms.
Some 136 foreign nationals and tourists were confirmed dead and 2,689 were still missing. Some 1,500 Swedes and 800 Norwegians were unaccounted for.
Foreign tourists pored over names on hospital lists and peered at scores of photos of swollen, unidentified bodies. Thailand's official toll was 1,538 dead.
Hundreds of people were killed in the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia. The arc of water struck as far away as Somalia and Kenya. Fishing villages, ports and resorts were devastated, power and communications cut and homes destroyed.
Mr Gerhard Berz, a top risk researcher at Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, estimated the economic cost of the devastation at more than €10 billion.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the international community may have to give billions of dollars in aid. The United States more than doubled its pledge to around €30 million. Australia said it, the United States, Japan and India were considering setting up a core group to coordinate help.
The tremor, the biggest in 40 years, may have caused the Earth to wobble on its axis, permanently accelerating its rotation and shortening days by a fraction of a second, US scientists said.
A tsunami in 1883 at Krakatoa, off southern Sumatra, killed 36,000 and one in the South China Sea in 1782 killed 40,000, according to the US National Geophysical Data Center.