THREE Burmese fishermen have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a British yacht skipper off southern Thailand’s Andaman sea coast.

A second powerful earthquake in as many days jolted Southeast Asia and triggered a regional tsunami warning today, damaging hundreds of buildings along Indonesia’s western coast and sending panicked residents fleeing inland.

A massive earthquake killed at least 10 people, injured scores and triggered a small tsunami in western Indonesia today, authorities said.

MOURNERS from across the world wept, prayed and observed moments of silence along ravaged Indian Ocean coastlines yesterday to remember those killed by one of nature’s deadliest disasters.

Thailand will have tsunami early warning systems installed on beaches along the Andaman coast in time for one-year memorial ceremonies next month.

THE COST of Transport Minister Martin Cullen's three-day visit to a Malaysian island last year has still not been made public despite criticism that the trip was a misuse of public funding.

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen and three officials spent a weekend at an exclusive resort on a tropical Malaysian island last year en route to an international conference held under Ireland’s EU Presidency last year.

Panic briefly spread through the streets of Madras after residents felt the shocks of an earthquake off the coast of the remote Andaman islands.

INDONESIA yesterday ordered foreign aid workers in tsunami-devastated Aceh province to have military escorts in areas facing violence by insurgents, even as the vice-president welcomed a cease-fire offer by the rebels.

Police paid tribute today to an officer who helped save hundreds of people on his remote island in India during the tsunami disaster, then was swept away while trying to help one last person, an old woman who asked him to retrieve her handbag.

Two weeks after a tsunami slammed into coastlines around the Indian Ocean, thousands of bodies were still being pulled out of the mud and world leaders visiting the region were shocked at the devastation.

Indonesia pulled 7,118 new bodies from the rubble near a shattered beachfront community visited today by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, bringing the confirmed overall death toll from the Asian tsunami to nearly 150,000.

Members of the ancient Jarawa tribe emerged from their forest habitat for the first time since the tsunami and earthquakes devastated India’s isolated Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and said all 250 had survived.

Bodies are still hanging from trees and floating in water in wiped-out villages in Car Nicobar island, but the horrors of the tsunami have not shaken the Nicobarese tribe.

THE Indian government yesterday halted the mass evacuation of island survivors whose homes were smashed by tsunamis, focusing instead on bringing relief directly to the victims as demanded by aid groups.

WHILE the walls of water that devoured Asian shorelines served as reminders of the fragility of life, fresh crops of survivors became a testament to its resilience yesterday.

While the walls of water that devoured Asian shorelines served as reminders of the fragility of life, fresh crops of survivors became a testament to its resilience.

Rescuers were today ready to give up hope of finding more survivors in Indonesia’s shattered Sumatra island, one week after tsunamis wrought death and destruction on a massive scale across Asia.

The known death toll from Asia’s earthquake and tsunami catastrophe passed 124,000 today as a deluge from the skies added to the misery in many of the affected nations.

Six aftershocks jolted a remote southern Indian archipelago where villagers were fighting today to survive without water or food after Asia’s devastating tsunami.

Worldwide donations for tsunami relief approached the billion-dollar mark (€738.8m) today as the world’s ships and planes converged on devastated shores.

Faulty equipment, poor communications and cumbersome bureaucracy were blamed today for the failure of nations around the Indian Ocean’s rim to warn of one of the world’s most devastating natural disasters.

The huge world relief drive to shelter, treat and feed millions of survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunamis finally kicked in today as the death toll passed 121,000 and was still climbing.

The new year got off to a subdued start around disaster-ravaged Asia, where prayers frequently substituted for parties.

Aid began trickling through to survivors across the earthquake and tsunami-battered Indian Ocean today, but tons of emergency supplies continued to pile up at some overstretched airports as the death toll continued its inexorable rise.

World aid donations reached nearly €396m today as the Asian tsunami death toll soared to at least 120,000, but United Nations supremo Kofi Annan warned even more would be needed.

Even as the people of the isolated Andaman and Nicobar islands told harrowing tales of fending off starvation and hungry crocodiles thrown ashore by the towering tsunami, they vowed today to go back to their tiny islands and start all over again.

Rescuers followed the stench of death to find rotting bodies in jungles on India’s remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, where thousands are believed to have died, while people fled their homes today amid warnings of possible new tsunamis following fresh quakes.

THE death toll from the tsunami disaster doubled again yesterday, soaring towards the 100,000 mark.

THE United Nations last night began to mobilise what it called the biggest relief operation in its history to cope with the disaster caused by one of the worst tsunamis in history.

Paramedics today began vaccinating more than 65,000 refugees in the south of India as authorities rushed aid to survivors of the tsunami that killed at least 4,400 people in India and left 8,000 missing, many of them feared dead, officials said.

ABOUT 1,000 people died when tidal waves crashed over an isolated island in India’s Andaman chain where many thousands more are feared to have died, a coastguard official said.

AS rotting bodies stack up and contaminate water supplies across Asia, fears grew that sickness will pile more misery on a region reeling two days on from its worst disaster in living memory.

RESCUE workers pulled corpses from canals and water-logged fields in India yesterday as the government warned the death toll of almost 9,400 from a tsunami that lashed the country’s south would rise further.

The death toll from epic tidal waves that rocked 11 countries rose to 40,000 people today after Sri Lanka and Indonesia significantly increased their confirmed deaths.

A string of Indian islands were rattled by aftershocks today while emergency aid was rushed to survivors of the tsunami waves that killed at least 4,300 people along the nation’s south-eastern coast.

ONE of the largest earthquakes yet to strike the planet sent huge tidal waves tearing into countries across Asia.

INDIANS scattered flower petals at sea and sacrificed chickens yesterday to pray for the safe return of those carried away in a tsunami as aftershocks hit some areas.

MORE THAN 11,500 people were killed in seven countries as tidal waves from a massive undersea earthquake smashed into coastlines across Asia yesterday.