Today, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier battle group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln churned toward hard-hit Sumatra, expecting to reach there tomorrow and possibly meet up with naval ships from Singapore and Australia, officials said.

Sailors in Singapore scrambled to depart aboard the RSN Endurance, a 450-foot landing ship tank that's carrying bulldozers, heavy-lifting equipment, food and medical supplies. In Australia, the HMAS Kanimbla was leaving Sydney transporting two helicopters, about 300 defense personnel and construction equipment to help clear debris and begin rebuilding Aceh province.

As a colossal international rescue effort struggled to get off the ground, relief efforts suffered a hitch when a false alarm of more killer waves sparked panic in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand and sent survivors and aid workers fleeing.

Indian women at a makeshift camp in a marriage hall said their children were going hungry. "For the past few days we were at least getting food," said Selvi, 35, who uses one name. "Today, we didn't even get that because aid workers fled the town after a fresh alert was issued this morning."

Death tolls across the region continued to grow as Thailand announced a near doubling of its figure to more than 4,500. Officials said that number included 2,230 foreigners, a near tripling of the number of confirmed foreign deaths in Thailand.

Indonesia led with a fatal count of some 80,000. Sri Lanka reported 27,200 and India more than 7,300. A total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.

The U.S. death toll was officially raised yesterday from 12 to 14, with seven dead in Thailand and seven in Sri Lanka. Some 600 Americans who were listed as missing have been found, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, but several thousand had not been located four days after the disaster struck.

In Sri Lanka, Americans have been showing up at U.S. consular offices wearing bathing suits, with no money and no clothes, said Boucher.

In the remote Indian islands near the epicenter of Sunday's magnitude-9.0 earthquake, entire villages were wiped out. With only 400 bodies found so far, the region's administrator said 10,000 people were missing. Survivors who reached the archipelago's main city, Port Blair, said they had not eaten for two days.

Around the Indian Rim and beyond, families endured their fifth day of ignorance as to the fate of friends and relatives who had taken a holiday-season vacation to the sunny beaches of Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, which bore the brunt of the tsunami. Thousands were still missing, including at least 2,500 Swedes, more than 1,000 Germans and 500 each from France and Denmark.

Military ships and planes rushed aid to Sumatra's ravaged coast. Countless corpses strewn on the streets rotted under the tropical sun, causing a nearly unbearable stench.

In Banda Aceh, the devastated main city of northern Sumatra, soldiers and police guarded abandoned shops in the city's market amid fears of looting. Three alleged looters caught by police were put on the street stripped to their underpants as a deterrent.

Food drops began along the coast, mostly of instant noodles and medicines, with some of the areas "hard to reach because they are surrounded by cliffs," said Budi Aditutro, head of the government's relief team.

The World Health Organization said it needed $40 million to supply 5 million people with clean water, shelter, food, sanitation and health care.

"Unless the necessary funds are urgently mobilized and coordinated in the field we could see as many fatalities from diseases as we have seen from the actual disaster itself," said Dr. David Nabarro, head of crisis operations at WHO.

The next few days will be critical in controlling any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases in areas affected by the Indian Ocean tsunamis, Nabarro told the AP. The main threat to public health was drinking water that had been contaminated with feces.

"Wells, water supply systems just get broken, and then whatever water you do get is liable to be contaminated," Nabarro said.

In Galle, the graceful old city on the southern tip of Sri Lanka, German and Finnish teams helped set up water plants and mobile clinics.