The seismic thrust, the world's biggest in 40 years measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, sent shockwaves through the Indian Ocean, unleashing tsunamis speeding at up to 700 kilometres per hour in every direction.

Over the next few hours giant walls of water up to 10 metres high smashed into coastlines around Asia.

First Indonesia's Sumatra island, then India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands were deluged. Towering tidal waves also battered Thailand's southwest coast and resort islands, mainland India, Malaysia, Myan-mar, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Six hours later they even hit Africa.

No-one saw them coming.

It was the world's fourth largest earthquake since 1900 and the largest since 1964. The biggest tsunami disaster ever.

A week later the toll is staggering. More than 125,000 confirmed dead, many thousands more missing and injured and up to five million left homeless. The death toll is expected to rise still further.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called it "an unprecedented global catastrophe" which called for "an unprecedented global response."

Behind each statistic was a tale of human tragedy; six-month-old Melina Heppell plucked by the waves from the desperate grasp of her father in Thailand, fisherman A. Ravi who watched from his boat as the waves wiped out his family and village in India's badly-hit Tamil Nadu state.

Eyewitnesses in each country told terrifying tales. Water drained from the beaches, leaving fish flapping on the shore, then came a moment of mysterious calm before raging walls of water hurled themselves at land, picking up people, uprooting trees and buildings.

"An absolutely massive wave came," said British tourist Alex Dee on popular Thai tourist island Phuket. "People were running up into the jungle, into the mountains, running for their lives."

"People were screaming and kids were screaming all over the place, screaming 'help, help'. And after a few minutes you didn't hear the kids any more," said Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova who clung to a palm tree for eight hours in the devastated Thai resort of Khao Lak.

Most people had no chance.

"It was as if God had unleashed his anger on the people," said Haji Ali, in the flattened Indonesian town of Paton Labu, close to Bireuen on Aceh's northern coast.

In many places the scale of devastation was all too apparent. At the Sofitel Magic Lagoon resort in Khao Lak, over 250 mainly European guests are missing after the waves reduced it to rubble. A Colombo to Galle train packed with 1,500 passengers that became a tomb in Sri Lanka when the sea flipped it over like a toy.

From Phang Nga, Thailand, to Tamil Nadu, India, the distressing scenes were the same. Bloated and bloodied bodies strewn everywhere, cooking under tropical sun amidst the twisted wreckage of homes and cars. Makeshift morgues overflowed with corpses. Everywhere the stench of death.

For days there was an eerie silence from the port city of Banda Aceh on Sumatra, closest to the quake's epicentre. When reports began emerging the grim picture was of the largest devastation yet and tens of thousands more lives lost.

Amidst the utter despair, there were miracles too.

A little girl was rescued after she clung to a broken door for two days in the Indian Ocean. A 20-day-old baby floated on a mattress to safety on Malaysia's Penang island and a six-year-old Taiwanese girl washed into a tree where she clung for her life.

But the miracles were few.