As international relief flights arrived in Sri Lanka, a brewery in Colombo, the capital, switched from beer to bottled water to help survivors, according to the relief organization Oxfam International.
Oxfam, which said it was assisting in the effort, reported that the Lion Brewery plant had produced 120,000 bottles of water for shipment to affected areas.
Sri Lankans search for bodies on Kalmuni beach. Many people in Sri Lanka and elsewhere fled and climbed onto roofs after India issued a tsunami warning Thursday that turned out to be a false alarm.
(Thomas White -- Reuters)
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"With so much loss of life, how could you not help?" said Nausha Raheem, the manager of the plant.
India
In India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, where more than 4,000 people died, police and fire departments were put on high alert after the false alarm of a new tsunami.
The Indian Home Ministry was unapologetic. A.K. Ragosti, a senior official, said there was "no need to panic. We issued the alert as a precautionary measure."
Still, it was clear that the absence of a coordinated warning system in South Asia had caused large-scale panic. A warning system in the Pacific Ocean, which monitors several seismic networks, is designed to alert nations that potentially destructive waves could hit their coastlines within three to 14 hours.
This week, India announced plans to set up its own early warning system within two years. Meanwhile, the United Nations said Wednesday it believes the current warning system could easily be extended to countries around the Indian Ocean within a year.
Thailand
German, Swiss, Dutch, Australian and other forensic teams were helping identify bodies that were filling morgues. Many European tourists remained among the several thousand people missing along Thailand's southern coast, which is dotted with smashed and wrecked cars and building material.
"It will be challenging," said Karl Kent, head of a 17-member Australian federal police team, according to Reuters. "The scale is of a magnitude that Australia and other countries have not experienced," he said.
Nakashima reported from Jakarta, Indonesia. Staff writers Robin Wright in Washington and Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondent Rama Lakshmi in Madras, India, contributed to this report.
