Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga cut short her holiday in London and was headed home after declaring a state of disaster to deal with the unprecedented calamity that shocked this nation of 19 million people.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they recovered the bodies of at least 800 people killed in the disaster in the coastal region of Wanni where they have their main military bases.

"This is the first time Tamil people in our areas have witnessed such a large scale disaster," Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan told the pro-rebel Tamilnet Website. The Tigers made an appeal for international assistance.

Outside the rebel-held regions, the top relief official Lalith Weeratunga said another 3,500 people had died raising the official death toll to 4,300.

"The reports we have confirm that 3,500 people have been killed outside the northern regions where the Tigers are in control," Weeratunga told AFP. "We also estimate that about a million people have been affected."

He said about 250,000 people were believed to have lost their homes and appealed for urgent foreign aid to deal with the destruction.

"We had no mechanism to deal with this type of disaster," Weeratunga said. "We are getting systems in place now to distribute relief."

Hundreds of foreign holiday makers at beach resorts were evacuated to the capital ahead of flights back home, tourist industry officials said, adding that several tourists had died, but there were no immediate details of their nationalities.

Tourists who survived the tidal waves -- or tsunamis -- said walls of water slammed into their hotels and they were lucky to escape. Most had lost their baggage and travel documents.

An entire train was flooded, while buses and cars floated along the main Galle Road hugging the coastline from the capital to the south of the island. Officials said restoring rail transport could take months.

Bodies of men, women and children were seen on tree tops after the waters receded, while many more floated in sea, some strewn with the debris from homes and business premises along the coast.

Police clamped local curfews in most areas to prevent looting.

Inspector-General Chandra Fernando said reinforcements were rushed to the southern and eastern regions to clear the roads and expedite the release of bodies of victims piling up in hospitals.

"This is a gigantic task for us," Fernando told AFP. "We have never had to deal with such a tragedy. Our main task is to clear the roads so that relief supplies can get through."

"We need to ensure that relatives are able to get the bodies of their loved ones to conduct funerals. We are engaged in that process right now. The release of bodies to families has begun."

The tsunamis were triggered by a huge earthquake off northeast Indonesia, several thousand kilometres (miles) from Sri Lanka. Giant waves also slammed into Thailand, Myanmar, southern India, Malaysia and the Maldives.

The Sri Lankan army, navy and air force were called out to help. Officials said combat aircraft were being deployed to air drop bottled drinking water and food to marooned residents.

At least 300 prisoners in Matara fled from a high-security jail as inmates took advantage of the disaster, police said.

Hundreds of villages and towns along the island's coast were battered by the high waves with many houses completely destroyed, police said. Tourist resorts along the coast said they were badly hit with almost all of them flooded.

"The destruction is widespread along the coast and we fear for many people who were along the beach at the time," Prime Minister Rajapakse told AFP.

The tidal waves were caused by a massive earthquake west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra that registered 8.9 on the Richter scale. It was the fifth-strongest temblor since the beginning of the 20th century.

The main Colombo harbour was affected, with at least one ship listing after the huge waves, a port official said. The tidal waves eased as they reached the capital, but five people were killed when low-lying areas were flooded.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.