12,500 people were confirmed dead in India
"We have issued an alert. There could be a wave attack in the next one hour," said Veera Shanmuga Mani, the top administrator in Nagappattinam, a coastal town in southern Tamil Nadu state.
It was unclear what sparked the warning, but two 5.2-magnitude aftershocks hit islands off of India’s eastern coast Thursday morning, the Indian Meteorological Department said.
Thousands of residents in Nagappattinam began fleeing the town as the warning came in.
Police ordered hundreds of vehicles carrying relief supplies and rescue workers not to enter.
Similar warnings were issued for southern Kerala state and the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The alert was issued following information that several aftershocks in the region had pushed up the water level, said an official at India’s Home Ministry’s emergency room.
An estimated 5.7 magnitude underwater earthquake was recorded by the Hong Kong observatory at 5:18 a.m. northwest of Sumatra, Indonesia, close to the epicenter of last Sunday’s temblor. Other quakes were felt in Thailand and Myanmar.
Relief Aid
Meanwhile, responding to the Asia’ devastating tsunamis, US President George W. Bush said the United States, India, Australia and Japan have formed an international coalition to coordinate relief and reconstruction of the 3,000 miles of Indian Ocean rim that walloped the earthquake .
Six Red Cross flights had already arrived in Sri Lanka carrying water purification equipment, tents, shelter materials, and 10 emergency health kits designed for 100,000 people each over three months.
Four health kits had also been sent to Indonesia, the Red Cross said.
"This in our experience is one of the most complicated operations, it’s our biggest ever deployment of assessment teams and emergency response units," Rees said.
"But we have been designing this sort of capacity over the last 10 years to be ready to support our national societies in a major emergency," he added.
That came after leading US and UK Muslim organizations have launched online donations and appeals to people worldwide to immediately send contributions.
