10,000 and more dead in South Asia

What terrible terrible news to wake up to, the morning after Christmas.
I'm so glad my mum came back from Thailand before this.
I hope and I hope not all is lost... poor families..

Jakarta — The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years struck deep under the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Sumatra on Sunday, triggering tidal waves up to six metres high that obliterated villages and seaside resorts in six countries across southern Asia. Nearly 10,000 people were killed in the devastation.

Tourists, fishermen, homes and cars were swept away by walls of water that rolled across the Bay of Bengal, unleashed by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake. The tsunami waves barrelled nearly 4,800 kilmetres across the ocean to Africa, where at least nine people were killed in Somalia, witnesses said.

At least 4,185 killed in Indonesia, the country's health ministry said.

In Sri Lanka, 1,600 kilometres west of the epicenter, more than 3,000 people were killed, the country's top police official said; that number, however, does not include the unconfirmed 1,500 deaths reported by rebels who control part of the country.

Elsewhere, about 2,300 were reported dead along the southern coasts of India, at least 289 in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia and two in Bangladesh.

But officials expected the death toll to rise, with hundreds reported missing and all communications cut off to towns in the Indonesian island of Sumatra that were closest to the epicenter. Hundreds of bodies were found on various beaches along India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, and more were expected to be washed in by the sea, officials said.

The rush of tsunami waves brought sudden disaster to people carrying out their daily activities on the ocean's edge. Sunbathers on the beaches of the Thai resort of Phuket were washed away. A group of 32 Indians — including 15 children — were killed while taking a ritual Hindu bath to mark the full moon day. Fishing boats, with their owners clinging to their sides, were picked up by the waves and discarded.

"All the planet is vibrating" from the quake, said Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute. Speaking on SKY TG24 TV, Mr. Boschi said the quake even disturbed the Earth's rotation.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 8.9. Geophysicist Julie Martinez said it was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.

The epicenter was located 250 kilometres south-southeast of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province on Sumatra, and 10 kilometres under the seabed of the Indian Ocean. There were at least a half-dozen powerful aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from almost 6 and 7.3.

On Sumatra, the quake destroyed dozens of buildings — but as elsewhere, it was the wall of water that followed that caused the most deaths and devastation.