MADRAS, 28 December 2004 — Grief and anguish marked final rituals across Southeast Asia yesterday as relatives buried or cremated their loved ones; and the death toll from a powerful earthquake and the giant tidal waves it unleashed crossed 25,000.

Hopes faded for many thousands more still missing. Massive rescue operations were scrambled along Asia’s devastated coastlines as billions of dollars worth of damage was caused by the disaster and the humanitarian relief operation needed to help victims would have to be the biggest ever mounted, an official at the United Nations said.

Horrific scenes of destruction met emergency teams as bodies piled up by the hour from Sri Lanka to India, Indonesia to Thailand, while international aid agencies rushed food and clothing to hundreds of thousands left homeless.

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 trail of devastation came after an earthquake erupted off Indonesia on Sunday, razing buildings in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh and triggering giant tidal waves which battered the coasts of Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia. As survivors were evacuated, the full horror of carnage emerged; babies torn from their parents’ hands, children and the elderly hurled out to sea from their homes, entire villages swept away.

The quake, the fourth largest recorded since 1900 at 9.0 on the Richter scale, occurred after a rupture on the Indian Ocean seabed caused by the violent grinding of two tectonic plates, killing over 25,000 according to latest official figures.

Sri Lanka and India were severely hit with respective death tolls of 12,000 and 7,100, while the number of dead in Indonesia rose to 4,900. A further 1,000 deaths were reported in Thailand, 56 in Myanmar, 120 in the Maldives, 51 in Malaysia and two in Bangladesh.

Huge waves swept about 7,000 kilometers (4,000 miles) as far as Africa, crashing onto the shores of Kenya and Somalia, affecting the islands of Mauritius, Reunion and the Seychelles on the way. More than 100 Somali fishermen were reported dead.

In Sri Lanka a massive humanitarian operation was launched to help 375,000 people believed to have lost their homes.

“We had no mechanism to deal with this type of disaster,” said top government aide Lalith Weeratunga, as the nation appealed for international aid and President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a state of disaster.

In southern India survivors grimly buried or cremated their dead as the death toll rose to more than 7,100, with thousands more missing amid warnings of a return of killer tsunamis.

In the worst-hit Indian state 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 toward the shore... when I got back I found my village under water and my family gone,” he said.

The Indian death toll included about 3,000 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, close to the temblor’s epicenter where tens of thousands of people were still unaccounted for.

The United Nations said the international response to the disaster would have to be bigger than the one mounted a year ago when a quake killed about 30,000 people in Bam, Iran.

“The cost of the devastation will be in the billions of dollars. It would probably be many billions of dollars,” said Jan Egeland, the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs in New York.

“We had then the biggest outpouring of international relief ever. I think we will have this one surpass that, and it should because it’s a much bigger disaster,” he said.

Indonesia’s Aceh province bore the brunt of the temblor, hit at point-blank range and then battered by a tsunami, leaving at least 4,900 dead and many more missing.

A reporter among the first to reach the province’s main city Banda Aceh, which has been in blackout since the quake struck, described a scene of death and ruin, with hundreds of bodies and pulverized buildings.

Bloodied corpses covered by plastic sheets lay rotting on the ground at an Indonesian Red Cross office in Lambaro on the northern outskirts of Banda Aceh. Police said there were 500 bodies at the center.

“People told me it was as if God had unleashed his anger on the people,” said Haji Ali, a resident in Patong Labu, a small settlement close to the north Aceh town of Bireuen. Relief efforts have been hampered by the closure of the region’s main airport at Banda Aceh.

The death toll in Thailand, where a further 1,200 were listed as missing, included scores of foreign tourists and a grandson of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, with more than 7,300 injured. Almost 29,000 people were evacuated from the worst affected areas, which included the resort islands of Phuket and Phi Phi where thousands of European tourists had been enjoying holidays.

Hardly a building was left standing on Phi Phi island east of Phuket, where bodies were seen strewn about the island, covered in white cloths before being taken away by emergency crews or Western tourist volunteers.

“I saw bodies almost everywhere on land, and in the water too, and I think there are many more bodies trapped under the bungalow debris,” said rescuer Wirat Mansa-ad, estimating 300 died on the island alone.

The United Nations rushed disaster teams to South and Southeast Asia, saying hundreds of thousands of people in coastal areas were at risk, with livelihoods from fishing and farming wiped out and disease threatening to wreak more havoc.

A massive international aid operation was getting under way for the victims, with millions of dollars pledged from around the world. Drinking water, desalination plants, medical supplies and helicopters to transport the aid rapidly were priorities after what the United Nations’ disaster relief organization OCHA in Geneva called the “unprecedented catastrophe”.

Initial aid pledges included three million euros from the European Union and a reported aid package being put together by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund of many millions. The EU said yesterday it would increase the aid it pledged to help the victims. The European Commission can access up to 30 million euros at short notice for use in emergency relief.

Governments from France to Australia and Russia to the United States pledged aid and assistance, despatched aircraft, doctors and disaster relief specialists.

Washington also pledged initial aid of $15 million, including a large commitment to the international Red Cross and Red Crescent.

“The United States has been following this situation from the very beginning,” Secretary of State Colin Powell said at a press briefing. “USAID and other elements of the United States government have been deeply involved.” Powell said in the last 18 hours he spoke with his counterparts in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Malaysia to reinforce offers of assistance.

— With input from agencies