Indian women mourned their children, killed by tidal waves in the Indian city of Chennai.(Xinhua)

The tidal wave that battered the southern Indian coast after a massive earthquake has killed at least 3,223 people, the Press Trust of India reported Monday.

The death toll in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu was estimated at 1,725 and in the tiny Andaman and Nicobar Islands, close to the epicenter of the earthquake, around 1,000 people died, it said.

The death toll from a earthquake off Indonesia and tsunamis that it unleashed exceeded 12,000 with official reporting deaths in seven countries in southern and southeastern Asia.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake registered west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra measured 9.0 on the Richter scale.