The world's fifth-largest quake in a century has hit southern Asia, unleashing a tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India, drowning more than nine thousand people and swamping tourist islands in Thailand and the Maldives.
A wall of water up to 10 metres high triggered bythe 8.9 magnitude earthquake swept into Indonesia, over the coast ofSri Lanka and India and across southern Thai tourist islands.
Two-thirds of the Maldives capital, Male, wasflooded and officials voiced anxiety for the fate of dozens oflow-lying, palm-ringed coral atolls crowded with international touristsfor the Christmas holiday season.
Sri Lanka, where officials put the death toll atmore than 3000, appealed for emergency international assistance,President Chandrika Kumaratunga's office said. One million people, or 5percent of the population, were affected, officials said.
"The president has declared a state of nationaldisaster due to the seriousness of the situation," her office said.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh alerted thenavy after 1,000 were reported dead and offered urgent help to SriLanka.
The earthquake of magnitude 8.9 as measured bythe US Geological Survey first struck at 7:59 a.m. today (12:59 a.m.Irish time) off the coast of the northern Indonesian island of Sumatraand swung north with multiple tremors into the Andaman islands.
More than 100 Western and Asian tourists ondiving holidays were missing on islands off southern Thailand, about 70of them in the famed Emerald Cave, a tourist official said.
The government sent helicopters to Koh Phi Phi,another island popular with tourists, and other smaller islands in theAndaman Sea to assess the damage in the peak holiday season.
It ordered the evacuation of stricken areas,which included beaches on the popular resort islands of Phuket andKrabi.
"Nothing like this has ever happened in ourcountry before," said Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The earthquake was the world's biggest since1964, said Julie Martinez, geophysicist at the US Geological Survey inGolden, Colorado. "It is multiple earthquakes along the samefaultline."
It was the fifth-largest earthquake since 1900,she said.
"These big earthquakes, when they occur inshallow water, ... basically slosh the ocean floor ... and it's as ifyou're rocking water in the bathtub and that wave can travel basicallythroughout the ocean," USGS geophysicist Bruce Presgrave told the BBC.
In Sri Lanka, thousands fled the worst tsunami inliving memory, scrambling to higher ground for fear of another wave.
"The army and the navy have sent rescue teams; wehave deployed over four choppers and half the navy's eastern fleet tolook for survivors," said military spokesman Brigadier Daya Ratnayake.
The worst-hit area appeared to be the touristregion of the south and east where beach hotels were inundated or sweptaway.
"Our naval base in Trincomalee is underwater andright now we are trying to manage the situation there while rescuingpeople," said navy spokesman Jayantha Perera.
In the low-lying Maldives, President MaumoonAbdul Gayoom was to declare a national disaster in the archipelagowhose coral atolls are a magnet for tourists from around the world,said chief government spokesman Ahmed Shaheed.
"The damage is considerable," Shaheed said. "Theisland is only about three feet (one metre) above sea level and a waveof water four feet (1.3 metres) high swept over us."
The international airport was unusable, he said. "It is a very bad situation. It is terrible," Shaheedsaid.
"As you know it is the peak tourist season. Weare trying to get reports from those areas. The whole of the Maldivesis a tourist area so we are just hoping and praying."
The world's worst tsunami in recent historystruck on July 17, 1998, when three waves ripped through Papua NewGuinea's northwest coast, killing 2,500.
At least 483 people were killed on Indonesia'sSumatra island where the wave washed people out to sea and torechildren from their parents' arms, officials said.
Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, liesalong the Pacific Ring of Fire where plate boundaries intersect andvolcanoes regularly erupt.
To the north in Thailand, officials reported onewave 5 to 10 metres (16 to 32 feet) high hit hotel-lined beaches onPhuket.
At least 120 people had been killed and more than1,000 injured, officials said.
"It happened in cycles. There would be a surgeand then it would retreat and then there would be a next surge whichwas more violent and it went on like that," Paul Ramsbottom, a Britonon holiday in a Phuket beach bungalow, told BBC World.
"Then there was this one almighty surge. I meanliterally this was the one which was picking up pickup trucks andmotorcycles and throwing them around in front of us," he added.
One foreigner was known to be among the dead inKrabi.
Thai television showedscenes of devastation on one Phuket beach. Store fronts were damagedand cars and motorcycles were strewn around after being tossed about bythe powerful waves.
A Thai man carried oneelderly Western man in swimming trunks to safety on his back, ITVshowed.
At least 1,000 people have been killed along thesouthern Indian coast and rescuers were searching for hundreds offishermen missing, government officials said.
About 100 people had died in Madras alone, thecity's police commissioner, K. Natarajan, told reporters. "The bodiesin the hospital are mostly young women and children."