Logistical problems hampered a massive humanitarian relief operation along Asia's devastated shores as the death toll from a huge earthquake and killer tidal waves surged past 55,000.

With the scale of the catastrophe rapidly unfolding, the confirmed number of dead in 10 countries shot up to 55,175, with Indonesia's Aceh province accounting for half of those killed, or 27,174.

In Sri Lanka, 17,640 are dead.

An Indian woman mourns the death of her relative in Cuddalore, 180 km (112 miles) south of the Indian city of Madras, December 28, 2004, who was killed when a tidal wave hit on Sunday. Rescue workers pulled corpses from canals and water-logged fields in India on Tuesday, as the government warned the death toll of almost 9,400 from a tsunami, which was triggered by an earthquake, that lashed the country's south would rise further. REUTERS/Arko Datta

The fear that outbreaks of disease could unleash a second wave of tragedy on a region struggling to cope with the first also loomed large with decomposing bodies and sewerage contaminating water sources.

In some areas food and medicines were in desperately short supply.

In India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, where at least 4,000 people are confirmed dead, coastguard officials said the toll on Car Nicobar alone could top 10,000.

Police said they had received no word from dozens of islands in the Andaman and Nicobar chain which stretch over 800 kilometers (496 miles) and were close to the epicenter of the earthquake.

In Thailand, the toll rose to 1,516, with 8,432 injured and about 1,200 listed as missing, the interior ministry said.

More than 700 foreign tourists are believed to be among those killed, and relatives across Europe were desperately seeking news of missing loved ones.

The quake Sunday, the biggest in 40 years at 9.0 on the Richter scale, ruptured the Indian Ocean seabed off Indonesia's Sumatra island, sending huge waves thousands of kilometers (miles) to kill and destroy in countries around southern and southeast Asia and even in Africa.

In Indonesia, the death toll leapt suddenly as casualties were tallied from Aceh Jaya, an isolated region on the northwestern coast of badly-hit Sumatra island which lies less than 150 kilometers (120 miles) from the quake's epicenter

Officials have said the figure is expected to keep climbing.

Bodies continued to be pulled from washed out trains, cars and smashed buildings in Sri Lanka, as the death toll jumped above 17,000.

Mass funerals were taking place across the region amid scenes of traumatic grief as bodies lay rotting along coastlines to a point where identification was no longer possible.

"The people should be buried and the animals should be destroyed and disposed of before they infect the drinking water. It's a massive operation," said UN disaster relief coordinator Jan Egeland.

Gruesome scenes met emergency teams in the worst hit countries of Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Thailand, while the death tolls ticked up even in the less affected areas of Malaysia, the Maldives and Myanmar.

As survivors were evacuated from stricken areas tales of the full horror of carnage wrought by the tidal waves emerged: babies torn from their parents' hands, children and the elderly hurled out to sea from their homes, entire villages swept away.

Hundreds of rescue ships, helicopters and planes were mobilized to evacuate tourists from wrecked resorts and airlift stricken victims to hospitals already overflowing with the injured and corpses.

The UN's Egeland told a press conference at its headquarters in New York that relief operations would be the biggest ever as the destruction was not confined to one country or region.

"The cost of the devastation will be in the billions of dollars. It would probably be many billions of dollars," he said.

As events unfolded, aid agencies warned that the threat of disease was growing, but efforts to rush relief to the worst-hit areas met logistical problems, particularly in remote Aceh at the far northern tip of Sumatra island.

"It is going to be a huge problem getting relief even out of the airport," Michael Enquist, the head of the United Nations Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP of Aceh.

Even though the region was crying out for body bags and sanitation, and aid as flooding in, there was no way of getting it to where it was most needed.

"There is no petrol, no food, no water and no vehicles available," he said.

In Sri Lanka, drinking water wells were already badly contaminated with sea water, government minister Susil Premajayantha said, but the biggest fear is of water contamination by decomposing bodies which could spark epidemics of cholera and typhoid, experts warned.

"The biggest health challenges we are facing are the spread of waterborne diseases," said International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies health official Hakan Sandbladh.

Compounding the problem is the huge number of people left homeless, and a lack of food.

In Aceh province, a lone SOS call from police in cut-off Meulaboh said looting had broken out and starvation loomed.

"If within three to four days relief does not arrive, there will be a starvation disaster that will cause mass deaths," chief police detective Rilo Pambudi said in the e-mail, released by officials in Jakarta.

In southern India, vultures gathered as survivors grimly buried or burnt their dead. The number of dead passed 8,500 Tuesday.

Tens of thousands spent the night huddling in emergency relief camps as the government stepped up relief efforts and the Indian Red Cross appealed for food, clothes and tarpaulins.

In the worst-hit Indian state of Tamil Nadu, fisherman A. Ravi wept as he recalled watching his family, including four children, swept away as his village was flattened.

"We went fishing in the early morning and a few hours later the water started swirling around us and suddenly the level went down so sharply we could see the seabed," said Ravi.

"Then I saw a huge sheet of water going towards the shore... when I got back I found my village under water and my family gone," he said.

Similar stories of personal tragedy were repeated throughout the region, with new horrors revealed each time rescuers reach previously cut off areas.

As countries mobilized their resources to help the victims, dazed foreigners began flying home -- still struggling to come to grips with what had happened.

The waves triggered by the quake were so powerful that the destruction reached the shores of Africa about 7,000 kilometers (4,000 miles) away, killing more than 100 Somali fishermen.

The tragedy has sparked a growing chorus of calls for a tsunami alert system, as many victims were swept from coastlines hours after the quake which triggered the giant waves was recorded.

© Copyright 2004 AFP

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