Nearly 70,000 people have died, but UN chief fears worse

The tsunami death toll has climbed to nearly 70,000, and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan expects it to rise by tens of thousands in the next few days.

"I think there's going to be thousands, thousands, if not tens of thousands more than the figure that is being used now," he said.

As the search continued along the stricken coasts of the Indian Ocean, casualty numbers were becoming hard to fix.

Reuters reported the preliminary death toll at more than 68,000 last night, Agence France-Press said 56,000 were dead.

About 340 New Zealanders are among Western tourists still missing.

Fears are mounting, particularly for 115 thought to have been on the popular Thai island of Phuket when the tsunami struck.

A further 192 are unaccounted for in other parts of Thailand.

Seventeen are in hospitals in Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff said concerns were growing as time passed.

"Given the large number of unidentified foreign bodies that have been recovered in the Phuket area we would have to be fortunate not to have other New Zealand casualties."

He said New Zealand was sending a 10-member disaster victim identification team to Phuket to help Thai authorities identify bodies.

The team has a pathologist, a dental expert and eight police experts in body identification, and is part of an aid package worth $5 million.

Coastal communities in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were among the most severely hit as giant waves crashed ashore without warning, sweeping away poor fishing villages and upscale beachfront resorts.

The United Nations has mobilised what it says is the world's biggest relief operation.

Mr Annan said survivors now needed food, clean water, shelter and medication. The international community also had to start worrying about sanitation to ensure that epidemics did not set in.

International aid teams landed in devastated villages, and health experts said disease could kill as many people as the waves.

The UN's World Food Programme was sending trucks of food to parts of Sri Lanka, and the Red Cross sent sanitation teams to villages in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, said the economic cost of the devastation would top US$13 billion ($18 billion).

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the international community might have to give billions in aid.

The United States more than doubled its pledge to US$35 million and ordered 12 vessels, including the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, the helicopter carrier Bonhomme Richard and a submarine, to the region. Australia increased its aid to A$27 million ($29 million) and said it, the United States, Japan and India were considering setting up a core group to co-ordinate help.

Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN's children's organisation Unicef, said children could account for up to a third of the dead.

Indonesia has the highest number of victims - 32,502 are known to be dead and a final toll of 40,000 is expected.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spoke of "frightening reports" from outlying parts of Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra and closest to the quake's epicentre.

Fresh water, food and fuel are running short in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. Many in the city feared fresh quakes and tsunamis, and roads were filled with people trying to leave.

"We haven't eaten for two days. We have to get out of here," said Irawan, 35, whose practice as an optician was destroyed.

Bodies lay scattered on the streets. Soldiers and volunteers were collecting corpses for mass burial.

In Sri Lanka, where the death toll neared 22,000, hundreds were killed when a wave crashed into a train travelling to Galle from Colombo, wrecking carriages and uprooting the track.

Tamil Tiger rebels in the island's north appealed for help as they dug mass graves to bury thousands of bodies.

All 135 children at an orphanage run by women rebels were killed.

India's toll of nearly 12,500 included at least 7000 killed on the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, which are closer to Myanmar and Indonesia than to the Indian mainland.

On one, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population.

"One in every five inhabitants in the Nicobar group of islands is dead, injured or missing," a police official said. Dozens of aftershocks rocked the islands.

In parts of India's Tamil Nadu state, officials gave up trying to count the dead and were counting survivors instead while burying bodies as quickly as possible in mass graves.

In Thailand, where thousands of tourists were enjoying a peak-season Christmas break, many west-coast resorts were turned into graveyards.

The waves may have killed more than 3000 at Khao Lak beach, north of Phuket island, police said.

Already, 1200 bodies had been recovered from the beach and its hotels, which are popular with Western tourists.

More than 3500 foreigners were missing in the region. They included at least 1500 Swedes, 800 Norwegians, 214 Danes and 200 Finns.

Hundreds were killed in the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia. The tidal waves struck as far away as Somalia and Kenya.

- REUTERS