India has issued a tsunami alert and has warned people to leave coastal areas in the southeast after mild aftershocks in the east of the country.
The warning, from the Home Ministry, covers all areas which bore the brunt of the Indian Ocean tidal waves.
Police said aftershocks in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, near the centre of the huge earthquake that caused Sunday's tsunamis, were "likely" to cause high waves.
Witnesses said police sirens were blaring on beaches in Tamil Nadu and residents were running away.
The AFP news agency reported people fleeing in panic.
"The waves are coming," people yelled as they fled on foot, buses and any mode of transport they could find.
Civilians, aid workers and police joined the rush along the Tamil Nadu coast, where thousands died in Sunday's tsunamis.
At the Christian pilgrimage town of Vailankanni, five miles from Nagapattinam, police directing traffic also joined the flight.
"Run! The waves are coming," shouted one policeman standing at a junction, clogged with traffic flooding out of town.
Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, who was supposed to visit the fishing hamlet of Akkaraipettai, cancelled her trip at the last moment.
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