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

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

Without water or food for six days after a tsunami, villagers on a remote southern archipelago are starving and desperate for relief to reach them, survivors and officials said today.

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.

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 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.

THE sea and wreckage of coastal towns around the Indian Ocean yielded up tens of thousands of bodies yesterday pushing the toll from Sunday's tsunami above 60,000.

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.