Thousands are thought to have died in the affected areas

Ffion Haf, from Merthyr Tydfil, was on the Thai island of Ko Lanta with her partner when she saw the tsunami.

"It was like something you see in films," she said.

"It was not until it started coming towards the shore that we realised the ferocity of it."

And Davinder Singh, from Mount Pleasant, Swansea, said the aftermath was unbelievable.

Mr Singh has been working in Sri Lanka at an elephant sanctuary since November.

"The devastation is unreal - people's homes have been destroyed," he said.

A tidal wave hit our resort and more or less wiped it out Holidaymaker Armand Watts

"The people are dumbstruck."

Relatives and friends of travellers from Wales caught up in the chaos are waiting anxiously for news.

An emergency telephone number - 020 7008 0000 - has been set up for those concerned about relatives.

Many thousands of people in countries around the rim of the Indian Ocean have been killed by tidal waves, triggered by the powerful earthquake.

The earthquake measured 8.9 on the Richter scale and was the biggest in the world for 40 years.

Armand Watts, a Monmouthshire councillor on holiday in Thailand, told Radio Wales how a tidal wave devastated the resort where he was staying.

"A tidal wave hit our resort and more or less wiped it out," he said.

"I haven't got any money, I haven't got a passport. The embassy has told us we have, somehow, got to make our way back to Bangkok."

British officials have been working desperately to help the thousands of UK tourists affected.

Embassy teams are heading to the worst hit areas amid reports of thousands of locals killed across the region.

Eyewitnesses have told how people ran from the beaches to escape giant waves.

The resort of Phuket was among the worst hit in Thailand, with reports of divers and sunbathers being swept out to sea.