More than 1 million people, about 5 percent of the island's population, were homeless, injured, or otherwise affected.
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who was on holiday in London, declared a national disaster and flew home immediately.
In Trincomalee, on the east coast, cars floated out to sea and corpses bobbed around in the floodwaters.
The Maldives
The Maldives, a cluster of 1,192 tiny coral islands in the Indian Ocean off the southwestern coast of India, was badly hit because much of its land mass is barely above water. Two-thirds of the capital island, Male, was flooded, and outlying atolls were completely submerged.
A British tourist died of a heart attack after seeing the huge wave heading toward him at White Sand beach resort on South Ari atoll. An Italian tourist was also seriously injured. Their identities were not released. Some 285 tourists were on the beach at the time.
Nazim Sattar in the capital, Male, said: "The whole sea just lifted up. It swelled up. There was no sound. The sea just poured on to the island. Small boats were dropped on to the street. The people said that they did not know what had hit them."
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