<font size="-2">PHUKET, Thailand : At least 310 people were killed, more than 5,000 injured and scores missing in southern Thailand on Sunday when tidal waves caused by a massive earthquake off Indonesia struck the kingdom, devastating seaside resorts packed with foreign tourists, officials said.
"As of now Phuket has 117 dead," the island's governor Udomsak Aswarangkul told iTV, adding to official casualty figures of 193 for the rest of the nation.
He said the popular resort island was also reporting 214 people missing, including 162 foreign tourists. Other officials said some 5,000 were injured.
The nation's top beach attractions were among the worst-hit when waves triggered by the underwater quake swept scores of people out to sea, drowned snorkellers, sank boats and shattered buildings along the coast.
Phuket and the idyllic island of Phi Phi were devastated. Ten-metre-high (33 feet) waves crashed down onto beaches and crushed holiday bungalows, with the first hitting just before 10:00am (0300 GMT).
Phuket's major beach town, Patong, was flooded and all shops, kiosks and hotels along the beach were damaged. Some were washed away by the waters that carried away debris and tourist "tuk-tuk" taxis.
A senior police official said up to 50 people were killed on Phi Phi 40 kilometres (25 miles) off the western Andaman coast, where huts on the exposed beach were swept away.
Tourists helped carry the injured -- some still wearing only their swimming costumes -- to helicopters. Other injured holidaymakers lying on sunbeds being used as makeshift stretchers comforted each other while they waited for help.
"It was an utter disaster. People were hanging onto trees, children were lost out of the arms of their mothers, and then the mothers were just swept away," said Briton Jack Allen in Phuket.
"We started running but soon it was three metres deep. We lost everything, our passports, money," the English tourist in his sixties told AFP.
Thirty-year-old Thai hotelier Be Jirapougphathai, his voice cracking with emotion, said within moments of the first of at least three waves, the beaches and streets were awash in struggling and lifeless bodies.
"I tried to save them but the water was moving so fast. Not one or three, but so many children and women" were swept away, said Be.
Portuguese holidaymaker Irina Carvalho, who had been on a boat trip when the wave hit, said she could see only debris when she returned to Phi Phi island.
She said that from the boat she saw a tidal wave sweep "right over Phi Phi, throwing dozens of people into the sea".
Her boat took on board two Greeks and a Swede who had been hurt when the wave broke over the roof of the restaurant where he was dining with his wife, daughter aged four and son aged seven. He tried to hold on to his daughter but she was swept away.
A marine police officer who asked not to be named said the huge tsunami destroyed much of the development on the small island. "Everything was washed away except two large hotels on Phi Phi Don island," the officer said.
In addition to the 117 confirmed dead in Phuket, the interior ministry said 88 died in the mainland province of Phang Nga next to Phuket; 57 in Ranong, the coastal province bordering Myanmar; 36 in Krabi province; seven in Satun province; and five in Trang province.
In Trang, a Malaysian couple died after being washed into a cave but another 80 snorkellers who had been trapped for hours were saved by rescue teams.
Thai Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who flew to Phuket, told reporters he was "shocked and sorry" at the devastation. "We have never had such a disaster before, thus we were a bit unprepared," he said.
He said that with casualty figures still uncertain, he would stay overnight in Phuket to direct the rescue.
Thaksin said diplomats from 25 countries would travel to Phuket to take care of their nationals and he had ordered Thai Airways to operate throughout the night to cater for tourists trying to leave.
Thailand is Southeast Asia's most popular tourist destination with the peak period during the Christmas and New Year holidays. Five million foreign travellers visit the three provinces of Phuket, Krabi and Phang Nga every year.
- AFP</font>}