From the destruction that swept over south Asia claiming more than 117,000 lives, hope is emerging in one stricken country that relief efforts are diverting a path to civil war.

On Thursday, Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga told reporters that, in the wake of Sunday's quake, there is little likelihood of a resurgence of violence between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels.

"Normally this should help in building confidence," Kumaratunga said of recent days of cooperation with the rebels.

"But even if that doesn't work, conflict seems remote at the moment," she added, noting that the rebels had lost "a lot of cadre and equipment" in the devastation that followed the magnitude-9.0 earthquake.

That undersea temblor sent killer waves crashing across the region, killing more than 27,000 people in Sri Lanka alone as it roared over the coastline.

Despite that country's faint cause for hope, the grim reality continues to grow worse in the dozen, south Asian tsunami-stricken countries.

A total of more than 117,000 are now confirmed dead, and officials are warning another 5 million people lack vital clean water, shelter, food, sanitation and medicine. Reuters reports the confirmed death toll is now closer to 125,000.

Indonesia, which was closest to the epicentre of the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami, has reported close to 80,000 deaths, while Sri Lanka reports 27,200 victims and India more than 7,300. Approximately 2,400 are reported dead in Thailand, with hundreds more casualties counted in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.

Thailand's prime minister warned the death toll in his country could soar to nearly 7,000. At least 2,230 of those are said to be foreigners killed in Phang Nga province.

"There are many people listed as missing and we think that 80 per cent of them are,'' Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters.

Sweden says more than 1,000 Swedes may have been killed in the tsunami -- the worst single death toll for any foreign country.

The official count of Canadian casualties also rose Thursday, to a total of four dead. Another 112 Canadians are listed as officially missing or unaccounted for.

Government sources have told CTV News that Ottawa is acting under the assumption that the number may yet rise, as there could have been as many as 1,500 Canadians vacationing in Thailand at the time of the disaster.

Accurately tracking their status in the midst of the current chaos is nearly impossible, they say.

Hell on Earth

In Indonesia, where the official death toll rose by at least 28,000 on Thursday, there is no reason to believe it won't keep growing.

Close to the disaster's epicentre, in Aceh province, 40,000 were killed in a single town. But many vital relief supplies that have arrived at airports are languishing there, as the distribution infrastructure lies in tatters.

According to the United Nations, the region is a "hell on Earth" where thousands are clinging to life without food, water or shelter.

And in Banda Aceh, the devastated main city of northern Sumatra, soldiers and police were forced to guard abandoned shops in the city's market amid fears of looting.

As a deterrent, three alleged looters were made to sit on the street, stripped to their underpants.

Officials Overwhelmed

Tens of thousands of people remain missing throughout the Indian Ocean region, many swept out to sea, others perhaps buried under the tonnes of debris.

There is meticulous record keeping in many areas, but in others, workers are rushing to bury decomposing corpses using bulldozers to push bodies into mass graves.

In Muslim villages of Sri Lanka, Islamic tradition dictates that the dead must be buried within 24 hours, making accurate toll estimates difficult.

"You are dealing with a lot of imperfections," says Steve Hollingworth, director of India's branch of the international aid group CARE. "People are dealing with a chaotic situation."

Officials say they are overwhelmed by the vast numbers of dead and admit they have been forced to make crude estimates.

In some cases, they simply estimate the population of a village, count the survivors and assume the rest have been killed. Elsewhere, officials may take the number of bodies in one mass grave and multiply it by the number of graves.

"At first, we counted the bodies during the evacuation, but later, when we found there were too many others, then we became confused," Irman Rachman, a volunteer with the Indonesian Red Cross, told Associated Press.

False Alarms

As the work to count the dead continues, thousands of tsunami survivors in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand were given a scare Thursday when they were forced to flee coastal regions after being warned of a new tsunami.

"We got into a truck and fled," 40-year-old Gandhimathi of Nagappattinam in Tamil Nadu state told The Associated Press. "We took only a few clothes and left behind all of our belongings, everything we had.''

Other villagers climbed onto rooftops seeking high ground.

Hours later however, the warning was declared a false alarm. By the afternoon, no waves had arrived.

In southern Thailand, tsunami sirens sent people scrambling to get off the beaches, but only small waves washed up on shore.

It was feared another tsunami might hit after officials recorded aftershocks in the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka's military told residents to be vigilant but not to panic.

There was an aftershock estimated to have a magnitude of 5.7 in waters northwest of Sumatra on Thursday morning.
There were also overnight quakes at India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Relief workers continue to tend to those needing aid, finding survivors in one village living on coconuts.

With files from CTV News and The Associated Press