Sri Lankan officials said today they expect the country's tsunami death toll to exceed 40,000 people as emergency workers recover more bodies three weeks after the disaster.
Worldwide, the December 26th quake and tsunami has officially killed 163,000 people across 11 countries, but scores are still missing and the Indonesian death toll on its own may top 210,000, officials have said.
It is feared that the final death toll in the Indian Ocean nations will exceed 270,000.
The new figures rank the tsunami in the same category as a 1976 earthquake in China that killed at least 255,000 people. The worst natural disaster since 1750 is thought to have been a flood in China in 1939 that killed an estimated 3.7 million people.
A list compiled by the Disaster Management Task Force for Indonesia's devastated Aceh province gave the number of people known to have died in the disaster at 78,395 and said another 131,479 remained lost or missing.
In Sri Lanka, the National Disaster Management Centre has counted 30,920 dead with 6,020 people still missing.
The Public Security Ministry said today the toll was 38,195 dead - or 7,275 higher - but it wasn't clear if that figure included the missing.
Despite the conflicting numbers, both agencies said the toll would rise further. "Dead bodies are still being retrieved from the rubble," a government official said. "The final toll may be more than 40,000 people."
At least 162,705 people have been reported dead around southern Asia and as far away as Somalia on Africa's eastern coast from the earthquake and massive tsunami that smashed coastlines on December 26th.
Death tolls by country:
Indonesia: 115,229
Sri Lanka: 30,920
India: 10,714
Thailand: 5,291
Somalia: 298
Myanmar: 90
Maldives: 82
Malaysia: 68
Tanzania: 10
Bangladesh: 2
Kenya: 1
AP